Offences at Sea Act 1799

AN ACT for remedying certain Defects in the Law respecting Offences committed upon the High Seas.

WHEREAS by an Act passed in the twenty-eighth year of King Henry the Eighth it is enacted that treasons, felonies, robberies, murthers and confederacies committed on the high seas shall be enquired of, tried and determined in such shires and places in the realm as shall be limited by the King's commission to be directed for the same, in like form and condition as if any such offence or offences had been committed or done in or upon the land: And whereas it is expedient to declare that other offences committed on the seas may be enquired of, tried and determined in like manner: Be it enacted and declared by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, that all and every offence and offences which after the passing of this Act shall be committed upon the high seas, out of the body of any county of this realm, shall be and they are hereby declared to be offences of the same nature respectively, and to be liable to the same punishments respectively, as if they had been committed upon the shore, and shall be enquired of, heard, tried and determined and adjudged, in the same manner as treasons, felonies, murthers and confederacies are directed to be by the same Act.

AND when any person or persons shall be tried for the crime of murther or manslaughter committed upon the sea, by virtue of any commission directed under the said Act, and shall be found guilty of manslaughter only, such persons or person shall be entitled to receive the benefit of clergy in like manner, and shall be subject to the same punishment, as if he or they had committed such manslaughter in or upon the land.