Page images
PDF
EPUB

as are worn out in their duty (c) ; and army chaplains (d), and army schools (e), are provided for their religious and general welfare. Moreover, soldiers, if on actual service, may make nuncupative wills, and dispose of their goods, wages, and other personal chattels, without those solemnities which the law requiries in other cases (f) ; and, on their death, soldiers' effects are collected, and, subject to the payment of their regimental debts, the balance is remitted to the persons entitled thereto (g).

As regards our naval forces, the law relating to these is very similar to that which regulates the Army. [The Royal Navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it hath been assiduously cultivated, even from the earliest ages; and yet, so vastly inferior in point of naval power, were our ancestors to the present age, that even in the maritime reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Edward Coke thinks it matter of boast, that the royal navy of England then consisted of three and thirty ships (h).

Many laws have been made for the supply of the royal navy with seamen; for their regulation when on board; and to confer privileges and rewards on them during and after service.

1. With regard to the SUPPLY OF SEAMEN.-The power of impressing seafaring men for the sea service by the royal commission was always submitted to with great reluctance; but the practice of impressing is of very

1867, 1881, 1886, and 1899, as to the patriotic fund; and Pensions Act, 1839, and Pensions and Yeomanry Pay Act, 1884, as to pensions, &c.

(c) Chelsea and Kilmainham Hospitals Act, 1826; Army Pensions Act, 1830; Army (Artillery, etc.) Pensions Act, 1833; Drouly Fund Act, 1838; 6 & 7 Vict. (1843), c. 31; Chelsea Pensions

(Abolition of Poundage) Act, 1847; Chelsea Hospital Act, 1876; and Royal Military Asylum, Chelsea (Transfer) Act, 1884.

(d) Army Chaplains Act, 1868. (e) Army Schools Act, 1891. (f) Wills Act, 1837, s. 11; In the Goods of Spratt, [1897] P. 28 ; Gattward v. Knee, [1902] P. 99. (g) Regimental Debts Act, 1893 (h) 4 Inst. 50.

[antient date, and hath been uniformly continued by a regular series of precedents to a comparatively recent time. It is, in fact, part of the common law (i), some few people (such as ferrymen) being, however, privileged ; and it hath been recognized by the courts (k), and also by divers Acts of Parliament. Thus, the 2 Ric. II. (1378) st. 1, c. 4, speaks of mariners being arrested and retained. for the king's service, as of a thing well known and practiced without dispute, and the statute provides a remedy against their running away; by the 2 & 3 Ph. & M. (1555) c. 16 (which, however, was repealed by the 7 & 8 Geo. IV. (1827) c. lxxv. s. 1), if any waterman, using the river Thames, hid himself during the execution of any commission of pressing for the king's service, he was made liable to heavy penalties; by the 5 Eliz. (1562) c. 5 (since repealed by the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868), no fisherman was to be taken by royal commission to serve as a mariner, but the commission was first to be brought to two justices of the peace, inhabiting near the sea coast where the mariners were to be taken, to the intent that the justices might choose out and return such a number of able-bodied men, as in the commission was contained, to serve her Majesty. And, by several other Acts, especial protections were allowed to seamen in particular circumstances, to exempt them from being impressed.]

But, besides this method of impressing, the royal navy is also largely, and in ordinary times exclusively, supplied by voluntary enlistment (1). Great advantages in point of wages are given to volunteer seamen ; also, where they are already engaged in the merchant service, they are enabled to leave it, without punishment or forfeiture, in order to engage in his Majesty's navy (m).

(i) Foster, Rep. 154.

(k) R. v. Tubbs (1776), 2 Cowp.

512.

Enlistment Acts,

() Naval 1835, 1853, and 1884.

(m) Merchant Shipping Act, 1894, ss. 195–197, continuing the like provisions contained in several earlier Acts of the reign.

66

2. The METHOD of Ordering SEAMEN in the royal fleet is closely analogous to that established for the government of the Army, namely, by " Articles of the Navy" corresponding to the "Articles of War." The first Articles of War for the navy were drawn up in 1661 (»), but the scheme of naval discipline contained in these rules was modified by the 22 Geo. II. (1749) c. 33, and the present scheme is to be found in the Naval Discipline Act, 1866, as amended by the Naval Discipline Act, 1884. The navy constituting the Indian Marine Service is subject to the rules of discipline contained in the Indian Marine Service Act, 1884. All these Acts are permanent in their character, and do not require, as in the case of the army, to be brought into force for a specified time by an annual Act passed for that purpose. By these Acts for the government of the navy, a great variety of offences are defined or specified, some of which have reference to a state of war (0), while others are of a nature to which the ordinary law applies; and the appropriate punishment for each offence is also mentioned or specified. The Acts also provide, that any offence triable under the Acts may be tried and punished by court-martial (p) ; and any offence triable under the Acts not committed by an officer, and not thereby made capital, may (under such regulations as the Admiralty may from time to time issue), be summarily tried and punished by the officer in command of the ship to which the offender belongs, subject, however, to certain restrictions. But nothing in the Acts is to supersede the

(n) 13 Car. 2, st. 1, c. 9.

(0) These are chiefly, misconduct in the presence of the enemy, communications with the enemy, neglect of duty, mutiny, insubordination, and desertion; and some of these are capital. But, except in the case of mutiny, the punishment of death, when

awarded by the sentence of a courtmartial, is not to be inflicted till the sentence has been confirmed by the Admiralty, or by the commander-in-chief on a foreign station. (See Naval Discipline Act, 1866, s. 53.)

(p) Naval Discipline Act, 1866,

s. 56.

authority of the courts of ordinary jurisdiction in her Majesty's dominions (9).

3. With regard to the Privileges conferred on Sailors, these are pretty much the same with those conferred on soldiers. Careful provision has been made for their relief when maimed, wounded or superannuated (r); and they have also the power of making nuncupative wills (8).

Besides seamen ordinarily so called, we may remark here, that in his Majesty's fleet and naval service are to be found the forces commonly termed the Royal Marines. The discipline and regulation of these also (when quartered, as they often are, on shore, or sent to do duty on board of transports or merchant ships, or in other circumstances in which they are not subject to the Naval Discipline Act, 1866) is provided for by the Army Act, 1881, the provisions of which, with certain modifications, include the Royal Marine forces (t).

(q) Sect. 101.

(r) Greenwich Hospital Act, 1845; 12 & 13 Vict. (1849), c. 28; 13 & 14 Vict. (1850), c. 24; Greenwich Hospital Acts, 1865 to 1898; and see, as to the patriotic fund, p. 573, note (x), supra. (8) Wills Act, 1837, s. 11; Navy and Marines (Wills) Acts, 1865 and 1897.

(t) See further as to naval coast volunteers, Naval Volunteers Act, Royal Naval Reserve

1853;

Volunteer Acts, 1859 and 1896; Naval Reserve Act, 1900; as to the coast guard, Coast-Guard Service Act, 1856; as to the Naval Medical Supplemental Fund Society, 24 & 25 Vict. (1861), c. 108, and 26 & 27 Vict. (1863), C. 111; as to Chatham Dockyards, 24 & 25 Vict. (1861), c. 41 ; and generally as to national and imperial defences, p. 499, note (g), supra.

[blocks in formation]

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE NOBILITY AND OTHER RANKS.

[THE civil state consists of the nobility and the commonalty. Of the nobility, or lords temporal, as forming, together with the bishops, one of the branches of the legislature, we have already spoken (a); we are here to consider the nobility and the commonalty according to their several degrees of honour and worship. And first, of the NOBILITY.

All degrees of nobility and honour are derived from the Crown as their fountain; and the king may institute what new titles he pleases. Hence it is that all degrees of honour are not of equal antiquity. Those now in use are dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons.

1. A duke, though in respect of his title of nobility inferior in point of antiquity to many others, is yet superior to all of them in rank; for his is the first title of dignity after the royal family. Among the Saxons, the duces signified, as among the Romans, the commanders or leaders of the armies; and in the laws of Henry the First, as translated by Lambard, these duces are called heretochii. But after the Norman conquest our kings did not honour any of their subjects with this title, till the time of Edward the Third, who, in the eleventh year of his reign, created his son, Edward the Black Prince, Duke of Cornwall; and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, A.D. 1572, the whole order became utterly extinct, being, however, revived, about fifty years afterwards, by her successor, in the person of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham (b).

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]
« EelmineJätka »