one affixes at once the proper authority to a decision when he reads the name of the tribunal pronouncing it. The foreign reader has little occasion to inform himself of the shades of distinction between the different branches of our apparently complicated judicial system. Whatever interest or attention he bestows upon our law, must in the main depend upon the intrinsic soundness of the doctrine; except in those instances, where he is inquiring for the actual state of our law, when the known reputation of the judges, or the high constitutional position of the court, add to the intrinsic merit of a decision the acknowledged weight of eminent station and authority. I am aware that this subject might have been compressed into a very short compass. Some parts of it have occupied but a narrow space, in the text writers upon the law of shipping. But condensation is sometimes accomplished at the expense of completeness; and having never seen a treatise upon the same subjects which I felt willing to follow as a model, I have preferred my own conception of the proper outlines and limits of the subject. The profession, for whom this work is mainly intended, are rarely critical with an author, who is useful to their studies; and in the hope that the faults of the work may escape censure under this special verdict, I commit it to their indulgence. BROOKS'S BUILDINGS, CONTENTS. Of the Written or other Evidence of the Mariner's Contract; Page |