A direct mortgage of the interest of a ship is allowed, without subjecting the mortgagee to the responsibility of an owner.

The proportion of interest held by each owner is exhibited in the register, thereby facilitating both sales and mortgages, and giving a new value to shipping among the moneyed classes.

Shares, in the ships of copartnerships, may be registered as joint property, and subject to the same rules as other partnership effects.

Ships may be registered in the name of trustees, for the benefit of joint-stock companies.

And many other regulations are adopted, with the same. general view of rendering the mode of holding the property as convenient and as favorable as possible.

By another act, British registered vessels, of every description, are allowed to enter into the general and the coasting trade in the India seas, and may now trade to and from India, with any part of the world, except China.

By a third, all limitations and restrictions, as to latitude and longitude, are removed from ships engaged in the Southern whale-fishery. These regulations, I presume, have not been made without first obtaining the consent of the East India Company; so true is it found, that real encouragement of enterprise oftener consists, in our days, in restraining or buying off monopolies and prohibitions, than in imposing or extending them.

The trade with Ireland is turned into a free coasting trade; light duties have been reduced, and various other beneficial arrangements made, and still others proposed. I might add, that, in favor of general commerce, and as showing their confidence in the principles of liberal intercourse, the British government has perfected the warehouse system, and authorized a reciprocity of duties with foreign states, at the discretion of the Privy Council.

This, Sir, is the attention which our great rival is paying to these important subjects, and we may assure ourselves that, if we do not cherish a proper sense of our own interests, she will not only beat us, but will deserve to beat us.

Sir, I will detain you no longer. There are some parts of this bill which I highly approve; there are others in which I should acquiesce; but those to which I have now stated my

objections appear to me so destitute of all justice, so burdensome and so dangerous to that interest which has steadily enriched, gallantly defended, and proudly distinguished us, that nothing can prevail upon me to give it my support.*

* Since the delivery of this speech, an arrival has brought London papers containing the speech of the English Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Robinson), on the 23d of February last, in submitting to Parliament the annual financial statement. Abundant confirmation will be found in that statement of the remarks made in the preceding speech, as to the prevailing sentiment, in the English government, on the general subject of prohibitory laws, and on the silk manufacture and the wool tax particularly.

13.

THE JUDICIARY.*

Ar the first session of the Nineteenth Congress a bill was introduced into the House of Representatives, by Mr. Webster, from the Committee on the Judiciary, which proposed that the Supreme Court of the United States should thenceforth consist of a chief justice and nine associate justices, and provided for the appointment of three additional associate justices of said court, and that the seventh Judicial Circuit Court of the United States should consist of the districts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois; the eighth circuit, of the districts of Kentucky and Missouri; the ninth circuit, of the districts of Tennessee and Alabama; and the tenth circuit, of the districts of Louisiana and Mississippi.

It repealed so much of any act or acts of Congress as vested in the District Courts of the United States in the districts of Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, the powers and jurisdiction of Circuit Courts, and provided that there should be thenceforth Circuit Courts for said districts, to be composed of the justice of the Supreme Court assigned or allotted to the circuit to which such districts might respectively belong, and of the district judge of such districts.

On this bill Mr. Webster spoke as follows:

THE bill which is under the consideration of the committee is so simple in its provisions, and so unembarrassed with detail, that little or nothing in the way of explanation merely is probably expected from the committee. But the general importance of the subject, and the material change which the proposed measure embraces, demands some exposition of the reasons which have led the Committee on the Judiciary to submit it to the consideration of the House.

The occasion naturally presents two inquiries: first, whether any evils exist in the administration of justice in the courts of

* Remarks made in the House of Representatives of the United States, on the 4th of January, 1826, on the Bill to amend the Judiciary System.

the United States; and secondly, whether, if there be such evils, the proposed bill is a proper and suitable remedy. On both these points it is my duty to express the sentiments which the Committee on the Judiciary entertain. Perhaps, however, Mr. Chairman, before entering into a discussion of these two questions, I may be allowed to state something of the history of this department of the government, and to advert to the several laws which have been, from time to time, enacted respecting its organization.

The judicial power, which, by the Constitution, was to be exercised by the present government, necessarily engaged the attention of the first Congress. The subject fell into the hands of very able men, and it may well excite astonishment that the system which they prepared and recommended, and which was adopted in the hurried session of the summer of 1789, has thus far been found to fulfil, so well and for so long a time, the great purposes which it was designed to accomplish. The general success of the general system, so far, may well inspire some degree of caution in the minds of those who are called on to alter or amend it.

By the original act of September, 1789, there was to be a Supreme Court, according to the Constitution, which was to consist of six judges, and to hold two sessions a year at the seat of government. The United States, or such of them as had then adopted the Constitution, were to be divided into circuits and districts, and there was to be a District Court in each district, holden by a district judge. The districts were divided into three circuits, the Eastern, the Middle, and the Southern; and there was to be a Circuit Court in each district, to be composed of two of the justices of the Supreme Court, and the district judge for the district. This Circuit Court was to hold two sessions a year in each district, and I need not inform the committee, that the great mass of business, excepting only that of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, belonged to the Circuit Court as a court of original jurisdiction. It entertained appeals, or writs of error, also, from the decisions of the District Courts, in all cases.

By this arrangement, then, the justices of the Supreme Court were required to hold two sessions of that court annually, at the seat of government, to hear appeals and causes removed by

writs of error; and it was required of them also, that two of them should attend in each district twice a year, to hold, with the district judge, a Circuit Court.

It was found that these duties were so burdensome, that they could not be performed. In November, 1792, the judges addressed the President on the subject, (who laid their communication before Congress,) setting forth their inability to perform the services imposed on them by law, without exertions and sacrifices too great to be expected from any men. It was, doubtless, this communication which produced the law of March, 1793, by which it was provided that one judge of the Supreme Court, with the district judge, should constitute the Circuit Court. And, inasmuch as the courts would now consist of two judges, provision was made, perhaps sufficiently awkward and inconvenient, for the case of difference of opinion. It will be observed, Mr. Chairman, that by these laws, thus far, particular justices are not assigned to particular circuits. Any two judges of the Supreme Court, under the first law, and any one, under that of 1793, with the district judge, constituted a Circuit Court. A change, or alternation, of the judges was contemplated by the law. It was accordingly provided by the act of 1793, that, in case of division of opinion, as the court consisted of but two judges, the question should be continued to the next session, and, if a different judge then appeared, and his opinion coincided with that of his predecessor, judgment should go accordingly.

And here, Mr. Chairman, I wish to observe, that, in my opinion, the original plan of holding the Circuit Courts by different judges, from time to time, was ill-judged and founded on a false analogy. It seems to have been borrowed from the English Courts of Assize and Nisi Prius; but the difference in the powers and jurisdiction of the judges in the two cases rendered what was proper for one not a fit model for the other. The English judges at Nisi Prius, so far as civil causes are concerned, have nothing to do but try questions of fact by the aid of a jury, on issues or pleadings already settled in the court from which the record proceeds. They give no final judgments; nor do they make interlocutory orders respecting the proceeding and progress of the cause. They take a verdict of the jury on the issues already joined between the parties, and give no other