A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF PRIZE. 
Admiralty to “will and require His Majesty’s 
High Court of Justice and the judges thereof to 
take cognisance of and judicially to proceed upon 
all and all manner of captures, seizures, prizes 
and reprisals of all ships, vessels and goods that 
are or shall be taken and to hear and determine 
the same.’’ ® 
These instructions have been literally tran- 
scribed from the old form which has remained 
substantially the same since at the least the 
seventeenth century. The law to be administered 
by the Prize Court is clearly prescribed in all the 
commissions. The Court is to adjudge and 
condemn all such ships, vessels and goods 
“according to the course of Admiralty and the 
law of Nations.’’ * 
Admizalty § 4. As to the °‘ course of Admiralty,” it 
should be noted at the outset that Admiralty law 
has never been considered in England as being 
strictly municipal law. The venerable Black Book 
of the Admiralty, in its opening chapter, lays stress 
on the propriety of the Admiralty judge adhering 
to the ancient usage and custom of the sea—la loy 
marine et anciens coutumes de la mer—as accepted 
by all the civilised countries of Europe. A great 
part of the law and customs is found in codes such 
as the Rhodian sea law, the laws of Oleron, of 
Wisbuy, of the Hanse Towns and, principally, in 
the celebrated Comnsolato del Mare, all of which 
BE 
issued on the outbreak of war with Austria-Hungary, Turkey and 
Bulgaria, ibid., (1914), No. 1263; (1915), Nos. 186 and 1073. 
4 Order in Council of December 16, 1664, and Commission of 
November 30, 1739, Lansdowne MSS. 194, fol. 24, and Add. MSS. 
36124, fol. 29; Lindo v. Rodney (1782), 2 Dougl. 619n.