HORNE, Thomas Hartwell. Compendium of the Statute Laws, and Regulations of the Court of Admiralty; Relative to Ships of War, Privateers, Prizes, Recaptures, and Prize-Money. With an Appendix of Notes, Precedents, &c.

HORNE, Thomas Hartwell. Compendium of the Statute Laws, and Regulations of the Court of Admiralty; Relative to Ships of War, Privateers, Prizes, Recaptures, and Prize-Money. With an Appendix of Notes, Precedents, &c.HORNE, Thomas Hartwell. Compendium of the Statute Laws, and Regulations of the Court of Admiralty; Relative to Ships of War, Privateers, Prizes, Recaptures, and Prize Money. With an Appendix of Notes, Precedents, &c. London: Printed for W. Clarke and Sons. 1803. 8vo. Original publisher's paper backed boards with remnants of printed label to spine (restored), contemporary bookseller's label inside front cover, uncut as issued; pp. vii, [5, publisher's

HORNE, Thomas Hartwell. Compendium of the Statute Laws, and Regulations of the Court of Admiralty; Relative to Ships of War, Privateers, Prizes, Recaptures, and Prize-Money. With an Appendix of Notes, Precedents, &c. London: Printed for W. Clarke and Sons. 1803.

8vo. Original publisher's paper-backed boards with remnants of printed label to spine (restored), contemporary bookseller's label inside front cover, uncut as issued; pp. vii, [5, publisher's list of law books and an update on the conduct of privateers regarding some newly founded republic on the Continent], 74, 73*-74*, 75-146, 145*-146*, 147-168; wear to extremities, spine with expert restorations, a little spotting internally, a very good copy of a great rarity.

First edition. Thomas Hartwell Horne (1780-1862) was a theologian, bibliographer, polemicist and scholar. Why he was chosen to write such a specialist volume destined only for a small circle of legal professionals at the Admiralty Court is not evident. 'Under Sir William Scott, arguably the greatest Judge of its long history, the High Court of Admiralty was during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars one of the most influential legal bodies in the land. It dealt not only with the technicalities of seizures in prize, but with the numerous related issues of nationality, neutrality, sovereignty and jurisdiction at a time when all those matters were frequently fluid and their application uncertain. The law that the Court sought to administer was not the common law of England, but international law, or the law of nations as it was then (perhaps more accurately) called. The procedures of the Court, situated at Doctors’ Commons, were in contested cases adversarial rather than investigative, thus following British legal tradition, but most of the evidence was documentary and witnesses were seldom called in person … In consequence, Scott's judgments often had much to say on the law of nations as then understood, and many of the principles he enunciated have survived, in customary or codified form, to this day' (Richart Hill, Neutrality, Sovereignty and Jurisdiction: Two Cases in the Admiralty Court, 1798–1805, OUP, online).

Library Hub locates only two copies, in the British Library and at University of York.

SKU: 2121708