for the amount of the damage done, 1 and this means that that vessel may be arrested and sold to pay the loss in any admiralty court whose process will reach her.  If a livery-stable keeper lets a horse and wagon to a customer, who runs a man down by careless driving, no one would think of claiming a right to seize the horse and wagon.  It would be seen that the only property which could be sold to pay for a wrong was the property of the wrong-doer.

But, again, suppose that the vessel, instead of being under lease, is in charge of a pilot whose employment is made compulsory by the laws of the port which she is just entering.  The Supreme Court of the United States holds the ship liable in this instance also. 2 The English courts would probably have decided otherwise, and the matter is settled in England by legislation.  But there the court of appeal, the Privy Council, has been largely composed of common-law [28]lawyers, and it has shown a marked tendency to assimilate common-law doctrine.  At common law one who could not impose a personal liability on the owner could not bind a particular chattel to answer for a wrong of which it had been the instrument.  But our Supreme Court has long recognized that a person may bind a ship, when he could not bind the owners personally, because he was not the agent.

It may be admitted that, if this doctrine were not supported by an appearance of good sense, it would not have survived.  The ship is the only security available in dealing with foreigners, and rather than send one’s own citizens to search for a remedy abroad in strange courts, it is easy to seize the vessel and satisfy the claim at home, leaving the foreign owners to get their indemnity as they may be able.  I dare say some such thought has helped to keep the practice alive, but I believe the true historic foundation is elsewhere.  The ship no doubt, like a sword would have been forfeited for causing death, in whosesoever hands it might have been.  So, if the master and mariners of a ship, furnished with letters of reprisal, committed piracy against a friend of the king, the owner lost his ship by the admiralty law, although the crime was committed without his knowledge or assent. 2 It seems most likely that the principle by which the ship was forfeited to the king for causing death, or for piracy, was the same as that by which it was bound to private sufferers for other damage, in whose hands soever it might have been when it did the harm.

If we should say to an uneducated man today, “She did it and she ought to pay for it,” it may be doubted [29] whether he would see the fallacy, or be ready to explain that the ship was only property, and that to say, “The ship has to pay for it,” 1 was simply a dramatic way of saying that somebody’s property was to be sold, and the proceeds applied to pay for a wrong committed by somebody else.