ADMIRAL, in Conchology, the English name of a species of the voluta, a shell-fish belonging to the order of vermes testacea. See CONCHOLOGY Index.
ADMIRALTY properly signifies the office of lord high admiral, whether discharged by one single person, or by joint commissioners called lords of the admiralty.
Court of ADMIRALTY, is a sovereign court, held by the lord high admiral, or lords of the admiralty, where cognizance is taken in all maritime affairs, whether civil or criminal.—All crimes committed on the high seas, or on great rivers below the first bridge next the sea, are cognizable in this court only, and before which they must be tried by judge and jury. But in civil cases the mode is different, the decisions being all made according to the civil law. From the sentences of the admiralty judge an appeal always lay, in ordinary course, to the king in chancery, as may be collected from statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19, which directs the appeal from the archbishop's courts to be determined by persons named in the king's commission, "like as in case of appeal from the admiral court." And by statute 8 Eliz. c. 5, it is enacted, that upon an appeal made to the chancery, the sentence definitive of the delegates appointed by commission shall be final.
Appeals from the vice-admiralty courts in America, and our other plantations and settlements, may be brought before the courts of admiralty in England, as being a branch of the admiral's jurisdiction, though they may also be brought before the king in council. But in case of prize vessels, taken in time of war, in any part of the world, and condemned in any courts of admiralty, the appeal lies to certain commissioners of appeals consisting chiefly of the privy council. And this by virtue of divers treaties with foreign nations, by which particular courts are established in all the maritime countries of Europe for the decision of this question, Whether lawful prize or not? for this being a question between subjects of different states, it belongs entirely to the law of nations, and not to the municipal laws of either country. See a more full account of the various courts of admiralty, and of their powers and practices, under the article ADMIRALTY in the SUPPLEMENT.
Court of ADMIRALTY, in Scotland. See LAW.