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