wrongful acts, affected the way of thinking as to her contracts.
The whole manner of dealing with vessels obviously took the form
which prevailed in the eases first mentioned. Pardessus, a high
authority, says that the lien for freight prevails even against
the owner of stolen goods, "as the master deals less with the
person than the thing." /2/ So it was said in the argument of a
famous English case, that "the ship is instead of the owner, and
therefore is answerable." /3/ In many cases of contract, as well
as tort, the vessel was not only the security for the debt, but
the limit of the owner's liability.

The principles of the admiralty are embodied in its form of
procedure. A suit may be brought there against a vessel by name,
any person interested in it being at liberty to come in and
defend, but the suit, if successful, ending in a sale of the
vessel and a payment of the plaintiff's claim out of the
proceeds. As long ago as the time of James I. it was said that
"the libel ought to be only [34] against the ship and goods, and
not against the party." /1/ And authority for the statement was
cited from the reign of Henry VI., the same reign when, as we
have seen, the Admiral claimed a forfeiture of ships for causing
death. I am bound to say, however, that I cannot find such an
authority of that date.

We have now followed the development of the chief forms of
liability in modern law for anything other than the immediate and
manifest consequences of a man's own acts. We have seen the
parallel course of events in the two parents,--the Roman law and
the German customs, and in the offspring of those two on English
soil with regard to servants, animals, and inanimate things. We