UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

The courts of the United States, in the exercise of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, cannot take cognizance of questions of property between the mortgagee of a vessel and the owner.

The mere mortgage of a ship, other than that of an hypothecated bottomry, is a contract without any of the characteristics or attendants of a maritime loan, and is entered into by the parties to it without reference to navigation or perils of the sea.

The admiralty courts in England now exercise a more ample jurisdiction upon the subject of mortgages of ships, but it is under a statute of Victoria, and in the United States the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction remains as it was before.

This was a libel filed by the appellants of the steamboat John Jay to enforce payment of a mortgage upon the boat under the circumstances stated in the opinion of the Court.

The district court dismissed the libel, which decree was clubjuris

Page 58 U. S. 400

affirmed by the circuit court, and the libellants appealed to this Court.