$ 1107. The Director of Chancery also keeps a "Record of Precepts,” in which are recorded at length all precepts issued from Chancery after 1st October 1847 for infefting heirs in crown or principality lands ($).

CHAPTER VII.-REGISTRY OF SHIPS.

$ 1108. Great Britain, like all other commercial countries, extends certain privileges to vessels belonging to her subjects (a). In connection with these privileges, and in order to preserve a public record of the constitution and transmission of rights in British ships, registers are established at certain British possessions, and at all ports and places throughout the kingdom, which may be fixed by the Commissioners of Customs for the purpose (6). The enactments regarding these registers are contained in several statutes, and have been consolidated and re-enacted by a statute passed in 1854 (c)They will be noticed shortly in their bearing upon the law of evidence.

(f) 10 and

tice under the Crown Charter Act, 10 and 11 Vict., c. 51, 2 15. 11 Vict., c. 51, % 20.

(a) The original object of the Registry Acts was to ailvance the public policy of the State at a time when extensive monoplies of trade were enjoyed by British vessels; and the rules as to constituting and transmitting rights in ships were subsidiary to the national objects. The exclusive right to trade has been almost entirely abolished by the acts 12 and 13 Vict., c. 29, and 17 and 18 Vict., c. 5. But the Queen in council may impose retaliatory restrictions on the voyages of the ships of any foreign country, so as to place them on the same footing in British ports as that on which British ships are placed in the ports of the foreign country; 16 and 17 Vict., c. 107, 22 324, 5, 6–17 and 18 Vict., c. 5, $ 1.

(6) 17 and 18 Vict., c. 104 (Merchant Shipping Act), @ 30. (c) The Registry Acts were consolidated by 4 Geo. IV, c. 41. The act 6 Geo. IV, c. 110, came in its place, and was supplanted by the 3 and 4 Will. IV, c. 55. The act 8 and 9 Vict., c. 89, consolidated all previous acts on the subject. It has been repealed by the act 17 and 18 Vict., c. 120 (Merchant Shipping Repeal Act, 1854); which, with 17 and 18 Vict., c. 104 (“Merchant Shipping Act, 1854 "), now constitutes the law as to registration of ships.

4 The 157th section of the Bankruptcy Act, 19 and 20 Vict., c. 79, provides that a book, entitled “ The Register of Sequestrations,” shall be kept by the Accountant in Bankruptcy, in which he is to enter the particulars of any sequestration awarded by the Sheriff or by the Court of Session.

1 Amended by 25 and 26 Vict., c. 63 (Merchant Shipping Acts Amendment Act,

a

$ 1109. In this respect the general scope of the enactments as to registration of ships consists in preserving a double record of the rights in every ship or share of a ship; one of these records being preserved in the register of the port to which the ship belongs; the other, called the certificate of registry, being carried about in the ship throughout her voyages. Each of these records is altered from time to time, as the rights of the parties interested in the ship are transmitted, lost, or otherwise changed.

§ 1110. Every British ship, except certain small craft engaged in the river and coasting trade of the United Kingdom, and in the fishing and coasting trade of our North American possessions, must be registered; and (with these exceptions) no ship, unless registered, can be recognised as a British ship, or can receive from the custom-house a clearance for enabling her to proceed to sea (d). When a foreign ship becomes the property of British owners at a foreign port, the master may obtain from the British consular officer there a provisional certificate, which possesses the same force as a regular certificate of registry, but only for six months, or till such earlier time as the ship arrives at a port where there is a British registrar (e).

$ 1111. With a view to registration, the property in every ship is held to be divided into sixty-four shares; but not more than thirty-two persons can at the same time be registered as owners of any ship (s),-except in the case of corporate bodies, who may be registered by their corporate names, and who are reckoned as individual owners (9),—and in the case of joint owners, who, to the number of five, may hold any share or number of shares, and who are also reckoned as one person (h). No one can be registered as owner of a fractional part of a share (i); nor can joint owners dispose in severalty of their interests in the share or shares which they hold (k). These rules, however, do not affect the beneficial title of any number of persons, or any company represented by, or claiming through, any registered owner or joint owner (1). In case of the death of an owner, his representatives acquiring right to his share or shares are reckoned as one person (m), and there is a similar provision as to persons coming in right of a bankrupt or insolvent owner (n). No notice of any trust, express, implied or constructive, can be entered on the register; but each person appearing

(d) 17 and 18 Vict., c. 104 (Merchant Shipping Act), % 19. 2 54. (f) Same act, & 37.

(9) Ib.

(1) Ib. (1) Ib.

(m) Same act, 22 58, 60. 22 59, 60.

(k) Ib.

(n) Same act,

there to be owner has power (subject to any rights appearing on the register to be vested in any other person) absolutely to dispose of the ship or share standing in his name; and to give effectual receipts for any money therefor paid or advanced by way of consideration (o).

§ 1112. The entry in the registry contains (1) the name of the ship, and of the port to which she belongs; (2) the details as to her tonnage, build and description, specified by the act; (3) the particulars as to the time and place of her building, and in case of a foreign ship a statement of her foreign name, and (if she was condemned) of the time, place, and court of condemnation; (4) the names and descriptions of her registered owner or owners, and, if, there are more than one, the proportions in which they are interested (p).

§ 1113. Upon the completion of the registry, the registrar is required to grant a "Certificate of Registry" in the statutory form, which embraces the particulars entered in the register, along with the name of the master of the ship (q).

§ 1114. On the death or bankruptcy of a registered owner the person or persons coming in his place may be registered, on producing evidence of their right in terms of the act (r); and there is a similar power as to shares transmitted by marriage (s).

§ 1115. Registration of an appropriate instrument in the form prescribed by the Merchant Shipping Act is also essential to the completion of the real right of a purchaser (†), or mortgagee (u), in any ship or share of a ship; and the rights of competing mortgagees are determined by priority of registration, not by priority in date of their respective instruments (x). These rules, however, do not affect the personal right which a party, holding an obligation to transfer an interest in a ship or share, has to sue the registered owner to execute the writings necessary for having the right made real by registration (y).

2 42.

There are also provisions for recording the conveyance, trans

(p) Same act,

(0) 17 and 18 Vict., c. 104 (Merchant Shipping Act), ? 53. (g) Same act, § 44. (r) Same act, ?? 58, 59, 60. (8) Ib. (t) Same act, 55, et seq.-Under the corresponding rules of a previous statute (8 and 9 Vict., c. 89, 34) it was held, that where a coasting vessel under fifteen tons burden had been registered, the owner might transfer the right without a written instrument, and without an entry in the register, because the vessel was not one of those requiring to be registered by the act 8 and 9 Vict., c. 88, 22 13, 14; Benyon v. Cresswell, 1848, 12 Ad. and Ell. N. S., 899. (u) Same act, 2 66, et seq.

(x) Same act, 69. (y) See Boyd's Ex. v. Martin's Ex., 1847, 9 D., 1234. This decision was pronounced in regard to the corresponding provisions of the act 3 and

a

mission, and extinction of mortgages (x). The certificate of registry does not, by statute, contain any evidence of them.

$ 1116. It is also enacted that, if any change takes place in the registered ownership of a vessel, a memorandum of the change shall be indorsed on the certificate of registry. If the change takes place when the ship is at her port of registry, the memorandum is indorsed by the registrar there; and if it occurs when the ship is absent from her port of registry, the indorsation is made by the registrar of that port on the first return of the ship; or, if she previously arrives at any other port where there is a British registrar, such registrar on being advised by the registrar of the port of registry of the change having taken place, is required to indorse a like memorandum thereof on the certificate of registry (a).

Whenever the master of a ship is changed, a memorandum of the change must be indorsed on the certificate of registry. If it is made in consequence of the sentence of a Naval Court, the indorsation must be made and subscribed by the presiding officer of such court; and if it takes place from any other cause, the indorsation must be made and subscribed by the registrar, or (if there is no registrar) by the British consular officer of the place where the change is made. The officers of customs at any port may refuse to admit any person to act as master, unless his name is indorsed on the certificate as the last appointed master (b).

$ 1117. It is enacted that every register and every certificate of registry of any British ship, purporting to be signed by the registrar or other proper officer, shall be received in evidence as prima facie proof of all the matters contained or recited in such register, when the register is produced, and of all the matters contained in or indorsed on such certificate of registry, and purporting to be authenticated by the signature of a registrar, when such certificate is produced (c). There is a similar provision as to certified copies of the register.

§ 1118. As already seen, every person registered as owner is vested with the absolute right to dispose of the shares standing in his name (d). It follows that the shares thus appearing to be the property of any registered owner form on his bankruptcy part of the estate to which his creditors have right. Accordingly, in a case

4 Will. IV, c. 55, 31.

a Sa me act, 2 45.
(d) Same act, & 43.

(2) 17 and 18 Vict., c. 104, % 68, 73, et seq. (6) Same act, & 46.

(c) Same act, 107.

CHAPTER VI.-REGISTERS OF DEEDS AND OTHER PRIVATE

WRITINGS.

$ 1089. One of the most distinctive features of Scottish jurisprudence is its system of public registers for private writings. Originating in the infancy of our common law, these records have been regulated and expanded into a system of great public utility. They form an important branch of the law of evidence.

The registers referred to are divided, according to their respective purposes, into

(1) Registers for preservation—in which writings or copies of them are preserved in order to prevent the evils arising from loss or destruction ;

(2) Registers for preservation and execution-in which documents are recorded as an indispensable preliminary towards their being enforced by diligence ;-and

(3) Registers for publication-in which writings or copies or abstracts of them are entered, in order that their existence may be advertised to all the lieges whom they may concern.

$ 1090. The second class, being the earliest in date, will be first noticed. These registers are coeval with, and form part of, the records of our civil courts. Originally the mode of enforcing deeds was by an action of registration, in which the granter of the deed was summoned before a competent court at the instance of the grantee, to show cause why the deed should not be registered in the court books, in order that diligence might pass upon it. About the fourteenth century it became the practice for the parties to important deeds to appear before a judge, and in person acknowledge their subscriptions; whereupon a decree setting forth the confession was pronounced, and, with a copy of the deed, was recorded in the court books; an extract of the entry being the warrant for diligence (a). When personal attendance was inconvenient to a party, he authorised a procurator to confess judgment in his name. The authority was contained in a written mandate, which at first was separate from the deed, and after having for some time been indorsed upon it, at last came to form (as at present) one of its concluding

c.

(a) Kames' Law Tracts (ed. 1792), 77–1 Ross Lec., 109—Act 1584, c. 4. This proceeding was similar to that observed at a very carly period in verbal contracts, where the parties appeared in Court and orally ailmitted the contract, which was thereupon recorded in the books of Court. See Kames, ut supra, 72.