“ The Offences at Sea Act 1536 states the objection to this application of the civil law to the trial of criminal cases with much force: “After the course of the civil laws, the nature whereof is that before any judgment of death can be given against the offenders, either they must plainly confess their offences (which they will never do without torture or pain) , or else their offences be so plainly and directly proved by witness indifferent such as saw their offences committed, which cannot be gotten but by chance at few times.” ”

“ The judge advocate of the fleet is a practising barrister whose function it is to advise the admiralty on all matters connected with courts-martial. Though section 61 of the Naval Discipline Act 1866 recognizes the possibility of his presence at a court-martial, he does not nowadays attend, but is represented by his deputy or by an officiating deputy judge advocate appointed ad hoc by the Judge Advocate
of the Fleet.admiralty, the commander-in-chief of the fleet or squadron who convenes the court-martial, or, if no such appointment is made, by the president of the court-martial. ”

“ In this latter passage Lord Coke records how, notwithstanding an agreement asserted to have been made in 1575 between the justices of the King’s Bench and the judge of the admiralty, the judges of the common law courts successfully maintained their right to prohibit suits in admiralty upon contracts made on shore, or within havens, or creeks, or tidal rivers, if the waters were within the body of any county, wheresoever such contracts were broken, for torts committed within the body of a county, whether on land or water, and for contracts made in parts beyond the seas. ”