Horace Gray, The J. E. Rumbell — Opinion of the Court
“ No state legislation, therefore, can bring within the admiralty jurisdiction of the national courts a subject not maritime in its nature. But when a right, maritime in its nature, and to be enforced by process in the nature of admiralty process, has been given by the statute of a state, the admiralty courts of the United States have jurisdiction, and exclusive jurisdiction, to enforce that right according to their own rules of procedure. ”
Horace Gray, The J. E. Rumbell — Opinion of the Court
“ The essential difference, in its very nature, between the right of material men in a court of admiralty under the law and statutes of England as judicially declared and expounded, and their right, by virtue of a local statute giving a maritime lien and a jus in re, as recognized in our own jurisprudence, is yet more clearly brought out in a later case, in which the court of appeal and the house of lords held that, even for supplies furnished in an English port to a foreign vessel, there was no lien, but a mere right to seize her upon process in admiralty. ”
Horace Gray, The J. E. Rumbell — Opinion of the Court
“ An ordinary mortgage of a vessel, whether made to secure the purchase money upon the sale thereof or to raise money for general purposes, is not a maritime contract. A court of admiralty, therefore, has no jurisdiction of a libel to foreclose it, or to assert either title or right of possession under it. ”
