ll no tales. They were alone on the breadth of the
ocean, no ordered protection was within hail, the land lay distant under
rim of the sea-line. Blue water would wash over the face of robbery and
crime: the hazards of the sea could well account for a missing ship!

Reverse the setting and the same uncharity could similarly be masked. In
turn, the humanity the seamen contemned was denied to them. Driven on
shore, wrecked or foundered on coast or shoal, the laws they scorned
were powerless to shield or salve the wreckage of their vessels, to save
their weary sea-scarred bodies. 'No trace' was equally a motto for the
dwellers on the coast: blue water would wash as freely over their bloody
evidence, the miserable castaways could be as readily returned to the
pitiless sea: an equal hazard of the deep could as surely account for
missing men!

Only special measures could control a situation of such a desperate
nature, no ordinary governance could effect a settlement; no one but a
powerful and kingly seafarer could frame an adjustment and post wardens
to enforce a law for the sea. When Richard Coeur de Lion established
our first Maritime Code, he had his own rude sea-experience to guide
him. On perilous voyaging to the Holy Land, he must have given more than
passing thought to the trials and dangers of his rough mariners. Sharing
their sea-life and its hardships, he noted the ship-measures and rude
sea-justice with a discerning and humane appreciation. In all the
records of our law-making there are few such intimate revelations of a
minute understanding as his Roles d'Oleron. The practice of to-day
reflects no small measure of his wisdom; in their basic principles, his
charges still tincture the complex fabric of our modern Sea Codes.
Bottomry--the pledging of ship and tackle to procure funds for provision
or repair; salvage--a just and reasonable apportionment; jettison--the
sharing of another's loss for a common good; damage to ship or
cargo--the account of liability: many of his ordinances stand unaltered
in substance, if varied and amplified in detail.

The spirit of these mediaeval Shipping Acts was devoted as well to
restrain the lawless doings of the seamen as to check the inhuman
plunderings of the coast dwellers. The rights and duties of master and
man were clearly defined: in the schedule of penalties, the master's
forfeit was enhanced, as his was assumed to be the better intelligence.
For barratry and major sea-cri