y.[330] At the very beginning
of government under the Constitution, Congress conferred on the federal
district courts exclusive original cognizance "of all civil causes of
admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, including all seizures under laws
of impost, navigation or trade of the United States, where the seizures
are made, on waters which are navigable from the sea by vessels of ten
or more tons burthen, within their respective districts, as well as upon
the high seas; saving to suitors, in all cases, the right of a common
law remedy, where the common law is competent to give it; * * *"[331]
This broad legislative interpretation of admiralty and maritime
jurisdiction soon won the approval of the federal circuit courts, which
ruled that the extent of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction was not to
be determined by English law but by the principles of maritime law "as
respected by maritime courts of all nations and adopted by most, if not
by all, of them on the continent of Europe."[332]

JUDICIAL APPROVAL OF CONGRESSIONAL INTERPRETATION

Although a number of Supreme Court decisions had earlier sustained the
broader admiralty jurisdiction on specific issues,[333] it was not until
1848 that the Court ruled squarely in its favor, which it did by
declaring that, "whatever may have been the doubt, originally, as to the
true construction of the grant, whether it had reference to the
jurisdiction in England, or to the more enlarged one that existed in
other maritime countries, the question has become settled by legislative
and judicial interpretation, which ought not now to be disturbed."[334]
The Court thereupon proceeded to hold that admiralty had jurisdiction
_in personam_ as well as _in rem_, over controversies arising out of
contracts of affreightment between New York and Providence.

TWO TYPES OF CASES

Admiralty and maritime jurisdiction comprises two types of cases: (1)
those involving acts committed on the high seas or other navigable
waters; and (2) those involving contracts and transactions connected
with shipping employed on the seas or navigable waters. In the first
category, which includes prize cases, and torts, injuries, and crimes
committed on the high seas, jurisdiction is determined by the locality
of the act; while in the second category subject matter is the primary
determinative factor.[335] Specifically, contract cases include suits by
seamen for wages,[336] cases arising out of marine insurance
po