miralty minutes for the period when the English office was in commission indicate 
a meticulous regard for the separate non-English jurisdiction. 
The vicissitudes of the Admiralty administration after 1673 had some bearing 
upon the matter of appeals, which we shall mention presently. Not all the 
authority of the Lord High Admiral of England was conferred upon the 
commissioners in 1673, but Charles II retained certain rights and powers, and 
in 1684 he assumed the lot, himself administering the Admiralty with his 
brother's assistance. James II continued in Charles' footsteps and acted as 
Lord High Admiral until his flight in 1688. Strangely enough, James II affected 
to hold the plantation jurisdiction separate. In the face of the settled rule 
that all offices determined upon demise of the crown, the colonial admiralty 
commissions issued under the Admiralty seal upon James' accession recite 
that the office of Lord High Admiral in those parts conferred by Charles ll's 
patent "remain in our royal person." This saving of the newly erected jurisdiction 
was possibly connected with James' design of a united American dominion, 
but, whatever the motive, the constitutional situation was almost immediately 
obscured by the fact that in the new gubernatorial commissions 
which issued under the Great Seal, the office of vice admiral is conferred with 
a direction that it be exercised in accordance with the commission and in- 
structions to be issued under the Admiralty seal or by the Lord High Admiral 
for the time being. If Charles ll's earlier wholesale conveyance of authority to 
his brother implied a more or less complete delegation of the prerogative, the 
grant of the vice admiral office to governors under the Great Seal implied a 
recapture of it. 92 
92 The legal foundation of the Stuart action 
rests upon 13 Charles 11, c. 6, which declares 
that "within all his Majesty's Realms and 
Dominions the sole Supreme Government 
Command and Disposition of the Militia, and 
of all Forces by Sea and Land ... is and by 
the Laws of England ever was the undoubted 
Right of his Majesty." See also 13 & 14 Charles 
11, c. 3. The Admiralty organization is discussed 
by Tanner, The Administration of the 
Navy from the Restoration to the Revolution, 
12 EHR, 17, 679; 13 EHR, 26; 14 EHR, 47, 
261. On James' colonial patent, see Crump, 
Colonial Admiralty Jurisdiction in the Seventeenth 
Century (1931), 103. The "Admiralty 
Journal" is in Catalogue of Naval MSS in the 
Pepysian Library, 57 Navy Record Soc, 45, 
121, 249, 253 (as to James' authority), 633 
(as to royal reservation of right). 
Specimen Stuart colonial vice-admiralty 
commissions are in 2 Pub. Col. Soc. Mass., 
187 (Willoughby, Barbados); 199 (Dudley, 
New England); 201, 203 (Andros, New England). 
The 1678 commission of Edmund 
Andros is in 2 Boo\ of Patents, 141 (N.Y. 
Secretary of State). This patent opens with 
a recital of James' plantation jurisdiction. It 
is not completely enrolled, but so far as copied 
corresponds with Lord Willoughby's. Dongan's 
royal commission of 1686 imparting viceadmiralty 
powers is in 3 Doc. Rel. Col. Hist. 
N.Y., 377- Andros' Dominion gubernatorial 
commissions are in 2 Pub. Col. Soc. Mass., 44, 
57- 
It should be noted that the source of gubernatorial 
authority was the subject of debate in 
January, 1677/78, when the Lords Committee 
considered the 21st article of the Earl of 
Carlisle's instructions as to the power of viceadmiral 
and of erecting courts of admiralty. 
The question arose whether said powers should 
be received from the King or from the Duke 
of York. It was finally agreed that Carlisle 
by commission from the Duke to be vice-