ABSTRACT
It is a distinct honor to be asked to deliver the Fourteenth Nicholas J. Healy Lecture on Admiralty Law. The Supreme Court's admiralty jurisprudence dates from August, 1795, when the Court decided two important cases. The first case was Talbot v. Jansen, a decision of high interest since a unanimous Court ruled that federal admiralty jurisdiction extended to a claim to a Dutch vessel which had been seized on the high seas by a privateering vessel. In the case United States v. Peters, the Court issued a writ of prohibition to a District Court judge in Philadelphia forbidding the exercise of jurisdiction over the Cassius, an armed privateer commissioned by the government of France. The Supreme Court should revisit the matter of the applicable law in cases of marine insurance. The marine insurance industry is truly international, and London still reigns supreme as the preeminent situs for both underwriting marine risks and settlement of disputes.
