COUltT OV ADMIRALTY ESTABLISHED. 165 justices were restrained from proceeding in cases of doubt or difficulty—such as robberies, murders, felonies, and all capital offences. From this restriction, a subject of considerable difficulty and inconvenience arose, as persons who had committed capital felonies could only be tried in England ; and, in 1751, a commission was issued to Captain William Francis Drake, empowering him to appoint commissioners of oyer and terminer for the trial of felons at ¬ foundland. In 1742, in consequence of the number of captured vessels brought into John's, a court of Vice-Admi¬ ralty was established. A claim was made, in 1754, by Lord Baltimore , to that part of the island originally granted to his ancestor, and named by him " the province of lon." This claim was declared inadmissible by the Board of Trade, agreeable to the opinion of the law officers ; and it has since then been relinquished. In June 1762, the French took John's, Trinity, and Carbonier , and retained them until September following, when they were retaken, with some diffi¬ culty, by the forces sent from Halifax , under Lord Colville and Sir Jeffrey Amherst . The peace of 1763, by which we acquired all the French possessions in , opened a most favourable opportunity for extending the fishery, to the decided advantage of these kingdoms ; and the Board of Trade, in bringing the subject under their consideration, applied for information to the towns in the west of England , as well as to Glasgow, Belfast , •-