While the _surrogates_ in the different parts of the island were administering justice in this manner, the _governor_ had also his court at _St. John’s_; and, it is easy to believe, that every thing which the surrogates permitted to themselves, the governor thought himself equally entitled to do and command. Every matter, civil, and criminal, used to be heard, and determined in open court before the governor. Where no special direction was pointed out by law, a person in that situation was to be commended for striking out such a course as the exigency of the situation, and the good of the place required. This desire of doing good sometimes carried the governors further than strict legal propriety could warrant. They used to preside in the sessions of justices, although it was from their authority that the commission of the justices issued. It would be endless and unnecessary to enter into the instances of irregularity that must follow, when judicatures were instituted in such a place as this, by persons who had nothing for their guide but the rectitude of their intentions, and a very honourable disposition. [Sidenote: Courts of vice-admiralty and session.] In the year 1765, a custom-house being established at _St. John’s_, a court of vice-admiralty, (the court of revenue in the plantations) was placed there. This court, in the absence of the governor, during the winter, had entertained complaints in other matters than those peculiarly belonging to it. In this it only followed the example of the _court of sessions_, where the justices had allowed the hearing of matters of _debt_, and other subjects of difference of a civil nature. It was in consequence of this usage, that the parliament afterwards conferred on the court of vice-admiralty, and the session, a jurisdiction of a civil nature. By Stat. 15, Geo. 3, c. 32. they have authority to determine disputes concerning the wages of seamen and fishermen, and the offences committed by their hirers and employers against that act. This jurisdiction was taken from the court of vice-admiralty, by Stat. 26, Geo. 3, c. 26, owing to the unfavourable impressions that had been made respecting the practice which had prevailed in that court.