SIR SAMUEL EVANS AND THE PRIZE COURT
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] I could wish that in the notice of Mr. Roscoe's History of the Prize Court your reviewer had found space to pay a
tribute to the services of Sir Samuel Evans in the field illus- trated by Lord Stowell a century earlier. His eager grasp of principles and the clear-sighted industry with which he pursued their adjustment to modern conditions won the admiration of all who heard his decisions, and having regard to the much greater complexity which attended the adminis- tration of prize law in his day, I believe his work was in no sense inferior to that of his great predecessor.
As an instance of his indefatigable zeal to put himself in touch with Admiralty practice, I remember his telling me that, on appointment to the Presidency of the division, he hardly knew a ship's stem from its stern, and he therefore proceeded to take a trip to Gibraltar in a P. and 0. liner and spent the whole time on the bridge, so as to familiarize himself with the terminology of the cases with which he would have to deal.— I am, Sir, &o.,
ALMERIC FITZROY.
Frogmore Park, Blackwater, Hants.
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