BETTS, Samuel Rossiter, jurist, born in Richmond, Berkshire County, 3{ass., in 1787; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 3 November 1868. fie was the son of a farmer, and was graduated at Williams in 1806. He studied law in Hudson, New York, was admitted to the bar, and began practice in Sullivan County, where he was earning a fair reputation at the outbreak of the war of 1812. After a term of service in the army, he was appointed judge-advocate by (Joy. Tompkins. In 1815 he was elected to congress for the district comprising Orange and Sullivan cos., New York At the close of the term he declined a re-election, and returned to the study and practice of his profession, fie was for several years district attorney of Orange County At that time the bar of the state of New York contained a somewhat notable array of eminent lawyers. Martin Van Buren, Elisha Williams, Thomas J. Oakley, George Griffin, Ogden Hoffman, Prescott Hall, and Thomas Addis Emmet were in active practice, and with all of them Mr. Betts was constantly associated, and, though of a younger generation than most of them, was soon recognized as their peer in the profession. In 1823 Mr. Betts was appointed judge of the U.S. district court, which office he held for forty-four years, and throughout the whole term presided with such dignity, courtesy, profundity of legal knowledge, and patience of investigation, that he came to be regarded as almost infallible in his decisions. To him belongs the high honor of having in a great degree formulated and codified the maritime laws of the United States. The complicated rules of salvage, general average, wages of seamen, freighting contracts, charters, insurance, and prizes owe their present well-ordered system to Judge Betts. During the first twenty years of his connection with the district court there was never an appealing from his decisions, and his opinions in his own court on maritime questions, and in the circuit court on patents, have been uniformly upheld. Criminal causes of all kinds amenable to United States laws were decided by him. The civil war brought before him an entirely new class of questions, affecting national and international rights ; but, although beyond the age of three-score-years-and-ten, Judge Betts applied himself to the study of the new conditions, and his decisions regarding the neutrality laws and the slave-trade are notable instances of constitutional reasoning and argument. He received the degree of LL.D. from Williams in 1830. In 1838 he published a standard work on admiralty practice. In May 1867, having entered upon his eighty-first year, Judge Betts retired from the bench and spent the remainder of his life at his home in New Haven.