within the year it strayeth again, and another lord getteth it, the first lord cannot take it again". Any beasts may be estrays, that are by nature tame or reclaimable, and in which there is a valuable property, as sheep, oxen, swine, and horses, which we in general call cattle; and so Fleta° defines them, pecus vagans, quod nullus petit, sequitur, vel advocat. For animals upon which the law sets no value, as a dog or cat, and animals ferae naturae, as a bear or wolf, cannot be considered as estrays. So swans may be estrays, but not any other fowl"; whence they are said to be royal fowl. The reason of which distinction seems to be, that cattle and swans being of a reclaimed nature, the owner's property in them is not lost merely by their temporary escape; and they also, from their intrinsic value, are a sufficient pledge for the expence of the lord of the franchise in keeping them the year and a day. For he [299] that takes an estray is bound, so long as he keeps it, to find it in provisions, and preserve it from damage; and may not use it by way of labour, but is liable to an action for so doing. Yet he may milk a cow, or the like; for that tends to the preservation, and is for the benefit of the animal'. BESIDES the particular reasons before given why the king should have the several revenues of royal fish, shipwrecks, treasure-trove, waifs, and estrays, there is also one general reason which holds for them all: and that is, because they are bona vacantia, or goods in which no one else can claim a property. And therefore by the law of nature they belonged to the first occupant or finder; and so continued under the imperial law. But, in settling the modern constitutions of most of the governments of Europe, it was thought proper (to prevent that strife and contention which the mere title of occupancy is apt to create and continue, and to provide for the support of public authority in a manner the least burthensome to individuals) that these rights should be annexed to the supreme power by the positive laws of the state. And so it came to pass that, as Bracton expresses itt, haec quae n Finch. L.177. • L. 1. c. 43. r 7 Rep. 17. Cro. Jac. 147. • Cro. Jac. 148. Noy. 119. L.1. c.12. s. 10. and purveyance: but this revenue was abolished by the statute 30 Geo. II. c. 19. and an annual sum of upwards of 7000l. per annum, issuing out of the new stamp duties imposed on wine licences, was settled on the crown in its stead. VIII. AN eighth branch of the king's ordinary revenue is usually reckoned to consist in the profits arising from his forests. Forests are waste grounds belonging to the king, replenished with all manner of beasts of chase or venary; which are under the king's protection, for the sake of his royal recreation and delight: and, to that end, and for preservation of the king's game, there are particular laws, privileges, courts and offices belonging to the king's forests; all which will be, in their turns, explained in the subsequent books of these Commentaries. What we are now to consider are only the profits arising to the king from hence, which consist principally in amercements or fines levied for offences against the forest-laws. But as few, if any, courts of this kind for levying amercements have been held since 1632, 8 Car. I. and as, from the accounts given of the proceedings in that court by our histories and law-bookst, nobody would now wish to see them again revived, it is needless (at least in this place) to pursue this enquiry any farther. IX. THE profits arising from the king's ordinary courts of justice make a ninth branch of his revenue. And these consist not only in fines imposed upon offenders, forfeitures [290] of recognizances, and amercements levied upon defaulters; but also in certain fees due to the crown in a variety of legal matters, as, for setting the great seal to charters, original writs, and other forensic proceedings, and for permitting fines to be levied of lands in order to bar entails, or otherwise to ensure their title. As none of these can be done without the immediate intervention of the king, by himself or his officers, the law allows him certain perquisites and profits, as a recompense for the trouble he undertakes for the public. These, in process of time, have been almost all granted out to private persons, or else appropriated to certain particular but I have met with no report of it's proceedings. Roger North, in his life of lord keeper North, 43, 44.) mentions an eyre, or iter, to have been held south of Trent soon after the restoration; 1 Jones, 267-298. uses: so that, though our law-proceedings are still loaded with their payment, very little of them is now returned into the king's exchequer; for a part of whose royal maintenance they were originally intended. All future grants of them, however, by the statute 1 Ann. st. 1. c. 7. are to endure for no longer time than the prince's life who grants them. t X. A TENTH branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon: and these, when either thrown ashore, or caught near the coast, are the property of the king, on account of their superior excellence. Indeed our ancestors seem to have entertained a very high notion of the importance of this right: it being the prerogatives of the kings of Denmark and the dukes of Normandy "; and from one of these it was probably derived to our princes. It is expressly claimed and allowed in the statute de praerogativa regis"; and the most antient treatises of law now extant make mention of it; though they seem to have made a distinction between whale and sturgeon, as was incidentally ob served in a former chapter. XI. ANOTHER maritime revenue, and founded partly upon [291] the same reason, is that of shipwrecks: which are also declared to be the king's property by the same prerogative statute 17 Edw. II. c. 11. and were so, long before, at the common law. It is worthy observation, how greatly the law of wrecks has been altered, and the rigour of it gradually softened in favour of the distressed proprietors. Wreck, by the antient common law, was, where any ship was lost at sea, and the goods or cargo were thrown upon the land; in which case these goods, so wrecked, were adjudged to belong to the king for it was held, that, by the loss of the ship, all property was gone out of the original owner2. But this was t Plowd. 315. u Stiernh. de jure Sueonum. 1. 2. c. 8. Gr. Coustum. cap. 17. 17 Edw. II. c.11. * Bracton, l. 3. tr. 2. c. 3. s. 5. Brit, ton, c.17. Fleta, l. 1. c. 45, 46. Memo rand. Scacch.' H. 24 Edw. I. 37. pre- y Ch. 4. p. 222. Dr. & St. d. 2. c. 51, 66 undoubtedly adding sorrow to sorrow, and was consonant neither to reason nor humanity. Wherefore it was first ordained by king Henry I. that if any person escaped alive out of the ship it should be no wreck a; and afterwards king Henry II., by his charter b, declared, that if on the coasts of either England, Poictou, Oleron, or Gascony, any ship should be distressed, and either man or beast should escape or be found therein alive, the goods shall remain to the owners, if they claimed them within three months; but otherwise should be esteemed a wreck, and should belong to the king, or other lord of the franchise. This was again confirmed with improvements by king Richard the first; who in the second year of his reign, not only established these concessions, by ordaining that the owner, if he was shipwrecked and escaped, omnes res suas liberas et quietas haberet," but also, that, if he perished, his children, or in default of them his brethren and sisters, should retain the property; and, in default of brother or sister, then the goods should remain to the king ". And the law, as laid down by Bracton in the reign of Henry III., seems still to have improved in it's equity. For [292] then, if not only a dog (for instance) escaped, by which the owner might be discovered, but if any certain mark were set on the goods, by which they might be known again, it was held to be no wreck e. And this is certainly most agreeable to reason; the rational claim of the king being only founded upon this, that the true owner cannot be ascertained. Afterwards in the statute of Westminster the first, the time of limitation of claims, given by the charter of Henry II., is extended to a year and a day, according to the usage of Normandy: and it enacts, that if a man, a dog, or a cat, escape alive, the vessel shall not be adjudged a wreck. These animals, as in Bracton, are only put for examples ", for it is now held', that not only if any live thing escape, but if proof can be made of the property of any of the goods or lading which come to shore, they shall not be forfeited as wreck. The statute further ordains, that the sheriff of the county shall be bound to keep the goods a year and a day, (as in France, for one year, agreeable to the maritime laws of Oleron, and in Holland for a year and a half,) that if any man can prove a property in them, either in his own right or by right of representation *, they shall be restored to him without delay; but if no such property be proved within that time, they then shall be the king's. If the goods are of a perishable nature, the sheriff may sell them, and the money shall be liable in their stead. This revenue of wrecks is frequently granted out to lords of manors, as a royal franchise; and if any one be thus entitled to wrecks in his own land, and the king's goods are wrecked thereon, the king may claim them at any time, even after the year and day m. IT is to be observed, that, in order to constitute a legal wreck, the goods must come to land. If they continue at sea, the law distinguishes them by the barbarous and uncouth appellations of jetsam, flotsam, and ligan. Jetsam is where [293] goods are cast into the sea, and there sink and remain under water flotsam is where they continue swimming on the surface of the waves: ligan is where they are sunk in the sea, but tied to a cork or buoy, in order to be found again". These are also the king's, if no owner appears to claim them; but if any owner appears, he is entitled to recover the possession. For even if they be cast overboard, without any mark or buoy, in order to lighten the ship, the owner is not by this act of necessity construed to have renounced his property: much less can things ligan be supposed to be abandoned, since the owner has done all in his power to assert and retain his property. These three are therefore accounted so far a distinct thing from the former, that by |