regard to captures made at sea, which were held to be the property of the captors after a possession of twenty-four hours. More modern authorities require, that, before the property can be changed, the goods must have been brought into port, and have continued a night intra præsidia, in a place of safe custody, so that all hope of recovering them be lost. And now, in order to vest the property of a capture in the captors, a sentence of condemnation is, by the law of nations, deemed necessary.

2. Thus, again, whatever movables are found upon the surface of the earth, or in the sea, and are unclaimed by any owner, are supposed to be abandoned by the last proprietor; and, as such, are returned into the common stock, and therefore belong, as in a state of nature, to the first occupant, unless they fall within the description of waifs, or estrays, or wreck, or hidden treasure; for these are vested by law in the sovereign.

3. Thus, too, the benefit of the elements, the light, the air, and the water, can only be appropriated by occupancy. Thus, if I have an ancient window, overlooking my neighbour's ground, he may not erect any blind to obstruct the light: but if I build my house close to his wall, which darkens it, I cannot compel him to demolish his wall for there the first occupancy is rather in him than in me. So, if my neighbour makes a tanyard, which renders less salubrious the air of my house, the law will furnish me with a remedy; but, if he is first in possession of the air, and I fix my habitation near him, the nuisance is of my own seeking, and may continue.

4. With regard likewise to animals feræ naturæ, when a man has once so seized them, they become while living his qualified property, or, if dead, are absolutely his own: so that to steal them, or otherwise invade this property, is sometimes a criminal offence, sometimes only a civil injury. The restrictions laid upon this right relate principally to royal fish, as whale and sturgeon, and game. But those animals, which are not expressly so reserved, are still liable to be taken and appropriated by any one upon their own territories; in the same manner as they might have taken even game itself, till these civil prohibitions were issued: there being in nature no distinction between one species of wild animals and another, between the right of acquiring property in a hare or a squirrel, in a partridge or a butterfly.

5. To this principle of occupancy also must be referred the method of acquiring a special personal property in corn growing on the ground, or other emblements, by any possessor of the land who has sown it; which emblements are distinct from the real estate in the land, and subject to many, though not all, the incidents attending

personal chattels. They were devisable by testament before the statute of wills; and at the death of the owner vest in his executor and not his heir; and by the statute 11 George II. c. 10, though not by the common law, they may be distrained for rent arrear.

6. The doctrine of property arising from accession is also grounded on the right of occupancy. By the Roman law, if any corporeal substance received afterwards an accession by natural or by artificial means, as by the growth of vegetables, the pregnancy of animals, or the conversion of wood or metal into vessels and utensils, the original owner was entitled to the property under such its state of improvement; but if the thing itself, by such operation, was changed into a different species, as by making wine, oil, or bread, out of another's grapes, olives, or wheat, it belonged to the new operator; who was only to make a satisfaction to the former proprietor for the materials which he had so converted. And these doctrines are implicitly copied and adopted by our Bracton, and have since been confirmed by many resolutions of the courts. It has even been held, that if one takes away and clothes another's wife or son, and afterwards they return home, the garments shall cease to be his property who provided them, being annexed to the person of the child or woman.

7. But in the case of confusion of goods, where those of two persons are so intermixed, that the several portions can be no longer distinguished, the English law partly agrees with, and partly differs from, the civil. If the intermixture be by consent, I apprehend that in both laws the proprietors have an interest in common, in proportion to their respective shares. But if one wilfully intermixes his money, corn, or hay, with that of another man, without his approbation or knowledge, or casts gold in like manner into another's melting-pot or crucible, the civil law, though it gives the sole property of the whole to him who has not interfered in the mixture, yet allows a satisfaction to the other for what he has so improvidently lost. Our law, to guard against fraud, gives the entire property, without any account, to him whose original dominion is invaded, and endeavoured to be rendered uncertain, without his own consent.

8. There is another species of property, which, being grounded on labour and invention, is more properly reducible to the head of occupancy than any other. And this is the right which an author may be supposed to have in his own original compositions: so that no other person, without his leave, may publish or make profit of the copies. The law on this subject has been placed on a very distinct footing by several recent statutes, to which I must content myself with referring the student. I may add here, however, that the copyright in books is for forty-two years, or for the life of the

author and seven years following, whichever may be the longer; and that facilities are given for its preservation, by the establishment of a public register of copyrights, at the Hall of the Stationers' Company in the City of London. The copyright of engravings and of sculpture is provided for by other statutes; while conventions for the mutual protection of such copyrights have been entered into with France, Prussia, Belgium, Spain, and other powers. Copyright has also been granted to designs for articles of manufacture for nine months, a year, or three years, according to the nature of the manufacture; provided they are registered in the mode provided by the different statutes.

Some of our early sovereigns assumed to themselves the right of granting to certain favoured subjects the monopoly, or sole right of selling and dealing in particular commodities. This pretended prerogative was carried to a most injurious length in the reign of queen Elizabeth, and led to the passing of the statute of monopolies, 21 Jac. I. c. 3; which, while declaring the illegality of such grants of exclusive trading in general, contained an exception in favour of new and original inventions in manufacture; and enacted that the declaration against monopolies should not extend to letters-patent and grants of privilege for the term of fourteen years or under, of the sole working of any manner of new manufactures within the realm, to the true and first inventor thereof, provided such manufactures were not in use by others at the time of granting the letterspatent. Upon this exception, which, to a certain extent, recognizes the royal prerogative, the modern law of patents for inventions in manufactures may be considered to rest. It has also been the subject of considerable but hitherto unsatisfactory legislation. For experience has shown that no sooner is a patent granted than every species of ingenuity is at once exerted to obtain the advantages of the invention in another way; so that the patentee has usually, from the outset, either to defend his patent from attack, or resort to an endless variety of actions, in order to assert his right against a host of depredators.

In this way only, however, does the law recognize the right of inventors to profit by their ingenuity, a right having its origin, indeed in nature, and in the principle of occupancy above referred to; but which, in the present artificial state of society, must be regulated by arbitrary enactment rather than by any general rules of right.

9. Ships constitute another species of personal property of very great importance, and subject to very peculiar and special laws. They have, from time immemorial, passed by bill of sale, or grant in writing, and not as in the case of most other chattels, by simple delivery of possession; but the statute law further imposes the

necessity of registration, in order to complete the title. Mortgages must in like manner be entered in the register; the priority of entry therein, when there are several mortgagees, and not the date of the mortgages themselves, determining absolutely the priority of right.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OF TITLE BY PREROGATIVE, FORFEITURE AND CUSTOM. Title by prerogative to customs-to taxes, &c.-Copyright-Game-Title by forfeiture-Title by custom-to heriots-mortuaries—heir-looms. II. ANOTHER method of acquiring property in personal chattels is by the royal prerogative: whereby a right may accrue either to the crown itself, or to such as claim under the title of the crown; as by the royal grant, or by prescription, which supposes an ancient grant.

Such, in the first place, are all tributes, taxes, and customs, whether inherent in the crown, or created by authority of parliament. In these the sovereign acquires, and the subject loses, a property, the instant they become due: if paid, they are a chose in possession; if unpaid, a chose in action. And in these several methods of acquiring property by prerogative, there is this peculiar quality, that the crown cannot have a joint property with any person in one entire chattel; but where the titles of the crown and a subject concur, the sovereign shall have the whole: in like manner as the crown cannot, either by grant or contract, become a joint-tenant of a chattel real with another person, but by such grant or contract shall become entitled to the whole in severalty.

This doctrine has no opportunity to take place in certain other instances of title by prerogative, that remain to be mentioned; as the chattels thereby vested are originally and solely vested in the crown, without any transfer or derivative assignment, either by deed or law, from any former proprietor. Such is the acquisition of property in wreck, in treasure-trove, in waifs, in estrays, in royal fish, in swans, and the like, which are not transferred to the sovereign from any former owner, but are originally inherent in him by the rules of law, and are derived to particular subjects, as royal franchises, by his bounty.

There is also a kind of prerogative copyright subsisting in certain books, which is held to be vested in the crown upon different reasons.

Thus, 1. The sovereign has the right of promulgating to the people all acts of state and government. This gives him the exclusive privilege of printing all acts of parliament, proclamations, and orders of council. 2. As head of the church, he has a right to the publication of all liturgies, and books of divine service. 3. He is also said to have a right, by purchase, to the copies of such law-books, grammars, and other compositions, as were compiled or translated at the expense of the crown. And upon these two last principles combined, the exclusive right of printing the translation of the Bible is founded. However, it seems to be agreed now, that both the Bible and statutes may be printed by others than those deriving the right from the grant of the crown, provided such editions comprise bonâ fide notes; but with this exception, the sole right to print these works is now vested in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and those deriving their right from the crown.

There existed until lately another species of prerogative property, founded upon a very different principle from any that have been mentioned before; the property in game which, at common law, was vested in the crown alone, and thence derived to such subjects as had received the grants of a chase, a park, a free warren, or free fishery. But the statute 1 & 2 Will. IV. c. 32, has put this branch of the law upon quite a new footing; the right to kill game upon any land being now vested in the owner, or in the occupier thereof, in the absence of a reservation of the right by the landlord. All persons killing or pursuing game are required, however, to take out a yearly certificate; and dealers selling it must also obtain a yearly license, under certain penalties.

III. The third method, whereby a title to goods and chattels may be acquired and lost, is, by forfeiture; as a punishment for some crime or misdemeanour in the party forfeiting, and as a compensation for the offence and injury committed against him to whom they are forfeited. But that branch of the law, which is mentioned here only for the sake of regularity will be more properly considered in the fourth part of these commentaries. At present I need only mention that this forfeiture commences from the time of conviction, not the time of committing the fact, as in forfeitures of real property. And, therefore, a bonâ fide sale of goods or chattels by the offender, after the offence and before conviction, is good, though a fraudulent conveyance of them, to defeat the interest of the crown, is void by statute 13 Eliz. c. 5.

IV. A fourth method of acquiring property in things personal, or chattels, is by custom: whereby a right vests in some particular persons, either by the local usage of some particular place, or by the