Page:Commentaries on American Law vol. I.djvu/25

Lecture I.] of the feeble beginnings, the slow and interrupted progress, and final and triumphant success, of the principles of public right. Valin imputes the barbarous custom of plundering shipwrecked property, not merely to the ordinary cupidity for gain, but to a more particular and peculiar cause. The earliest navigators were almost all pirates, and the inhabitants of the coasts were constantly armed against their depredations, and whenever they had the misfortune to be shipwrecked, they were pursued with a vindictive spirit, and deemed just objects of punishment. The practice of plundering shipwrecks has been traced to the Rhodians, and from them il passed to the Romans; and the efforts to restrain it were very feeble and gradual, and mixed with much positive injustice. The goods cast ashore first belonged to the unfortunate occupant, and then they were considered as belonging to the state. This change from private to public appropriation of the property, rendered a returning sense of right and duty more natural and easy. The Emperors Hadrian and Antoninus had the honour of having first renounced the claim to shipwrecked property, in favour of the rightful owner. But the inhuman customs on this subject were too deeply rooted to be eradicated by the wisdom and vigilance of the Roman lawgivers. The laws in favour of the unfortunate were disregarded by succeeding emperors, and when the empire itself was overturned by the northern barbarians, the laws of humanity on this subject were swept away in the tempest, and the continual depredations of the Saxons and Normans, induced the inhabitants of the western coasts of Europe, to treat all navigators who were thrown by the perils of the sea upon their shores, as pirates, and to punish them as such, without inquiry or discrimination.

The Emperor Andronicus Comnenus, who reigned at Constantinople in 1183, made great efforts to repress this inhuman practice, His edict was worthy of the highest