Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/336

 322 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S Purbeck, as to the right to 49 casks of brandy.^ If not so granted out, they were dealt with by the Common Law Courts or by special commissioners. ^ After the rise of the court of Admiralty the Lord High Admiral becomes entitled to these droits by royal grant. At the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century it would appear that he shared them with the crown. ^ From the reign of Henry VI. it would appear that they were gen- erally granted to him. " The Admiral's Patents of the six- teenth and following centuries contain express grants of royal fish, wrecks, waifs, flotsam, jetsam, and lagon, as well as many other perquisites connected with the sea and the sea-shore." ^ In Anne's reign, George Duke of Denmark, the Lord High Admiral, surrendered his droits during the war for a fixed annual sum. The office was in commission after his death, except for a short time, when it was held by George Duke of Clarence, afterwards William IV. The droits during this period were always reserved to the crown, but in terms which showed that they had been previously annexed to the office of Admiral.^ The right to droits carried with it a certain jurisdiction. Inquisitions were held into these droits at the ports, ^ or the Vice-Admirals or droit gatherers reported them to the Ad- miral. '^ The large terms of the Admiral's Patents incited them, or their grantees, to frequent litigation with private persons or other grantees of the crown. ^ If the property was unclaimed, it belonged to the Admiral or other person en- » The King v. 49 Casks of Brandy 3 Hagg. Adm. 257; 5 Co. Rep. 107 b it is said that " those of the west country prescribe to have wreck in the sea so far as they may see a Humber Barrel." « Select Pleas of the Admiralty (S. S.) i xli. » Black Book of the Admiralty (R. S.) i 150; Select Pleas of the Admiralty ii xxiv. ' The King v. 49 Casks of Brandy 3 Hagg. Adm. at pp. 280, 281. " During the last French war the sums raised by droits was very large. Sums of £100,000, £190,000, and £58,360 are mentioned as having been paid to 'members of the royal family; the last sum is stated to have been paid out on account of the building, etc., of the Pavilion at Brighton," Select Pleas of the Admiralty ii xxxix. ' Select Pleas of the Admiralty ii xxvii-xxxii. ' Ibid xxxvii. Warden and the Admiral as to wrecks in the Goodwins. In 1632 there is a report to the Admiral on the encroachments of Lords of Manors.
 * Select Pleas of the Admiralty ii xxv.
 * Ibid xviii, xix, xxii. In 1619 there was a dispute between the Lord