Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/306

 290 loaded with their payment, very little of them is now returned into the king's exchequer; for a part of whoe royal maintenance they were originally intended. All future grants of them however, by the tatute 1 Ann. t. 2. c. 7. are to endure for no longer time than the prince's life who grants them.

X. A branch of the king's ordinary revenue, aid to be grounded on the conideration of his guarding and protecting the eas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fih, which are whale and turgeon: and thee, when either thrown ahore, or caught near the coats, are the property of the king, on account of their uperior excellence. Indeed our ancetors eem to have entertained a very high notion of the importance of this right; it being the prerogative of the kings of Denmark and the dukes of Normandy ; and from one of thee it was probably derived to our princes. It is exprely claimed and allowed in the tatute de praerogativa regis : and the mot antient treaties of law now extant make mention of it ; though they eem to have made a ditinction between whale and turgeon, as was incidentally oberved in a former chapter.

XI. maritime revenue, and founded partly upon the ame reaon, is that of hipwrecks; which are alo declared to be the king's property by the ame prerogative tatute 17 Edw. II. c. 11. and were o, long before, at the common law. It is worthy obervation, how greatly the law of wrecks has been altered, and the rigour of it gradually oftened, in favour of the ditreed proprietors. Wreck, by the antient common law, was where any hip was lot at ea, and the goods or cargo were thrown upon the land; in which cae thee goods, o wrecked, were adjudged to belong to the king: for it was held, that, by the los of the hip, all property was gone out of the original owner. But this Rh