Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/315

 Ch. 8. finder; and o continued under the imperial law. But, in ettling the modern contitutions of mot of the governments in Europe, it was thought proper (to prevent that trife and contention, which the mere title of occupancy is apt to create and continue, and to provide for the upport of public authority in a manner the leat burthenome to individuals) that thee rights hould be annexed to the upreme power by the poitive laws of the tate. And o it came to pas that, as Bracton exprees it, haec, quae nullius in bonis unt, et olim fuerunt inventoris de jure naturali, jam efficiuntur principis de jure gentium.

XVI. next branch of the king's ordinary revenue conits in forfeitures of lands and goods for offences; bona conficata, as they are called by the civilians, becaue they belonged to the ficus or imperial treaury; or, as our lawyers term them, forisfacta, that is, uch whereof the property is gone away and departed from the owner. The true reaon and only ubtantial ground of any forfeiture for crimes conit in this; that all property is derived from ociety, being one of thoe civil rights which are conferred upon individuals, in exchange for that degree of natural freedom, which every man mut acrifice when he enters into ocial communities. If therefore a member of any national community violates the fundamental contract of his aociation, by trangreing the municipal law, he forfeits his right to uch privileges as he claims by that contract; and the tate may very jutly reume that portion of property, or any part of it, which the laws have before aigned him. Hence, in every offence of an atrocious kind, the laws of England have exacted a total confication of the moveables or peronal etate; and in many caes a perpetual, in others only a temporary, los of the offender's immoveables or landed property; and have veted them both in the king, who is the peron uppoed to be offended, being the one viible magitrate in whom the majety of the public reides. The particulars of thee forfeitures will be more properly recited when we treat of crimes and midemenors. I therefore only mention them Rh