Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/21

 Ch. 1. agreeable to his own convenience, provided he found them unoccupied by any one ele.

, both in lands and moveables, being thus originally acquired by the firt taker, which taking amounts to a declaration that he intends to appropriate the thing to his own ue, it remains in him, by the principles of univeral law, till uch time as he does ome other act which hews an intention to abandon it: for then it becomes, naturally peaking, publici juris once more, and is liable again to be appropriated by the next occupant. So if one is poeed of a jewel, and cats it into the ea or a public highway, this is uch an expres dereliction, that a property will be veted in the firt fortunate finder that will eie it to his own ue. But if he hides it privately in the earth, or other ecret place, and it is dicovered, the finder acquires no property therein; for the owner hath not by this act declared any intention to abandon it, but rather the contrary: and if he loes or drops it by accident, it cannot be collected from thence, that he deigned to quit the poeion; and therefore in uch cae the property till remains in the loer, who may claim it again of the finder. And this, we may remember, is the doctrine of the law of England, with relation to treaure trove.

this method, of one man's abandoning his property, and another's eiing the vacant poeion, however well founded in theory, could not long ubit in fact. It was calculated merely for the rudiments of civil ociety, and necearily ceaed among the complicated interets and artificial refinements of polite and etablihed governments. In thee it was found, that what became inconvenient or ueles to one man was highly convenient and ueful to another; who was ready to give in exchange for it ome equivalent, that was equally deirable to the former proprietor. Thus mutual convenience introduced commercial traffic, and the reciprocal transfer of property by ale, grant, or conveyance: which may be conidered either as a con- Rh