Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/283

 Ch. 18.

ORFEITURE is a punihment annexed by law to ome illegal act, or negligence, in the owner of lands, tenements, or hereditaments; whereby he loes all his interet therein, and they go to the party injured, as a recompene for the wrong which either he alone, or the public together with himelf, hath utained.

, tenements, and hereditaments, may be forfeited in various degrees and by various means: 1. By crimes and midemenors. 2. By alienation contrary to law. 3. By non-preentation to a benefice, when the forfeiture is denominated a lape. 4. By imony. 5. By non-performance of conditions. 6. By wate. 7. By breach of copyhold cutoms. 8. By bankruptcy.

I. foundation and jutice of forfeitures for crimes and midemenors, and the everal degrees of thoe forfeitures, proportioned to the everal offences, have been hinted at in the preceding volume ; but will be more properly conidered, and more at large, in the fourth book of thee commentaries. At preent I hall only oberve in general, that the offences which induce a forfeiture of lands and tenements to the crown are principally the following ix; 1. Treaon. 2. Felony. 3. Mipriion of Rh