Guernsey, as if without such enactment they would not have been included in the words " British dominions." And by statute 31 & 32 Vict. c. 37 (the Documentary Evidence Act, 1868), "British colony and possession shall, for the purposes of this Act, include the Channel Islands." Another statute (5 & 6 Vict. c. 47) says, in its recital: "Whereas one of the said Acts (3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 51) was passed for the management of the Customs And whereas the provisions extend to the island of Jersey so far as the same are applicable to that island according to the laws thereof, although the island is not specially named in the said Act." By the Limitation of Suits Act (3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 27, s. 19), they are not to be deemed beyond seas within the meaning of that Act. The Postage Act, 2 & 3 Vict. c. 52, s. 11, speaks of letters conveyed "between places within the United Kingdom, and between the United Kingdom and the islands of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, and Alderney."

The Act 12 & 13 Vict. c. 96, s. 5, provides that the word " colony" used in that Act "shall mean any island, plantation, colony, dominion, fort, or factory of Her Majesty, except any island within the United Kingdom and the islands of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark." In Craw v. Ramsay (Vaugh. 281), Vaughan, C.J., said that Guernsey and Jersey "are dominions belonging to the realm of England, though not within the territorial dominion or realm of England, but follow it, and are a part of its royalty."

CHAPTER XIV.

ON THE NATIONALITY OF A SHIP, AND OTHER MATTERS
RELATING TO SHIPS.

(1.) JOINT OPINION of the King's Advocate, SIR JAMES MARRIOTT, and the Attorney General, SIR WILLIAM De Grey, on the case of an Arrest in the Isle of Man on board a Ship of War (1). 1770.

MY LORD,-In obedience to his Majesty's commands, signified to us by your Lordship's letter of the 29th June last, we have taken into our consideration the complaint of his Majesty's Governor of the Isle of Man against Lieutenant Whiston, of his Majesty's sloop Ranger; and in answer to the question whether, as the case appears to us, the process was regularly executable on the said Lieutenant Whiston by the officer therein mentioned on board his Majesty's ship, and what directions it may be proper to give to the said Governor for his future conduct, we have the honour to answer that it appears to us, from the return of Joseph Labat, deputy captain, or one of the peace officers of the Isle of Man under that denomination, that when he repaired, in consequence of the order of the Governor, alongside of his Majesty's said ship, she was then riding within the high-water mark, for which reason he did not think himself authorized to execute the arrest. It also appears to us, agreeably to report of the Attorney General and the magistrates of the island, that the jurisdictions of the said island are become vested in his Majesty; and that the deputy-searchers who formerly executed arrests below the full sea-mark are now officers of the revenue only.

That in consequence thereof there are no peace officers now who

(1) From a M. S. in the possession of Sir Travers Twiss, Queen's Advocate, which formerly belonged to Sir James Marriott.

can execute arrests in any cause purely civil upon the sea in the flux and reflux thereof. But that the High Court of Admiralty upon the realm hath only jurisdiction upon the sea, and that the civil authority only extends to arrests on board of vessels above sea-water mark, that is, on board such as lie . . . . . . in the bed of the ooze or sand, being so left dry at land by the water being at low-water mark, so that the said ship may be intended or understood to be infra corpus comitatus. Upon the whole, as far as appears from the aforesaid case, it does not seem to us that any peace officer of municipal jurisdiction only could legally execute an arrest on board the ship in question, or of any ship (whether his Majesty's or not), under the same circumstances, riding upon the

sea.

With regard to the expediency or impropriety of permitting his Majesty's ships, or any other ships, to be asylums against actions of debt, or any other prosecutions, it is a matter which relates to the manning his Majesty's ships and the rules and regulations of the navy; and it is submitted to superior wisdom whether it may be fit by any new law to make alterations therein.

The Right Hon. the Earl of Rochford,

&c. &c. &c.

December 1770.

JAMES MARRIOTT.
WM. DE GREY.

(2.) OPINION of the King's Advocate, SIR JAMES MARRIOTT, on the right of property in a Vessel derelict on the Ocean (1). 1772.

To the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury. MY LORDS,-In obedience to your Lordships' commands, I have taken into my consideration a letter of Charles Lutwidge, Esq., together with the affidavits enclosed of Thomas Nunns, Robert Cornate, Castill Corus, and James Howard, belonging to the snow Henry, of Liverpool, Thomas Saratt, master, in regard to a ship found by them and others floating on the high seas about twentythree leagues to the south-west of the rock called Tuscar, and by them brought to anchor in the Bay of Peel, in the Isle of Man,

(1) From the saine M. S.

where she afterwards parted from her cables and was lost, but the greatest part of the cargo was saved :—whether the ship and cargo are to be considered as derelict, and as such the property of the finders, under the reservation of the claim of the original owners, if any shall appear?-or, whether the same are flotsam taken upon the high seas, and as such the property of his Majesty, under the right of salvage, by the finders, according to the law and custom of the Isle of Man ?

I have the honour to observe to your Lordships, that this case is not to be considered as at all affected by the place where the cargo was saved, but by the place where the vessel was first found; for to whomsoever the cargo and vessel belonged at the time of finding, to that person the cargo saved must belong, subject to salvage as usual, according to circumstances attending the degree of risk and labour in saving; so that, if the ship and cargo belonged, at the time and place when and where first found, to his Majesty or to the finders, to the same will belong, being once vested, the cargo which was saved after the ship was anchored in any harbour wheresoever and afterwards cast away.

For the greater clearness and precision, the two questions may be reduced into one,-In whom, whether in the King or the finders, did the property vest when first found?

The principal facts which seem to deserve attention are the distance of the vessel from the shore (twenty-three leagues), and that the vessel was not in a wrecked condition at the instant of time when found. These circumstances occasion a nicety in the question in point of law.

On the authority of the cases in Lord Coke, Sir Henry Constable's Case, pt. 5, fol. 107, 5 Co. 106 a-5 Co. 106 b.; and of Bracton on the Laws and Customs of England, lib. iii., c. 2, fol. 138, de Corona; and of Molloy, de Jure Maritimo, b. 2, c. 5, flotsam is when the ship is sunk, or otherwise perished, and the goods float upon the sea-viz., at the time of finding.

Now it is there said that the King shall have flotsam and jetsam, what is flung out to lighten the ship, and lagan, what is sunk in shoal-water when the ship perisheth, but when the ship perishes not, e contra.

The authority of Bracton as to the common law of the realm i

doubtless very great, who, according to Selden, was a Judge of the Common Bench or Pleas in the reign of Henry III., and wrote a book, De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ. He lived in the time Magna Charta was made, according to my Lord Coke (4 Instit. 72), and was a strong favourer of the liberty of the subject, as is said by Justice Crawley in Hampden's trial. In lib. iii., fol. 128, tit. de Corona, he makes it to be an essential quality of wreck in right of the King or his grantee, "Si navis frangatur," that the ship should be broke to pieces unless any proprietor can be made out; so that if there is a dog alive, and a person can prove property in the dog, he shall be presumed to be the owner of the ship, and cargo too, so as to oust the Crown. However, the statute 3 Edw. 1, which was made after Bracton's time, gives no further effect to the circumstance of man, dog, or cat escaping alive out of a ship than that it shall suspend judgment of wreck for a year and a day, for persons having interest to prove their property for restitution, otherwise the goods to be seized for the King's use.

But that part of Bracton which is most applicable to the present question is, the distinction which he makes of distance from the shore. If, says he, the ship or goods are found at a great distance from the shore, so that it is perfectly uncertain upon what coast they might be cast, then whatever is found shall be the property of the finder-on this ground, because it cannot be said to be the property of any man, and which, therefore, by law is given to the taker, because no man hath privilege therein; and the King hath not any more than a private person: and the reason hereof is the uncertainty of the event where the goods may be stranded. I believe this is a tolerably exact translation of Bracton's Latin.

Now this, with submission to such great authority, I take not to be law, because it is founded upon a false reason, if true reason only makes law and false reason cannot alter it; for the property of the ship does not depend upon the uncertainty upon what shore and into what dominion the ship or cargo may be carried, but it depends upon the certainty of what dominion it is found in, and by whose subjects, for the dominion of the King is over all the narrow seas, as we assert even with respect to foreigners passing through them: and, à fortiori, it follows the person of the subject