It is easy to censure what we do not understand. Hence feudal tyranny and slavery are applied without reason or meaning, where we wish to condemn or express our dislike. The laws respecting Game have no reference whatever to the feudal system; animals are not considered by any writer as forming any part of that system. In this country, when a superior granted land to hold of himself, upon condition of following him to war, or of doing suit and service in his court, the animals were part of the produce of the land; and the maxim as antient as that system immediately attached upon that grant, Cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad cœlum et ad centrum; or sometimes, to use a stronger word in opposition to cœlum, the maxim concludes with usque ad inferos.

The first restriction, or statute introducing a qualification to kill Game, was in the 13 Ric. II. in the year 1389, when the spirit of the feudal system was gone.

The

prohibitions, it will be found that all Forest and Game Laws were introduced into Europe at the same time, and by the same policy, as gave birth to the Feudal System." 2 Black. Com. 412.

The next source of error flows from a false conception of the moral principle, or the original foundation of all property.

It is said that Game, or wild animals, are common to all, and that they become the exclusive property of the first occupant, or of any one who fortunately can catch them.

These animals are declared to be the gift of the Creator to all mankind; and resemble the rain from heaven, the air, and the sun-beams.

All this will be true of animals either swimming in the ocean, or floating upon the ocean, or flying over the ocean. The animals caught there, and appropriated by any one to his own use, by the universal consent of mankind, become as fully his as the water in the wave, the rain from heaven, or the sun-beams which warm him.

But when these animals are fed and nourished upon my undisputed property, or take refuge there, then I think it as agreeable to the general sense and understanding of mankind, that no one has a better right to invade my property to take them, than he has to take the rain water from my cistern, or to come into my drawing-room, or summer-house,

to

to bask in the sun-beams, or to be refreshed by the purity of the passing breeze.

The sun shone alike upon the Conqueror and the Cynic; and neither had a right to intercept the beams which had warmed and cheered the dwelling of the other.

All these are valuable adjuncts or appurtenances of uncontroverted property: he who deprives us of the exclusive enjoyment of them, lessens the value of that property which all are labouring to acquire. Sic utere tuo ut non alienum lædas-" Use your own property, liberty, and rights, without producing any diminution of those of others," is not only a maxim of the Law of England, but is a precept of universal justice. It is conformable also to the principle of all Christian justice; Whatsoever things you would that men should do to you, do ye likewise unto them; for this comprehends all the principles of moral justice: and the legal justice of every country, ought to be made to approximate to it, as far as the condition of man, and human institutions, will permit.

The Law of England, which in all times has given all animal productions to him who has the vegetable produce of the soil, has adopted those

sound

sound principles of morals and religion, by which all property ought to be respected, and held inviolable and sacred.

I have proved, I trust, with success, that Game out of forests or lands so privileged never belonged to the King; that it never belonged in this country to the first occupant, as by the Civil Law, when it was taken upon another's land; that the Game Laws formed no part of the Feudal System; and that, according to the laws of right reason or universal justice, no one has a right to take it upon another's property.

When the subject is thus investigated, it will be found that the Law of England has ever been consistent with itself and the best principles of eternal justice:-that the confusion introduced into the system has arisen from spurious exotic law, false history, and unsound morality.

CHAP. VIII.

ACTIONS AGAINST TRESPASSERS IN PURSUIT OF

GAME.

EVERY

VERY person who comes upon another's land without the leave of the owner, is subject to an action of trespass; and the plaintiff must have a verdict, and some damages, however small: but the verdict in general will be proportioned to the real injury done to the produce of the soil. That is the foundation of the action: but the Jury may give damages, not merely as a compensation for that injury, but also for the injury done to the personal feelings of the plaintiff; as if a person came into another's house, and behaved with rudeness and insolence: the jury might give considerable damages, though no injury whatever was done to any property.

So in a late case, where a Gentleman was travelling in a curricle with his servant, dogs, and gun,

he