alled "tenths," in imitation of the French, who gave their
admiral a _droit de dixieme_. The _droits of admiralty_ were definitely
surrendered for the benefit of the public by Prince George of Denmark,
when lord high admiral of England in 1702. American law does not
recognize any such _droits_, and the disposition of captured property is
regulated by various acts of Congress.

The term _droit_ is also used in various legal connexions (for _French
law_, see FRANCE: _law_), such as the _droit_ of angary (q.v.), the
_droit d'achat_ (right of pre-emption) in the case of contraband (q.v.),
the feudal _droit de bris_ (see WRECK), the _droit de regale_ or ancient
royal privilege of claiming the revenues and patronage of a vacant
bishopric, and the feudal droits of seignory generally.

DROITWICH, a market town and municipal borough in the Droitwich
parliamentary division of Worcestershire, England, 5-1/2 m. N.N.E. of
Worcester, and 126 m. N.W. by W. from London by the Great Western
railway. Pop. (1901) 4201. It is served by the Bristol-Birmingham line
of the Midland railway, and by the Worcester-Shrewsbury line of the
Great Western. It stands on the river Salwarpe, an eastern tributary of
the Severn. There is connexion with the Severn by canal. There are three
parish churches, St Andrew, St Peter and St Michael, of which the two
first are fine old buildings in mixed styles, while St Michael's is
modern. The principal occupation is the manufacture of the salt obtained
from the brine springs or _wyches_, to which the town probably owes both
its name and its origin. The springs also give Droitwich a considerable
reputation as a health resort. There are Royal Brine baths, supplied
with water of extreme saltness, St Andrew's baths, and a private bath
hospital. The water is used in cases of gout, rheumatism and kindred
diseases. Owing to the pumping of the brine for the salt-works there is
a continual subsidence of the ground, detrimental to the buildings, and
new houses are mostly built in the suburbs. In the pleasant well-wooded
district surrounding Droitwich the most noteworthy points are Hindlip
Hall, 3 m. S., where (in a former mansion) some of the conspirators in
the Gunpowder Plot defied search for eight days (1605); and Westwood, a
fine hall of Elizabethan and Carolean date on the site of a Benedictine
nunnery, a mile west of Droitwich, which offered a retreat to many
Royalist cavaliers and churchmen during the Commonwe