made a distinction between whale and sturgeon, as was
incidentally observed in a former chapter[y].

[Footnote t: Plowd. 315.]

[Footnote u: Stiernh. _de jure Sueonum._ _l._ 2. _c._ 8. _Gr.
Coustum._ _cap._ 17.]

[Footnote w: 17 Edw. II. c. 11.]

[Footnote x: Bracton. _l._ 3. _c._ 3. Britton. _c._ 17. Fleta. _l._ 1.
_c._ 45 & 46.]

[Footnote y: ch. 4. pag. 216.]

XI. ANOTHER maritime revenue, and founded partly upon the same reason,
is that of shipwrecks; which are also declared to be the king's
property by the same prerogative statute 17 Edw. II. c. 11. and were
so, long before, at the common law. It is worthy observation, how
greatly the law of wrecks has been altered, and the rigour of it
gradually softened, in favour of the distressed proprietors. Wreck, by
the antient common law, was where any ship was lost at sea, and the
goods or cargo were thrown upon the land; in which case these goods,
so wrecked, were adjudged to belong to the king: for it was held,
that, by the loss of the ship, all property was gone out of the
original owner[z]. But this was undoubtedly adding sorrow to sorrow,
and was consonant neither to reason nor humanity. Wherefore it was
first ordained by king Henry I, that if any person escaped alive out
of the ship it should be no wreck[a]; and afterwards king Henry II, by
his charter[b], declared, that if on the coasts of either England,
Poictou, Oleron, or Gascony, any ship should be distressed, and either
man or beast should escape or be found therein alive, the goods should
remain to the owners, if they claimed them within three months; but
otherwise should be esteemed a wreck, and should belong to the king,
or other lord of the franchise. This was again confirmed with
improvements by king Richard the first, who, in the second year of his
reign[c], not only established these concessions, by ordaining that
the owner, if he was shipwrecked and escaped, "_omnes res suas liberas
et quietas haberet_," but also, that, if he perished, his children, or
in default of them his brethren and sisters, should retain the
property; and, in default of brother or sister, then the goods should
remain to the king[d]. And the law, so long after as the reign of
Henry III, seems still to have been guided by the same equitable
provisions. For then if a dog (for instance) escaped, by which the
owner might be discovered, or if any certain mark were set on the
goods, by which they might be known again, it was held