royalty being found inconvenient for the purpoſes of public juſtice, and for the revenue, (it affording a commodious aſylum for debtors, outlaws, and ſmugglers) authority was given to the treaſury by ſtatute 12 Geo. I. c. 28. to purchaſe the intereſt of the then proprietors for the uſe of the crown: which purchaſe was at length completed in the year 1765, and confirmed by ſtatutes 5 Geo. III. c. 26 and 39. whereby the whole iſland and all it’s dependencies, ſo granted as aforeſaid, (except the landed property of the Atholl family, their manerial rights and emoluments, and the patronage of the biſhoprick[1] and other eccleſiaſtical benefices) are unalienably veſted in the crown, and ſubjected to the regulations of the Britiſh exciſe and cuſtoms.
The iſlands of Jerſey, Guernſey, Sark, Alderney, and their appendages, were parcel of the duchy of Normandy, and were united to the crown of England by the firſt princes of the Norman line. They are governed by their own laws, which are for the moſt part the ducal cuſtoms of Normandy, being collected in an antient book of very great authority, entituled, le grand couſtumier. The king’s writ, or proceſs from the courts of Weſtminſter, is there of no force; but his commiſſion is. They are not bound by common acts of our parliaments, unleſs particularly named[2]. All cauſes are originally determined by their own officers, the bailiffs and jurats of the iſlands; but an appeal lies from them to the king in council, in the laſt reſort.
Besides theſe adjacent iſlands, our more diſtant plantations in America, and elſewhere, are alſo in ſome reſpects ſubject to the Engliſh laws. Plantations, or colonies in diſtant countries, are either ſuch where the lands are claimed by right of occupancy only, by finding them deſart and uncultivated, and peopling them from the mother country; or where, when already cultivated, they have been either gained by conqueſt, or ceded to us by treaties. And both theſe rights are founded upon the law of nature,
- ↑ The biſhoprick of Man, or Sodor, or Sodor and Man, was formerly within the province of Canterbury, but annexed to that of York by ſtatute 33 Hen. VIII. c. 31.
- ↑ 4 Inſt. 286.
