loaded with their payment, very little of them is now returned into the king's exchequer; for a part of whoſe royal maintenance they were originally intended. All future grants of them however, by the ſtatute 1 Ann. ſt. 2. c. 7. are to endure for no longer time than the prince's life who grants them.
X. A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, ſaid to be grounded on the conſideration of his guarding and protecting the ſeas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fiſh, which are whale and ſturgeon: and theſe, when either thrown aſhore, or caught near the coaſts, are the property of the king, on account[1] of their ſuperior excellence. Indeed our anceſtors ſeem to have entertained a very high notion of the importance of this right; it being the prerogative of the kings of Denmark and the dukes of Normandy[2]; and from one of theſe it was probably derived to our princes. It is expreſſly claimed and allowed in the ſtatute de praerogativa regis[3]: and the moſt antient treatiſes of law now extant make mention of it[4]; though they ſeem to have made a diſtinction between whale and ſturgeon, as was incidentally obſerved in a former chapter[5].
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[6]. But this
