only, it is clearly not a legal wreck: but the ſheriff of the county is bound to keep the goods a year and a day (as in France for one year, agreeably to the maritime laws of Oleron[1], and in Holland for a year and an half) that if any man can prove a property in them, either in his own right or by right of repreſentation[2], they ſhall be reſtored to him without delay; but, if no ſuch property be proved within that time, they then ſhall be the king's. If the goods are of a periſhable nature, the ſheriff may ſell them, and the money ſhall be liable in their ſtead[3]. This revenue of wrecks is frequently granted out to lords of manors, as a royal franchiſe; and if any one be thus entitled to wrecks in his own land, and the king's goods are wrecked thereon, the king may claim them at any time, even after the year and day[4].
It is to be obſerved, that, in order to conſtitute a legal wreck, the goods muſt come to land. If they continue at ſea, the law diſtinguiſhes them by the barbarous and uncouth appellations of jetſam, flotſam, and ligan. Jetſam is where goods are caſt into the ſea, and there ſink and remain under water: flotſam is where they continue ſwimming on the ſurface of the waves: ligan is where they are ſunk in the ſea, but tied to a cork or buoy, in order to be found again[5]. Theſe are alſo the king's, if no owner appears to claim them; but, if any owner appears, he is entitled to recover the poſſeſſion. For even if they be caſt overboard, without any mark or buoy, in order to lighten the ſhip, the owner is not by this act of neceſſity conſtrued to have renounced his property[6]: much leſs can things ligan be ſuppoſed to be abandoned, ſince the owner has done all in his power, to aſſert and retain his property. Theſe three are therefore accounted ſo far a diſtinct thing from the former, that by the king's grant to a man of wrecks, things jetſam, flotſam, and ligan will not paſs[7].
