thief (which is called making freſh ſuit) or do convict him afterwards, or procure evidence to convict him, he ſhall have his goods again[1]. Waived goods do alſo not belong to the king, till ſeiſed by ſomebody for his uſe; for if the party robbed can ſeiſe them firſt, though at the diſtance of twenty years, the king ſhall never have them[2]. If the goods are hid by the thief, or left any where by him, ſo that he had them not about him when he fled, and therefore did not throw them away in his flight; theſe alſo are not bona waviata, but the owner may have them again when he pleaſes[3]. The goods of a foreign merchant, though ſtolen and thrown away in flight, ſhall never be waifs[4]: the reaſon whereof may be, not only for the encouragement of trade, but alſo becauſe there is no wilful default in the foreign merchant's not purſuing the thief, he being generally a ſtranger to our laws, our uſages, and our language.
XV. Estrays are ſuch valuable animals as are found wandering in any manor or lordſhip, and no man knoweth the owner of them; in which caſe the law gives them to the king as the general owner and lord paramount of the ſoil, in recompence for the damage which they may have done therein; and they now moſt commonly belong to the lord of the manor, by ſpecial grant from the crown. But in order to veſt an abſolute property in the king or his grantees, they muſt be proclaimed in the church and two market towns next adjoining to the place where they are found; and then, if no man claims them, after proclamation and a year and a day paſſed, they belong to the king or his ſubſtitute without redemption[5]; even though the owner were a minor, or under any other legal incapacity[6]. A proviſion ſimilar to which obtained in the old Gothic conſtitution, with regard to all things that were found, which were to be thrice proclaimed, primum coram comitibus et viatoribus obviis, deinde in proxima villa vel pago,
