■26 Oft Manorial Claims. Jan, 



Jnconfiftent with that fecurlty of property which ought to be 

 lield inviolable in all civilized countries. 



All thisiinjuftice and partiality, all this abfurdity and griev- 

 ance, would be effeftually banilhed, were the whole code of 

 the game laws repealed, and a new law enabled, founded on the 

 principles of juftice and equity; whereby the abfohite property 

 of the game Ihould be veiled, as of common right it ought to 

 be, in the proprietor of the land it can be killed on ; whether 

 fuch land be a rood, or an acre ; whether a garden, a field, or 

 a wood. It will appear, from the above quotation from the 

 learned and laborious Blackftone, that this would be nothing 

 more than a revival of the ancient Saxon orBritifh law, which 

 for ages had thus operated before the irruption of the Norman 

 Conquerors •, by whofe fatal fuccefs all the excellent and free 

 inftitutions of Anglo-Saxon policy were fwept away, and on 

 the ruins of which thofe tyrannous maxims of the feudal and 

 'military fyftem, were firmly eftabliflied. A reafonable objec- 

 tion to this repeal can fcarcely be llarted ; and the writer of 

 this effiiy well remembers it as the decided opinion of that 

 illuftrious Peer, the late Marquis of Rockingham ; the fitua- 

 tion of whofe principal manfion, in the vicinity of populous 

 towns, rendered all attention to the prefervation of the game 

 from- poachers aimed a j?;ke, on the principles of the game 

 laws, which, in addition to its obvious equity, might probably 

 create a wifli in him for the reftoration of the more juft and 

 rational S^on law. 



2. Suit a?id Service to freehold and copyhold courts, to be 

 performed in kind, as was more generally the cafe formerly, 

 were of two kinds, viz. Free or military, and other fervices ap- 

 pendant to the tenant in free focage ; or, in other words, the 

 holder or owner of lands in fee-fimple of inheritance, anciently 

 bokland, or bookland, q. d. Lands held by written charter or 

 deed, now called Freehold. Thefe fervices being confidered 

 as in fome degree honorary and certain, were commuted by 

 an eafy payment, under various denominatiotis, fuch as quit- 

 rents, fr(?e-farm rents, cartle-guard rents, &c. &c. which it is 

 not in the power of the lord of the manor to increafe. The 

 other kind, viz. mean or bafe fervices appendant to the tenant 

 in villain focage, or the holder or owner of lands, by copy of 

 the court roll, at the will of the lord of the manor, and, accord- 

 ing to the cuftom of the fame, anciently called folkland^ now 

 copyhold. Thefe fervices confided in cultivating the domain of 

 the lord of the manor, and many other laborious operations, 

 which being more im-portant and fubftantial, were of greater 

 value, and of courfe commuted, by payment of annualrents of 

 much j^reater amount, and by fines, certain and uncertayi, to 

 Le paid by the vaffal or copyholder, who confequently is in a 



fituatioi^ 



