326 WHALE-FISHERY. 



have a chance of succeeding in tlie recapture,) is ai| 

 act at once mean and dcspicahlc. It would also shew 

 him, that nothing could justify such an act, but the 

 certainty, that the original strikers could have lit- 

 tle or no chance of ever recovering the possession of 

 the fish themselves. As the application of this max- 

 im, howe'^er, must depend upon the integrity of 

 character of those individuals engaged in the trans- 

 action, it cannot be expected, in a case where self- 

 interest is so deeply concerned, that it should be 

 universally respected. So lir.bie, indeed, is the judg- 

 ment to be warped by an interested feeling, that its 

 decisions in such a case are rarely to be depended 

 on, unless the question can be considered abstractly 

 from this prejudicial influence. 



If any person should, unintentionally, be led to 

 strike a fish which has just escaped from another, I 

 conceive he is justified in retaining it, the meanness 

 of the act not consisting in the transaction itself, 

 but in the design to seize upon a fish, in point of 

 equity the right of another. But any one who is 

 the original striker of a whale, must, undoubtedly, 

 condemn him wiio designedly interferes, and must 

 esteem the act of intentionally anticipating his 

 boats, as little better than a robbery. 



From the second law, a fish m.ay alternately be- 

 come the property of several persons, each of whose 

 claim immediately ceases, the moment he loses pos- 

 session. 



