LAWS OF THE FISHERY. 329 



tion of tlie law has been repeatedly admitted, I am 

 not aware that it has been legally established. In 

 support of this principle, however, the fishers con- 

 tend, that the existing laws are well adapted to the 

 nature of the trade, and that their application, v. ]ie- 

 ther to fish, or to the stores and cargoes of wrecks, 

 is vmiversal ; that the British laws, relative to sal- 

 vage, and the claim of the original owners on aban- 

 doned or lost property, is foreign to matters of this 

 nature; and, consequently, that in a court of law, the 

 case must bo adjudged by the custom established in 

 the fishing seas, where the transaction took place, 

 and not by the laws of the country where the case 

 is tried. 



The propriety of appropriating all wi'ecked stores 

 to the use of the savers, is argued from the suppo- 

 sition, that few persons w'ould consider the benefit 

 of the usual salvage, (supposing it never to exceed a 

 third), as a sufficient remuneration for encumbering 

 themselves with the stores of wTecks ; and much 

 less would the same reward induce any one to save 

 the cargo of a wi-ecked ship, because by so doing, 

 they would burden themselves with the property of 

 others, of which they must be obliged to render an 

 account, when subsequently it might appear, that 

 had not the room in the ship been thus occupied, 

 they might have procured a full cargo of blubber 

 of their own takinc;, on which no one could have 

 any claim ; and consequently the owners of the 



