58 



the whole of this, that I am bound to give that construction 

 to the Charter. 



" The defendant has gone into evidence, and I have stated 

 the result of the special pleas. I think the evidence insuffi- 

 cient that he had a right of fishing, exclusive of the world. 

 Such a right can only be acquired by a subject by a grant 

 from the Crown, of which no evidence has been given ; or 

 by prescription of so old a date that the grant can be assumed. 

 One finds not a tittle of evidence in favour of this claim of Mr. 

 Staples. So far as right goes, I think that the plaintiffs have 

 made out their case. It appears to me, that the right to the 

 soil of Lough Foyle was in the Crown, from the deep sea to 

 LifFord, in point of law, and was granted by the Crown to 

 the Society. See whether the defendant's evidence in any 

 way contradicts it. You will see that no one before Mr. 

 Staples's time sold fish for traffic ; and then you will judge 

 whether that is inconsistent with, or meets the plaintiff's pos- 

 session." 



The jury, after a short consultation, found a general verdict 

 for the plaintiff, with 6d. damages and costs ; thus establishing 

 the exclusive right of fishery in the Lough Foyle and the 

 river Bann, together with the ground and soil of the same, to 

 be in the Honourable the Irish Society. 



It appears, from what I have stated in these pages, that the 

 proprietors of salmon fisheries in Ulster possess, in point of 

 law, good title to protection from the legislature against the 

 inroads of trespassers on their property. It is a melancholy 

 reflection that clergymen should be the most active persons in 

 stirring up, in Ulster, a disposition to dispute the claims of the 

 owners of salmon fisheries to what they are entitled to in every 

 sense of justice or equity. 



The immense importance of the fishery property of the Irish 

 Society alone, in the fisheries of the Bann, the Lough Foyle, 

 the Mourne, the Fin water, the Dergwater, and the rivers Roe, 

 Faughan, and other tributary streams, which comprise upwards 

 of two hundred miles of fishing ground, may be gathered from 

 the fact, that the fisheries in the river Spey, in Scotland, though 



