SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 79 



law, and the law, you say, is the essence of justice. A voyage 

 to New South Wales will do you a vast deal of good, and will 

 give you leisure to ruminate on all the consequences of the law 

 of jus tertii, as laid down by yourself, and now brought home 

 to you. Good-by, mon cher : portez vous bien. If you find 

 any salmon in New South Wales, you will probably think of 

 your friend, the/^s tertii tacksman." 



If a man were to cut down and carry off, or steal a tree 

 from one of his Majesty's forests, the act would no doubt be 

 truly jus tertii to all others, except his Majesty, because to no 

 others could it do any injury ; though, even in this case, there 

 would be no great room to admire the morals of the court, who 

 would attempt to screen the offence, by the absurd quibble that 

 because his Majesty himself might, if he pleased, cut the tree, 

 all others might do so too ; but granting that the quibble, for 

 it can scarcely be called a principle, because it is contrary to 

 every principle of common sense, did apply to this case, still 

 it could not be made to extend to cases where an actual injury 

 was inflicted on others, by depriving them of property for time 

 immemorial possessed. If, as we have just stated, on the 

 authority of Erskine, the salmon constitute the estate of the 

 Crown's fishing grantees, as much as the land constitutes the 

 estate of the Crown's land grantees, it must, as we said, be a 

 great absurdity to maintain that they have not a right of pro- 

 perty in such estate, or that the very article which he says 

 constitutes their estate, should still belong to the Crown, because 

 it once did so. To deny their title, therefore, to prosecute those 

 who deprive them of such estate, is the very highest degree of 

 injustice; for if the salmon do not constitute the estate, what 

 does so ? Perhaps we may be told, in the hackneyed style, to 

 which we have already alluded, that in making the grants to 

 the river heritors, the Crown only gave them a right to catch 

 salmon there. Let any lawyer show us, if he can, a grant in 

 which the word " catch " is inserted and if he cannot, where is 

 his authority for saying it ? He may say, that in granting all 

 the mills in the kingdom, the Crown granted only a right to 

 grind in them ; but would the mere circumstance of his saying 

 so, or thinking so, or the idea having come into his head, be 



