55 



designed to prevent and punish; and although 

 those proprietors may not give them to swine, 

 yet that they thus illegally take and waste 

 them cannot be denied, and the injury is 

 the same to the public after they are once 

 taken, whether they are applied to swine, or 

 wasted in any other way. Coupling this sta- 

 tute with that of the 2nd of Henry VI., and 1st 

 of Elizabeth, before noticed, it is difficult to 

 comprehend how an exclusive right in any 

 one can be pretended, or how a doubt of the 

 public right can be for a moment entertained. 



The next statute in point of time is that of 

 the 2nd Henry VL, but as I have before noticed 

 it rather at large, I must beg leave to refer the 

 reader to its provisions, which appear to me 

 most important, as recognizing the public right 

 by a legislative enactment. 



known, that in one instance, between thirty and forty bushels 

 of roach, a jack of 351bs., besides other fish, have been taken 

 at a draught. Another instance has occurred equally notorious, 

 of between forty and fifty bushels being in like manner taken ; 

 and I have lately been informed by a person who was present at 

 the time, that between sixty and seventy bushels were taken at 

 another time ; and that a less quantity than this is not thought 

 a good draught. Yet the persons who practice this destructive 

 and illegal system, are those who complain of the poacher and 

 angler. 



