BY SIR JOHN HAWKINS. 203 



water, 3d Coke's Reports, 553. Child and Green- 

 hill's case ; but he must set forth the nature and 

 number of the fish taken, 5 Coke's Reports, 35. 

 Playter's case, and 3d Coke, 18. 



A free fishery is a right to take fish in the 

 water and soil of another, and is derived out of a 

 several fishery. If one seized of a river, grants, 

 without including the soil, a several fishery, or, 

 which amounts to no more than that, his water t 

 a right of fishing passes, and nothing else. Plow- 

 den's Commentary, 154, b. Coke on Littleton, 4, b. 

 And the word several, in such case, is synony- 

 mous with sole, and that in so strict a sense, that 

 by such a grant not only strangers, but even the 

 owner of the soil is excluded from fishing there. 

 Co. Lit. 122, a. And farther, where one pre- 

 scribes to have a several fishery in a water, which 

 prescription always supposes a grant precedent, 

 the owner of a soil, as much as a stranger, is 

 liable to an action if he fishes there : 2 Boll. 258, 

 the case of Foriston and Catchrode in the Com- 

 mon Pleas. Mich. 29 and 30 Eliz. But here th' 

 writ shall vary from that in the case of a sever?, 

 fishery, and demand " wherefore the defendant, 

 in the free fishery of the plaintiff at N., without 

 the licence and consent of the plaintiff, was fish- 



