A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



increase in the number of boats at the various ports since 1576 ; Rye, Hastings, Pevensey, 

 Meeching, and Brighton were returned as stationary with the 20, 16, 2, 4, and 30 fishing 

 boats they had previously possessed, but Shoreham and Arundel, with four boats each, and 

 Chichester with two, showed an improvement. 1 For Brighton, however, the ' Book of Ancient 

 Customs' oi58o gives a far more favourable return of 80 boats; 8 the discrepancy may probably 

 be explained by the Trinity House report dealing with only deep-sea fishing boats, and in this 

 branch Brighton had taken part in the North Sea cod fishery for forty years before it was compiled. 

 The Rye share of the cod fishery improved, temporarily, after the middle of the century, for in 

 1572 its fishermen petitioned that during the past fifteen years they had had an average of 34 boats 

 working, although the number had fallen to three in 1571.' They ascribed their failure to the 

 foreign importation offish. In 1580 the town possessed 31 boats of from 10 to 22 tons, employing 

 20O men besides boys. 4 



Through many centuries the right of wreck was coveted by both manorial lords and 

 corporations, both for profit and, incidentally, as evidence of exemption from the inquisition of the 

 High Admiral. Legally, if man, dog, or cat escaped alive from a ship it was no wreck ; but if the 

 cargo once came into the hands of the dwellers on the coast there was small chance of recovery. 

 Every corporation used what influence it possessed to obtain local jurisdiction in admiralty matters, 

 not only as a question of dignity and profit, but even more with the object of escaping the arbitrary 

 and expensive proceedings of the Admiral's deputies, who brought much odium on their master. The 

 question of wreck and admiralty rights is more than usually obscure in Sussex and Kent on account 

 of the complicated relation between private privileges, those of the Lord Admiral, and those of the 

 Cinque Ports. From the Hundred Rolls we find that in 1275 Earl de Warenne and the queen- 

 mother had wreck rights in Seaford and Pevensey ; less important persons possessed them in Bexhill, 

 Birling, and other coast manors. How these claims were reconciled with the undoubted exercise of 

 the same rights by the Cinque Ports it is impossible to say. Perhaps a quo warranto of 7 Edward I, 

 concerning the relation of Hastings to the manor of Bexhill in the matter of wreck, was one of the 

 first-fruits of the charter of 1278. The limits of the Cinque Ports were very uncertain ; it is said 

 that 'anciently ' they extended on the south coast to the Red Nore, or Redware, by Newhaven. 5 

 Wreck at Seaford belonged to the Cinque Ports in the fifteenth century, 6 but in 1263 a rock called 

 ' Whasbetel,' standing in that port, had formed the boundary between the liberties of Peter of Savoy 

 and Earl de Warenne, the latter having all wrecks to the westward and as far east as a man 

 standing on the said rock could throw a hatchet with his right hand while holding with his left 

 hand part of the hair behind his right ear, the right arm during the act of throwing not rising above 

 the left. 7 In 1525 and 1526 the boundary of the Cinque Ports claim had receded to Beachy Head, 

 but notwithstanding this the Warden came to an agreement in 1526, which included Seaford, as to 

 the respective shares of wrecks and ' findalls ' which he and the sailors were to have. 8 The Ports 

 had their own admiralty court, ' the type and original of all our admiralty and maritime courts,' 

 dating from at least the thirteenth century. 9 The earliest document known connected with 

 admiralty jurisdiction is a return to a writ of inquiry of 1357 ; 10 in this case the inquisition took 

 place at Rye, but, later, the Cinque Ports courts were held in the church of St. James at Dover. 

 Unlike many ancient institutions, the admiralty court of the Ports has undergone little change 

 nominally, and was the only one preserved when all other local admiralty courts were abolished 

 by the 5 and 6 Wm. IV, cap. 76 ; practically it is obsolete. No coast town in Sussex, outside the 

 Cinque Ports, obtained any admiralty rights ; such exemptions were usually confined to the great 

 ports whose services were valuable to the crown and whom it was well to reward. 



The question of piracy and wrecking became more prominent during the reign of Henry VIII, 

 not because such offences were more prevalent there were probably fewer cases than during 

 preceding centuries but because suppression was taken in hand more seriously. A king so well 

 acquainted with the political value of the mastery of the sea was little likely to permit a continuation 

 of licence in a field he regarded as peculiarly his own. It had been found that the existing system 

 of trial for piracy was nearly useless, the offender having to confess before he could be sentenced, or 

 his guilt having to be proved by disinterested witnesses, who, naturally, could seldom be present at 

 sea. By two statutes, 27 Henry VIII, cap. 4, and 28 Henry VIII, cap. 15, such crimes were in future 

 to be tried according to the forms of the common, and not as hitherto the civil, law. Probably for 

 the better administration of these statutes and for other reasons connected with international 

 obligations in maritime matters, the protection of the king's and Lord Admiral's rights in wreck, the 



S.P. Dom. Eliz. cxlvii, 21. ' Sttsi. Arch. Cott. ii, 38. 



Hiit. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. iv, 18. ' Ibid. 71. 



Suss. Arch. Coll. xvii, 148. 8 R. G. Marsden, Select Pleas in the Court of Admiralty, II, xxix. 



Assize R. 912, m. 7. * L. and P. Hen. VIII, iv, 2250 (4). 



R. G. Marsden, Select Pleas, II, xxi. 10 Ibid, xxi, Iviii. 



146 





