302 THE LAWS OF ANGLING. 



CONTINUATION OF THE DISCOURSE B7 SIR JOHN HAWKINS. 



Since the writing the foregoing Discourse, the laws of this country* 

 relative to fish and fishing, have undergone such alterations as would 

 alone justify an addition to it : but as it has, of late, been objected to 

 all laws that assign an exclusive right in any of the creatures of God 

 to particular ranks or orders of men, that they savour of barbarism, 

 and are calculated to serve the purposes of tyranny and ambition, it 

 was thought necessary to trace the matter farther back, and shew from 

 whence laws of this kind derive their force. And though it is not 

 imagined that speculative arguments will operate upon men of licentious 

 principles, yet, as the general tenor of this work supposes the angler to 

 be endued with reason, and under the dominion of conscience, it may 

 not be amiss to state the obligation he is under to an observance of 

 such laws, and to point out to him the several instances where he can- 

 not pursue his recreation without the risk of his quiet. 



Property is universally allowed to be founded on occupancy, the 

 very notion of which implies industry, or some act in the occupant of 

 which no stranger has a right to avail himself: he that first took pos- 

 session of an uncultivated tract of land, provided it was no more than 

 necessary for the subsistence of himself and his family, became thereby 

 the proprietor of such land. 



Mr Locke illustrates this doctrine by an elegant instance : " The 

 water running in the fountain," says he, " is every one's, but that in 

 the pitcher is his who draws it." On Government, book ii. chap. v. 

 sect 29. 



And, if this reasoning be admitted in the case of land, which is ranked 

 among the immoveable objects of property, it is much stronger in favour 

 of things moveable, the right of which is at once claimed, and fortified 

 by an actual possession and separation from that common mass in 

 which they were originally supposed to exist. 



But, notwithstanding the innumerable appropriations which, in the 

 present civilized state of the world, appear to have been made, there are 

 many things which may yet be said to be in common, and in a state of 

 natural liberty ; in this class we may rank creatures ferce naturd, 

 beasts of chase, many kinds of fowl, and all fish. The fisherman in 

 Plautus admits, that none of the fish were his while they remained in 

 their proper element, and insists only in his right to those which he 

 had caught. Rudens, act iv. scene 3. And both the Jewish and 

 Roman lawyers assert, that wild beasts and fish belong only to those 

 who take them.* 



This notion has led many persons to imagine that, even now, there 

 subsists a general community of these creatures ; and that, at this day, 

 every one has a right to take them to his own use, wherever he finds 

 them. Not to insist, that if all men promiscuously were permitted 

 the exercise of this right, it would be of very little benefit to any, it 



* Seld. De Jure Nat et Gent, juxta Discip. Ebraeor. lib. iv. cap. 4 

 Instit lib. ii. tit. i. " De rerum divisione et acquirendo earum Dominio." 

 However, this is to be understood only in cases wherein there is no law to 

 forbid it. Grot. De Jure Belli ac Pacis, lib. ii. cap. 2. sect. 5. 



