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issuing from the governor, the judges, or courts of justice; and he has authority to sell, after the legal forms are gone through, such effects as he has arrested, or distrained in the first instance.

In criminal matters, or for breach of the peace, he may arrest by virtue of his office, and without a warrant; and the party breaking the peace, or who strikes or obstructs the coroner in the execution of his office, besides incurring imprisonment, forfeits three pounds to the lord*. Like the English sheriff, he must execute the sentence of the judge, though it should extend to death.

If a coroner should happen to die within the year of his office, his rod must be taken from his house by a constable, and carried to the governor, who will immediately appoint another to be sworn, and to act for the remainder of the year.

The coroner of Glanfaba takes precedence of all the other coroners, and it is his duty to serve all process against his brother coroners; and in case any complaint should be alleged against him, the summons to answer it is, by a special order, directed to some of the other coroners, or to the lockman of the parish in which he resides.

It is also the coroner's duty to assist in the salvage and sale of wrecks †, belonging to the crown or the lord. In order that the coroner

* Liber Cancel. 1584.

+ By ancient custom, the salvers of any goods taken up at sea, and brought on shore, and delivered to the proper officer, get one half of the value thereof.

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may be enabled to execute these various duties, he has under him a deputy in each parish, called a Lockman.

There is also in each parish in the island, an ancient officer called a Moar, who collects the rents and fines due to the lord, and also the escheats, deodands, waifs, and estrays, for the lord's use. The moar also executes the precepts of the baron court.

By the statute of 1442, fourpence shall be paid yearly out of every quarter-land to the coroner, and twopence for cottages and intacks of above three shillings and fourpence rent.

The coroner is also entitled to the horses, mares, oxen, and kine, of two years old and under, the property of felons, and to their sheep of one year old and under, as well as to their broken stack of oats: and also to the corbs appertaining to a heir convicted of felony; and he is also entitled to the broken stack of corn, and beasts of three years old and under, the property of a felo de se.

OF THE RIGHTS AND PREROGATIVES OF HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF ATHOLL, AS LORD OF THE SEIGNORY OF MAN, AND PARTICULARLY WITH RESPECT TO GAME.

AFTER what has been said on the subject of the ancient constitution of the island, it will be unnecessary to revert to the arbitrary ordinances, or positive laws of other countries, in order to exemplify the exclusive right of the Duke of Atholl, as lord of Man, to certain franchises or royal prerogatives, usually incident to sovereign authority; such as the patronage of the bishoprick, escheats, effects of traitors and felons, wrecks of the sea*, estrays, deodands, mines, derelict lands, chases (which word comprises, in the fullest extent, the exclusive right to game), forests, parks, warrens, huntings, piscaries, &c. &c.;-it may be sufficient to shew, that by the British act, which revested the sovereignty of the island in the crown, in the year 1765, these royal franchises are, in the fullest manner, reserved to the noble family of Atholl in perpetuity; under the honorary service of rendering to his Majesty, his heirs and successors, two falcons, on the days of their respective coronations.

Since the revesting act, the Duke of Atholl's

* It has been contended by the law-officers for the crown, that, notwithstanding this exception, articles coming under the description of jetsam, flotsam, and legan, will not pass, although they were uniformly appropriated to the lord, previous to the revesting act.

interest in the island is a seignory, or lordship paramount, of the highest order; because, independent of its unique reserved regal privileges, it is held immediately under the sovereign; it has, therefore, been very improperly designated a manor; for a manor or lordship, in the early times of the legal constitution of England, was frequently granted by the great barons to inferior persons, to be held mediately through them, and not immediately under the

crown*.

With respect to one branch of the above reserved prerogatives, viz. animals feræ naturæ, or what are commonly known by the denomination of game, the exclusive right thereto, as appears by all the records, was immemorially vested in the king or lord of Man only, and had its origin in the feudal policy. In most nations, the prerogative of hunting and taking game has, for various reasons, been invested in the sovereign, or such only as he should authorize; and the chief reason for this sole investiture appears to have been for preventing popular insurrections, by disarming the bulk of the people. These prohibitions are not any natural injustice, for, it is observed by Puffendorf, that the law does not hereby take from any man his present property, but barely abridges him of one means of acquiring a future property. By the law of England, no man, but he who has a chase or free warren, by grant from the crown, or by prescription,

*Black. Com. Book II. p. 91.

+ Warburton's Alliance, 324.

which presumes a grant, or some authority by act of parliament, can justify, in strictness of the common law, sporting at all; for the sole right of taking and destroying game, belongs exclusively to the king, or those who, under his authority, have a royal franchise of chase, free warren, park, or free fishery; notwithstanding the introduction of new penalties by certain statutes (like the act of Tynwald, made for preserving the game), and which merely exempt such as are vulgarly termed qualified persons from the modern penalties: For killing game, without a grant of chase, or free warren, is still in strictness, an encroachment on the royal prerogative; and, although a person so encroaching may be exempt from the penalties of the game statutes, he is not only liable to an action of trespass by the owner of the land, but also, if he kills game within the limits of any. royal franchise, to the action of such who may have the right of chase or free warren*. -With these preliminary observations, there can be no difficulty in asserting, that the sole and exclusive right to the game (which is invariably called, in all the ancient ordinances, and acts of Tynwald, the lord's game), or the right to animals, fera natura, in the island, is undoubtedly vested in the Duke of Atholl, as lord and original proprietor, through his ancestors and predecessors, of all the lands in the island; with the exception of the lord bishop, in respect of his barony (which may imply a right or grant of chase or free warren in the

* Blackstone, Com. 6. 2. ch. 27.

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