pursued, and that nothing be attempted which may derogate from the sovereignty of the mother-country. 3. Charter governments, in the nature of civil corporations, with the power of making bye-laws for their own interior regulation, not contrary to the laws of England; and with such rights and authorities as are specially given them in their several charters of incorporation. The form of government in most of them is borrowed from that of England. They have a governor named by the king, (or in some proprietary colonies by the proprietor,) who is his representative or deputy. They have courts of justice of their own, from whose decisions an appeal lies to the king and council here in England. Their general assemblies, which are their house of commons, together with [110] their council of state, being their upper house, with the concurrence of the king, or his representative the governor, make laws suited to their own emergencies. But it is particularly declared by statute 7 & 8 W. III. c. 22 [s. 9.] that all laws, bye-laws, usages, and customs, which shall be in practice in any of the plantations, repugnant to any law made or to be made in this kingdom relative to the said plantation, shall be utterly void and of none effect. And, because several of the colonies had claimed the sole and exclusive right of imposing taxes upon themselves, the statute 6 Geo. III. c. 12. expressly declares, that all his majesty's colonies and plantations in America have been, are, and of right ought to be, subordinate to and dependent upon the imperial crown and parliament of Great Britain; who have full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient validity to bind the colonies and people of America, subjects of the crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever. And this authority has been since very forcibly exemplified, and carried into act, by the statute 7 Geo. III. c. 59. for suspending the legislation of New-York; and by several subsequent statutes (9).

· (9) It is hardly necessary to state that the American colonies, who had united to the number of thirteen states, in their opposition to the mother country, succeeded in establishing their independence, and were recognized as a separate independent state by a treaty of peace, executed on the 3d of September, 1783.

This country, however, still retains provinces in North America, and in other parts of the globe, to which the reasoning of the text applies. The territories of the East India Company can hardly be said in principle to

stand

THESE are the several parts of the dominions of the crown of Great Britain, in which the municipal laws of England are not of force or authority, merely as the municipal laws of England. Most of them have probably copied the spirit of their own law from this original; but then it receives its obligation, and authoritative force, from being the law of the country.

As to any foreign dominions which may belong to the per- [111] son of the king by hereditary descent, by purchase or other acquisition, as the territory of Hanover, and his majesty's other property in Germany; as these do not in any wise ap pertain to the crown of these kingdoms, they are entirely unconnected with the laws of England, and do not communi. cate with this nation in any respect whatsoever. The English legislature had wisely remarked the inconveniences that had formerly resulted from dominions on the continent of Europe; from the Norman territory which William the conqueror brought with him, and held in conjunction with the English throne; and from Anjou, and it's appendages, which fell to Henry the second by hereditary descent. They had seen the nation engaged for near four hundred years together in ruinous wars for defence of these foreign dominions; till, happily for this country, they were lost under the reign of Henry the Sixth. (10) They observed that, from that time, the maritime interests of England were better understood and more closely pursued: that, in consequence of this attention, the nation, as soon as she had rested from her civil wars, began at this period to flourish all at once; and became much more considerable in Europe than when her princes were possessed of a larger territory, and her counsels distracted by

stand on a different footing: they are under the sovereignty of the Crown of the United Kingdom, but the possession, revenues, and government of them are granted to the Company until the 10th of April 1831 absolutely, and afterwards until three years' notice be given by parliament, and a certain debt due from the public to the Company be paid. They are granted, however, subject to such limitation and controul as had been provided by the legislature before, or was provided by the 53 Geo. III. c.155., the last statute by which the charter of the Company was renewed.

(10) Calais was retained till the 5th year of Queen Mary, when it was lost by the supine inattention of the queen's government, to the great mortification of the nation.

foreign interests. This experience and these considerations gave birth to a conditional clause in the act of settlement, which vested the crown in his present majesty's illustrious house, "that in case the crown and imperial dignity of this "realm shall hereafter come to any person not being a native "of this kingdom of England, this nation shall not be obliged "to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or "territories which do not belong to the crown of England, "without consent of parliament."

WE come now to consider the kingdom of England in particular, the direct and immediate subject of those laws, concerning which we are to treat in the ensuing commentaries. And this comprehends not only Wales and Berwick, of which enough has been already said, but also part of the sea. The main or high seas are part of the realm of England, for thereon [112] our courts of admiralty have jurisdiction, as will be shewn hereafter; but they are not subject to the common law P. This main sea begins at the low-water-mark. But between the high-water-mark and the low-water-mark, where the sea ebbs and flows, the common law and the admiralty have divisum imperium, and alternate jurisdiction; one upon the water, when it is full sea: and the other upon land, when it is an ebb.

THE territory of England is liable to two divisions: the one ecclesiastical, the other civil.

1. THE ecclesiastical division is, primarily, into two provinces, those of Canterbury and York. A province is the circuit of an archbishop's jurisdiction. Each province contains divers dioceses, or sees of suffragan bishops; whereof Canterbury includes twenty one, and York three: besides the bishopric of the isle of Man, which was annexed to the province of York by king Henry VIII. Every diocese is divided into archdeaconries, whereof there are sixty in all; each archdeaconry into rural deaneries, which are the circuit of the archdeacon's and rural dean's jurisdiction, of whom hereafter; and every deanery is divided into parishes'.

A PARISH is that circuit of ground which is committed to the charge of one parson, or vicar, or other minister having cure of souls therein. These districts are computed to be near ten thousand in number. How antient the division of parishes' is, may at present be difficult to ascertain: for it seems to be agreed on all hands, that in the early ages of christianity in this island, parishes were unknown, or at least signified the same that a diocese does now. There was then no appropriation of ecclesiastical dues to any particular church; but every man was at liberty to contribute his tithes to whatever priest or church he pleased, provided only that he did it to some; or if he made no special appointment or appropriation thereof, they were paid into the hands of the bishop, whose duty it was to distribute them among the clergy, and for other pious pur- [118] poses, according to his own discretion t.

u

MR. CAMDEN " says, England was divided into parishes by archbishop Honorius about the year 630. Sir Henry Hobart " lays it down, that parishes were first erected by the council of Lateran, which was held A. D. 1179. Each widely dif fering from the other, and both of them perhaps from the truth; which will probably be found in the medium between the two extremes. For Mr. Selden has clearly shewn *, that' the clergy lived in common without any division of parisheslong after the time mentioned by Camden. And it appears from the Saxon laws, that parishes were in being long before the date of that council of Lateran, to which they are ascribed by Hobart.

WE find the distinction of parishes, nay even of motherchurches, so early as in the laws of king Edgar, about the year 970. Before that time the consecration of tithes was in general arbitrary; that is, every man paid his own (as was before observed) to what church or parish he pleased. But this being liable to be attended with either fraud, or at least caprice, in the persons paying; and with either jealousies or mean compliances in such as were competitors for receiving

*Camden's Britannia.

Seld. of Tith. 9. 4. 2 Inst. 646. Hob. 296.

"In his Britannia.

w Hob.296.

* Of Tithes, c. 9.

[114]

them; it was now ordered by the law of king Edgar', that “dentur omnes decimae primariae ecclesiae ad quam parochia per"tinet." However, if any thane, or great lord, had a church, within his own demesnes, distinct from the mother-church, in the nature of a private chapel, then, provided such church had a cœmetery or consecrated place of burial belonging to it, he might allot one-third of his tithes for the maintenance of the officiating minister: but, if it had no cometery, the thane must himself have maintained his chaplain by some other means; for in such case all his tithes were ordained to be paid to the primariae ecclesiae or mother-church".

THIS proves that the kingdom was then generally divided into parishes; which division happened probably not all at once, but by degrees. For it seems pretty clear and certain, that the boundaries of parishes were originally ascertained by those of a manor or manors: since it very seldom happens that a manor extends itself over more parishes than one, though there are often many manors in one parish. The lords, as christianity spread itself, began to build churches upon their own demesnes, or wastes, to accommodate their tenants in one or two adjoining lordships; and, in order to have divine service regularly performed therein, obliged all their tenants to appropriate their tithes to the maintenance of the one officiating minister, instead of leaving them at liberty to distribute them among the clergy of the diocese in general; and this tract of land, the tithes whereof were so appropriated, formed a distinct parish. Which will well enough account for the frequent intermixture of parishes one with another. For if a lord had a parcel of land detached from the main of his estate, but not sufficient to form a parish of itself, it was natural for him to endow his newly erected church with the tithes of those disjointed lands; especially if no church was then built in any lordship adjoining to those out-lying parcels.

THUS parishes were gradually formed, and parish churches endowed with the tithes that arose within the circuit assigned. But some lands, either because they were in the hands of irreligious and careless owners, or were situate in forests and

y Seld. of, Tith, c. 1.

2

Ibid. c.2. See also the laws of king Canute, c.11. about the year 1030.