Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale
and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.
These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard,
the very learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,--
That as for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs,
because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives;
but that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons,
and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale,
because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture;
and the harpoons and line because when the fish made off
with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles;
and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a right to them.
Now the defendants afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaid
articles were theirs.
A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge,
might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock
of the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin
whaling laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated
by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws
touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will on reflection,
be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence;
For notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture,
the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines,
has but two props to stand on.
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