species of esquires Sir Henry Spelman entitles armigeri nataliti. (x) 3. Esquires created by the King's letters patent, or other investiture; and their eldest sons. 4. Esquires by virtue of their offices; as justices of the peace, and others who bear any office of trust under the crown. To these may be added, the esquires of knights of the Bath, each of whom constitutes three at his installation; and all foreign, nay, Irish peers; for not only these, but the eldest sons of peers of Great Britain, though frequently titular lords, are only esquires in the law, and must be so named in all legal proceedings. (y) As for gentlemen, says Sir Thomas Smith, (2) they be made good cheap in this kingdom: for whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the universities, who professeth the liberal sciences, and, to be short, who can live idly, and without manual labor, and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master, and shall be taken for a gentleman. A yeoman is he that hath free land of forty shillings by the year; who was anciently thereby qualified to serve on juries, vote for knights of the *shire, and do any other act, where the law requires one that is probus et legalis homo. (a)

[*407]

The rest of the commonalty are tradesmen, artificers, and labourers; who, as well as all others, must in pursuance of the statute, 1 Hen. V, c. 5, be styled by the name and addition of their estate, degree, or mystery, and the place to which they belong, or where they

(x) Gloss. 43. (y) 3 Inst. 30. 2 Inst. 667. (x) Commonw. of Eng. b. 1 c. 20. (a) 2 Inst. 668.

have been conversant, in all original writs of actions personal, appeals, and indictments, upon which process of outlawry may be awarded; in order, as it should seem, to prevent any clandestine or mistaken outlawry, by reducing to a specific certainty the person who is the object of its process.

The former book of these Commentaries having treated at large of the jura personarum, or such rights and duties as are annexed to the persons of men, the objects of our inquiry in this second book will be the jura rerum, or those rights which a man may acquire in and to such external things as are unconnected with his person. These are what the writers on natural law style the rights of dominion, or property, concerning the nature and original of which I shall first premise a few observations, before I proceed to distribute and consider its several objects.

*There is nothing which so generally strikes the [*2] imagination, and engages the affections of man

*This is Volume or Book II of Blackstone's Commentaries, from which chapters of interest to American students are selected.

kind, as the right of property; or that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. And yet there are very few that will give themselves the trouble to consider the original and foundation of this right.

Pleased as we are with the possession, we seem afraid to look back to the means by which it was acquired, as if fearful of some defect in our title; or at best we rest satisfied with the decision of the laws in our favor, without examining the reason or authority upon which those laws have been built. We think it enough that our title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor, by descent from our ancestors, or by the last will and testament of the dying owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately and strictly speaking) there is no foundation in nature or in natural law, why a set of words upon parchment should convey the dominion of land; why the son should have a right to exclude his fellow creatures from a determinate spot of ground, because his father had done so before him; or why the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when lying on his death-bed, and no longer able to maintain possession, should be entitled to tell the rest of the world which of them should enjoy it after him. These inquiries, it must be owned, would be useless and even troublesome in common life. It is well if the mass of mankind will obey the laws when made, without scrutinizing too nicely into the reasons of making them.

But, when law is to be considered not only as a matter

of practice, but also as a rational science, it cannot be improper or useless to examine more deeply the rudiments and grounds of these positive constitutions of society.

In the beginning of the world, we are informed by holy writ, the all-bountiful Creator gave to man "dominion over all the earth; and over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth *upon the earth." (a) This is [*3] the only true and solid foundation of man's dominion over external things, whatever airy metaphysical notions may have been started by fanciful writers upon this subject. The earth, therefore, and all things therein, are the general property of all mankind, exclusive of other beings, from the immediate gift of the Creator. And, while the earth continued bare of inhabitants, it is reasonable to suppose that all was in common among them, and that every one took from the public stock to his own use such things as his immediate necessities required.

These general notions of property were then sufficient to answer all the purposes of human life; and might perhaps still have answered them had it been possible for mankind to have remained in a state of primeval simplicity: as may be collected from the manners of many American nations when first discovered by the Europeans; and from the ancient method of living among the first Europeans themselves, if we may credit

(a) Gen. i, 28.