of Westminster I: In those days all wrecks belonged to
the king. (Pretty much everything, in fact, did belong to the king,
except the land that was held by book or charter, or such personal
property as a man had in his own house--all mines, all franchises, all
monopolies, even all whales and sturgeons that were thrown up on the
beach--the head to the king and the tail to the queen.) So all wrecks
belonged to the king. The result was, that whenever any vessel went
ashore the king's officers seized it; and naturally the owner of the
vessel didn't like that, because it very often happened that the
vessel was perfectly good and could be easily repaired and the cargo
saved. It is still a great principle in marine law that if one-half of
the cargo is good, the man who owns the vessel cannot surrender and
claim from the insurance company as a total loss; it is important
still how much of a wreck a wreck is. But in those days the king, even
if the vessel was stranded and could be raised, would seize it on
the plea it was a wreck. The man who owned the ship would say she is
perfectly seaworthy; and then would come the dispute as to what a
wreck was. Or even when the vessel was destroyed, a great part of the
cargo might be saved, and the owner of the vessel thought it very
unjust that the king should claim it all. So the Parliament of England
established as part of the liberties of the English merchant or trader
that he should still have a property in his wreck; and then the
question came up as to what was a wreck. It was generally admitted
that when all hands were lost, that was a wreck; but they wanted to
get as narrow a definition as they could, so they got Parliament to
establish this law, that in future nothing shall be considered a wreck
out of which a cat or a dog escapes alive; and from that time until
the present day no vessel coasts about England without carrying a cat
or dog.

But the great achievements of legislation up to 1300 remain the
re-establishment of English law, as shown in the great charters of
John, Henry III, and the confirmation of Edward I. And Magna Charta
had to be read once a year (like our Declaration of Independence),
and for breach of it a king might be excommunicated; and Henry III
himself, according to Cobbet, feared that the Archbishop of Canterbury
was about to do so.

IV

EARLY LABOR LEGISLATION, AND LAWS AGAINST TRUSTS

(1275) Far the most important phrase to us found in the Stat