Verum est loqui Iurisconsultum de praediis privatis, et lege privata, sed in territorio et lege populorum eadem hic est ratio, quia populi respectu totius generis humani privatorum locum obtinent.
Similiter reditus qui in piscationes maritimas constituti Regalium numero censentur, non rem, hoc est mare, aut piscationem, sed personas obligant.[95a] Quare subditi, in quos legem ferendi potestas Reipublicae aut Principi ex consensu competit, ad onera ista compelli forte poterunt; sed exteris ius piscandi ubique immune esse debet, ne servitus imponatur mari quod servire non potest.
Non enim maris eadem quae fluminis ratio est:[96a] quod cum sit publicum, id est populi, ius etiam in eo piscandi a populo aut principe concedi aut locari potest, ita ut ei qui conduxit, etiam interdictum Veteres dederint, de loco publico fruendo, addita condicione si is cui locandi ius fuerit, fruendum alicui locaverit;[97a] quae condicio in mari evenire non potest. Ceterum qui ipsam piscationem numerant inter Regalia, ne quidem illum locum quem interpretabantur satis inspexerunt, quod Iserniam et Alvotum non latuit.
Demonstratum est[98a] nec populo nec privato cuipiam ius
their rights were bound to observe that condition. It is true that the jurist is speaking of private estates and of private law, but in speaking here of the territory of peoples and of public law the same reasoning applies, because from the point of view of the whole human race peoples are treated as individuals.
Similarly, revenues levied on maritime fisheries are held to belong to the Crown, but they do not bind the sea itself or the fisheries, but only the persons engaged in fishing.[95] Wherefore subjects, for whom a state or a ruler is by common consent competent to make laws, will perhaps be compelled to bear such charges, but so far as other persons are concerned the right of fishing ought everywhere to be exempt from tolls, lest a servitude be imposed upon the sea, which is not susceptible to a servitude.
The case of the sea is not the same as that of a river,[96] for as a river is the property of a nation, the right to fish in it can be passed or leased by the nation or by the ruler, in such a way (and the like is true with the ancients) that the lessee enjoys the operation of the injunction de loco publico fruendo by virtue of the clause ‘He who has the right to lease has leased the exclusive right of enjoyment’.[97] Such a condition cannot arise in respect to the sea. Finally those who count fishing among the properties of the Crown have not examined carefully enough the very passage which they cite to prove their contention, as Isernia* and Alvotus† have noticed.
* [Andrea d’Isernia (c. 1480-1553), an Italian commentator, called often Feudistarum Patriarcha.]
† [Probably a misprint for Alvarus (Alvarez).]
It has therefore been demonstrated[98] that neither a nation nor an individual can establish any right of private ownership