chief use and value from the labour. Thus game and fish, though they be common, whilst at large in the woods or water, inftantly become the property of the perfon that catches them; because an animal, when caught, is much more valuable than when at liberty; and this increase of value, which is infeparable from, and makes a great part of the whole value, is ftrictly the property of the fowler, or fisherman, being the produce of his perfonal labour. For the fame reason, wood or iron, manufactured into utenfils, become the property of the manufacturer; because the value of the workmanship far exceeds that of the materials. And upon a fimilar principle, a parcel of unappropriated ground, which a man fhould pare, burn, plow, harrow, and fow, for the production of corn, would juftly enough be thereby made his own. But this will hardly hold, in the manner it has been applied, of taking a ceremonious poffeffion of a tract of land, as navigators do of new difcovered islands, by erecting a ftandard, engraving an infcription, or publishing a proclamation to the birds and beafts; or of turning your cattle into a piece of ground, fetting up a landmark, digging a ditch, or planting a hedge round it. Nor will even the clearing, manuring, and plow

ing

ing of a field, give the first occupier a right to it in perpetuity, and after this cultivation and all effects of it are ceased.

Another, and in my opinion a better account of the firft right of ownership, is the following: that, as God has provided these things for the ufe of all, he has of confequence given each leave to take of them what he wants; by virtue therefore of this leave, a man may appropriate what he ftands in need of to his own use, without asking, or waiting for the consent of others; in like manner, as when an entertainment is provided for the freeholders of a county, each freeholder goes, and eats and drinks what he wants or chooses, without having or waiting for the confent of the other guests.

But then, this reason justifies property, as far as neceffaries alone, or, at the moft, as far as a competent provifion for our natural exigencies. For, in the entertainment we speak of (allowing the comparison to hold in all points), alfit down though every particular freeholder may and eat till he be fatisfied, without any other leave than that of the mafter of the feaft, or any other proof of that leave, than the general invitation, or the manifeft defign with which the entertainment is provided; yet you would

hardly permit any one to fill his pockets or his wallet, or to carry away with him a quantity of provision to be hoarded up, or wafted, or given to his dogs, or ftewed down into fauces, or converted into articles of fuperfluous luxury; especially, if by fo doing, he pinched the guests. at the lower end of the table.

Thefe are the accounts that have been given of the matter by the best writers upon the fubject; but, were these accounts perfectly unexceptionable, they would none of them, I fear, avail us in vindicating our present claims of property in land, unless it were more probable than it is, that our eftates were actually acquired at firft, in fome of the ways which thefe accounts fuppofe; and that a regular regard had been paid to justice, in every fucceffive tranfmiffion of them fince: for if one link in the chain fail, every title pofterior to it falls to the ground.

The real foundation of our right is THE LAW

OF THE LAND.

It is the intention of God, that the produce of the earth be applied to the use of man; this intention cannot be fulfilled without establishing property; it is consistent therefore with his will, that property be established. The land cannot be divided into feparate property, without leaving

it

it to the law of the country to regulate that divifion; it is confiftent therefore with the fame will, that the law should regulate the divifion; and confequently, "confiftent with the will of God," or "right," that I fhould poffefs that share which these regulations affign me.

By whatever circuitous train of reasoning you attempt to derive this right, it must terminate at laft in the will of God; the ftraighteft therefore, and shortest way of arriving at this will, is the best.

Hence it appears, that my right to an estate does not at all depend upon the manner or justice of the original acquifition; nor upon the justice of each subsequent change of poffeffion. It is not, for inftance, the lefs, nor ought it to be impeached, because the estate was taken poffeffion of at firft by a family of aboriginal Britons, who happened to be ftronger than their neighbours; nor because the British poffeffor was turned out by a Roman, or the Roman by a Saxon invader; nor because it was feized, without colour of right or reafon, by a follower of the Norman adventurer; from whom, after many interruptions of fraud and violence, it has at length devolved to me..

Nor does the owner's right depend upon the expediency of the law which gives it to him. On one fide of a brook, an estate defcends to the eldeft fon; on the other fide, to all the children alike. The right of the claimants under both laws of inheritance is equal; though the expediency of fuch oppofite rules must neceffarily be different.

The principles we have laid down upon this fubject apparently tend to a conclufion of which a bad ufe is apt to be made. As the right of property depends upon the law of the land, it feems to follow, that a man has a right to keep and take every thing, which the law will allow him to keep and take: which in many cafes will authorize the most flagitious chicanery. If a creditor upon a fimple contract neglect to demand his debt for fix years, the debtor may refufe to pay it would it be right therefore to do fo, where he is confcious of the juftice of the debt? If a perfon, who is under twenty-one years of age, contract a bargain (other than for neceffaries), he may avoid it by pleading his minority but would this be a fair plea, where the bargain was originally juft ?-The diftinction to be taken in fuch cafes is this. With the law, we acknowledge, refides the difpofal of property: