WRECK, a term which in its widest sense means anything without an apparent owner that is afloat upon, sunk in, or cast ashore by the sea; in legal phraseology, it has a narrower meaning. Formerly an appreciable source of revenue to the Crown, after wards a valuable addition to the income of a landowner on the sea-coast, wreck has almost within modern times ceased to be a perquisite of either, or to enrich the casual finder at the expense of its rightful owner.
History.—The general rule in the civilized maritime countries of Europe was that the right to wreck belonged to the sovereign, and formed part of the royal revenue. This was so under the Roman, French and feudal law; and in England the common law set out in the statute De praerogativa regis (17 Edw. II., provided that the king has wreck of the sea, whales and sturgeons taken in the sea and elsewhere within the kingdom, except in cer tain places privileged by the king. This right, which it is said had for its object the prevention of the practice of destroying the property of the shipwrecked, was, however, gradually relaxed ; and the owner of wreck was allowed to recover it if he made claim to it, and gave proof of his ownership within a certain time —fixed at a year or a year and a day alike by a decree of Antonine the Great, the feudal law, the general maritime law, the law of France and English law. Early in the 15th or at the close of the 14th century, it became usual for the Crown to grant to the lord-admiral by his patent of appointment, amongst other proficua et commoditates appertaining to his office, wreck of the sea; and when, early in the reign of Henry VIII., vice-admirals of the coast were created, the lord-admiral by patent under his own hand delegated to them his rights and duties in the several counties, including those in connection with wreck. He did not, however, part with the whole of his emoluments; his vice-admirals were required to render an account of the proceeds of wreck, and to hand over to him a part, usually one-half, of their gains. This system lasted until 1846 when an act (9 & 1 o Vict. c. 99) was passed forbidding the vice-admirals to intermeddle with wreck, and it required the receivers of droits of admiralty to receive all wreck from the finders and to detain it for 12 calendar months ; at the end of that period it was to be sold and the proceeds carried to the credit of the consolidated fund. The
ancient law by which the unfortunate owner was deprived of his property, if no living thing escaped from the wreck, had during the 16th and 17th centuries been gradually but tacitly relaxed; it required, however, a decision of Lord Mansfield and the king's bench in 1771 to settle the law definitely that, whether or no any living creature escaped, the property in a wreck remains in the owner. In Scotland it seems that the same law had been laid down in 1725, and there are indications that upon the continent of Europe there had before this date been a relaxation of the old law in the same direction. In the 17th century working salvors established the right to a lien upon property saved as a security for adequate remuneration of their exertions in saving it; and if the vice-admirals restored to its owners wreck that had come to their hands, they did so only upon payment of extravagant de mands for salvage, storage, and often legal expenses. Stories of wilful wrecking of ships and of even more evil deeds are probably exaggerations, but modern research has authenticated sufficient abuses to show that further legislation was necessary to regulate the taking possession of wreck and ships in distress by "sea coasters." Previously to the passing of the Act of 1846 the only substantial protection against plunder which owners of a wrecked ship could get was to apply to the admiralty judge for a commis sion enabling them or their agents to take possession of what came ashore, but to obtain such a commission took time and cost money, and before the commissioners arrived at the scene of the wreck a valuable cargo would have disappeared and been dispersed through the country. Plunder of wrecks was common, and the crowds that collected for the purpose set law at defiance. The vice-admirals, even if they had been able, did little to protect the ship wrecked. Many of the vice-admirals' accounts of the 17th and following centuries are extant. Most of them are for trifling sums, but oc casionally the amounts are considerable. At the close of the 17th century the vice-admirals were required to make affidavits as to the amount of their gains; in 1709 20 of them swore that their office was worth less than £5o in the year.