226 Revenue, — Escheats. [Ch. XL Sec. I. legislature. It may, however, be remarked, that when for- feitures of this description are incurred, they accrue instantly to the Crown, and will not be divested by a subsequent seizure of the same article, as a droit of admiralty, or otherwise (a) ; though, as the Admiralty Court proceeds in rem^ a judicial sale of a vessel, &c. as a derelict, without fraud, is available against the Crown's right of seizure for a previous forfeiture under the revenue laws ; although the Crow n was not a party to the pro- ceeding in the Admiralty Court, other than by the King's Pro- curator-General claiming the vessel as an Admiralty droit ; and although no decision of droit, or no droit,'^was awarded, and the sale took place, pendente lite, under an interlocutory or- der (6). 4. We may mention Escheats as constituting another, and by no means an unimportant part, of the ordinary and inhe- rent revenue of the Crown. As before observed, the doctrine of escheats is a consequence of tenure in chivalry, according to the antient feudal system. Escheat is (c) the determination of the tenure, or dissolution of the mutual bond between the lord ai^d tenant, from the ex- tinction of the blood of the latter, by either natural or civil means ; if he died without heirs of his blood, or if his blood was corrupted and stained by commission of treason or felony, whereby every inheritable quality was entirely blotted out and abolished. In such cases the land escheated, or fell back, to the lord of the fee ; that is, the tenure w^as determined by breach of the original condition expressed or implied in the feudal donation. In the one case, there were no heirs subsist- ing of the blood of the first feudatory or purchaser, to which heirs alone the grant of the feud extended ; in the other, the tenant by perpetrating an atrocious crime, shewed that he was no longer to be trusted as a vassal, having forgotten his duty as a subject, and therefore forfeited his feud, which he held under the implied condition that he should not be a traitor or a felon. The consequence of which in both cases was, that the gift being determined, resulted back to the lord who gave (fl) Parker, 273. Observations on (b) 3 Price, 97. this case, 3 Price, 134; (c) 2 Bla. Com. 72. Co. Lit. 13. it.
