Amongst the many subjects which Sir Harris Nicolas has occasion to treat in the course of his naval history, none is more curious than that of the _law of wreck_. A rude and barbarous people concluded that what was thrown by the tempest on their coast was a sort of god-send, and the property of the first finder. The king, as general finder of all lost treasure, was not long before he put in his paramount claim; and the common law sanctioned it, proceeding, we are told, upon the principle, that by the loss of the ship all property had passed away from the original owner. With equal gravity it might have sanctioned any species of theft or spoliation, by promulgating the principle, that when a man can no longer keep possession of his goods, “all property has passed away from the original owner.” This was indeed “adding sorrow to sorrow, and injustice to misfortune. Henry I. has the merit of having first mitigated this cruelty of the common law. “He ordained that if any person escaped alive from the ship, it should not be considered a wreck:” on the principle, we suppose--for the law loves what it calls a principle, and if it partakes of the nature of a fiction loves it the more--that the person who escaped might be considered as an agent for the merchant or proprietor, retaining in his name a possession of the goods and the ship. But the next step in this humane course of legislation was still more singular. A statute of Edward I. enacts--“Concerning wrecks of the sea, it is agreed that when a man, _a dog_, _or a cat_, escape quick out of the ship, that neither such ship or barge, nor any thing within them, shall be adjudged wreck.” Here the dog or the cat, which was so fortunate as to escape, must, in the eye of the law, we presume, have been clothed with the character of an agent, and looked upon, for the time being, as the servant of the hapless merchant. Such, we suppose, must have been the legal reasoning; but perhaps some prejudice of an ignorant people, which we cannot now follow or define, was in reality taken advantage of by the legislation of those days; and a rude selfishness, which would have been deaf to reason or humanity, was assailed by the aid of some superstition as rude as itself. However, after such a law, we hope no ship set sail without having a supply of dogs and cats on board.