[Footnote x: Camden. Eliz. _A.D._ 1594.] [Footnote y: 1 P.W. 329.] [Footnote z: The bishoprick of Man, or Sodor, or Sodor and Man, was formerly within the province of Canterbury, but annexed to that of York by statute 33 Hen. VIII. c. 31.] THE islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, Alderney, and their appendages, were parcel of the duchy of Normandy, and were united to the crown of England by the first princes of the Norman line. They are governed by their own laws, which are for the most part the ducal customs of Normandy, being collected in an antient book of very great authority, entituled, _le grand coustumier_. The king's writ, or process from the courts of Westminster, is there of no force; but his commission is. They are not bound by common acts of our parliaments, unless particularly named[a]. All causes are originally determined by their own officers, the bailiffs and jurats of the islands; but an appeal lies from them to the king in council, in the last resort. [Footnote a: 4 Inst. 286.] BESIDES these adjacent islands, our more distant plantations in America, and elsewhere, are also in some respects subject to the English laws. Plantations, or colonies in distant countries, are either such where the lands are claimed by right of occupancy only, by finding them desart and uncultivated, and peopling them from the mother country; or where, when already cultivated, they have been either gained by conquest, or ceded to us by treaties. And both these rights are founded upon the law of nature, or at least upon that of nations. But there is a difference between these two species of colonies, with respect to the laws by which they are bound. For it is held[b], that if an uninhabited country be discovered and planted by English subjects, all the English laws are immediately there in force. For as the law is the birthright of every subject, so wherever they go they carry their laws with them[c]. But in conquered or ceded countries, that have already laws of their own, the king may indeed alter and change those laws; but, till he does actually change them, the antient laws of the country remain, unless such as are against the law of God, as in the case of an infidel country[d]. [Footnote b: Salk. 411. 666.] [Footnote c: 2 P. Wms. 75.] [Footnote d: 7 Rep. 17 _b._ Calvin's case. Show. Parl. C. 31.]