{"id":"01KJNXJV7F4ARHH3VHK12T0N6C","cid":"bafkreie3xvc4vcf6zjf5hzgun243c3eyitnuqsbjq2gsxz34k6b76jafxa","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":887943,"char_start":880022,"chunk_index":124,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1981,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"\r\nA common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might\r\npossibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the\r\nmatter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws\r\npreviously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in\r\nthe above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish,\r\nI say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human\r\njurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of\r\nsculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines,\r\nhas but two props to stand on.\r\n\r\nIs it not a saying in every one’s mouth, Possession is half of the law:\r\nthat is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often\r\npossession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of\r\nRussian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession\r\nis the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow’s\r\nlast mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain’s marble\r\nmansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish?\r\nWhat is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor\r\nWoebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone’s family from\r\nstarvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the\r\nArchbishop of Savesoul’s income of £100,000 seized from the scant bread\r\nand cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure\r\nof heaven without any of Savesoul’s help) what is that globular\r\n£100,000 but a Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder’s hereditary\r\ntowns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer,\r\nJohn Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic\r\nlancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all\r\nthese, is not Possession the whole of the law?\r\n\r\nBut if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the\r\nkindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is\r\ninternationally and universally applicable.\r\n\r\nWhat was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the\r\nSpanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and\r\nmistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What\r\nIndia to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All\r\nLoose-Fish.\r\n\r\nWhat are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but\r\nLoose-Fish? What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is\r\nthe principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the\r\nostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but\r\nLoose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what\r\nare you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails.\r\n\r\n“De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.”\r\n_Bracton, l. 3, c. 3._\r\n\r\nLatin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the\r\ncontext, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of\r\nthat land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head,\r\nand the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division\r\nwhich, in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no\r\nintermediate remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to\r\nthis day in force in England; and as it offers in various respects a\r\nstrange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is\r\nhere treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle\r\nthat prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a separate\r\ncar, specially reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first\r\nplace, in curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is\r\nstill in force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that\r\nhappened within the last two years.\r\n\r\nIt seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one\r\nof the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and\r\nbeaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from\r\nthe shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the\r\njurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden.\r\nHolding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal\r\nemoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment\r\nhis. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so.\r\nBecause the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his\r\nperquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of\r\nthem.\r\n\r\nNow when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their\r\ntrowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their\r\nfat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good £150 from the\r\nprecious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their\r\nwives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their\r\nrespective shares; up steps a very learned and most Christian and\r\ncharitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and\r\nlaying it upon the whale’s head, he says—“Hands off! this fish, my\r\nmasters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden’s.” Upon this\r\nthe poor mariners in their respectful consternation—so truly\r\nEnglish—knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their\r\nheads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the\r\nstranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the\r\nhard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone. At\r\nlength one of them, after long scratching about for his ideas, made\r\nbold to speak,\r\n\r\n“Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?”\r\n\r\n“The Duke.”\r\n\r\n“But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?”\r\n\r\n“It is his.”\r\n\r\n“We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is all\r\nthat to go to the Duke’s benefit; we getting nothing at all for our\r\npains but our blisters?”\r\n\r\n“It is his.”\r\n\r\n“Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of\r\ngetting a livelihood?”\r\n\r\n“It is his.”\r\n\r\n“I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of\r\nthis whale.”\r\n\r\n“It is his.”\r\n\r\n“Won’t the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?”\r\n\r\n“It is his.”\r\n\r\nIn a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of\r\nWellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular\r\nlights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be\r\ndeemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman\r\nof the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to\r\ntake the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To\r\nwhich my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published)\r\nthat he had already done so, and received the money, and would be\r\nobliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend\r\ngentleman) would decline meddling with other people’s business. Is this\r\nthe still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three\r\nkingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars?\r\n\r\nIt will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the Duke\r\nto the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs\r\ninquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested\r\nwith that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon\r\ngives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs\r\nto the King and Queen, “because of its superior excellence.” And by the\r\nsoundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such\r\nmatters.\r\n\r\nBut why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason\r\nfor that, ye lawyers!\r\n\r\nIn his treatise on “Queen-Gold,” or Queen-pinmoney, an old King’s Bench\r\nauthor, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: “Ye tail is ye Queen’s,\r\nthat ye Queen’s wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.” Now this\r\nwas written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or\r\nRight whale was largely used in ladies’ bodices."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.087Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.087Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}