FREE WARREN
.—A FREE WARREN is a term totally distinct from FOREST, CHACE, PARK, MANOR, or WARREN; it is a franchise derived originally from the Crown; and the person having a grant of free warren over certain lands, possesses a SOLE RIGHT of pursuing, taking, and killing GAME of every kind within its limits; although there may be no one acre of land his own property through the whole district where he is possessed of this right. There are instances where a variety of circumstances render manorial rights and privileges so complex, and seemingly indefinite, as to produce litigation without personal enmity, but merely that the right shall be LEGALLY ascertained. It appears that where MANOR LANDS are situate in, and surrounded by, a FREE WARREN, the owner of such lands may kill game within his own manor, but he cannot introduce even a qualified person to KILL GAME there also, without the consent of the owner or possessor of the privilege of FREE WARREN over the whole; if so, the person introduced killing game, will be liable to an action for trespass, which action will lie.
A curious cause came on to be tried before a jury at the summer assizes of the present year, 1802, held at Abingdon, for the county of Berks, wherein John Westbrook, Gent. of the parish of Bray, (situate in Windsor Forest,) was PLAINTIFF, and a Game-keeper of his Majesty's the DEFENDANT. The action was brought to try the RIGHT of the DEFENDANT, as one of his Majesty's keepers, to KILL GAME within the enclosed grounds of the PLAINTIFF, situate in, and surrounded by, the wastes, commons, and within the boundaries of the said FOREST. When, without adverting to the laws relative to forests only, (with which the question was totally unconnected,) the Court held it good, that the King, possessing a FREE WARREN over the WHOLE, possessed likewise the privilege of appointing a KEEPER to kill game upon any, and within every, part of the said FREE WARREN, without the least exception as to enclosed lands, the property of others; when the jury instantly found for the defendant, by which the right is fully confirmed.
This being a question of privilege, tried on the part of an individual against the prerogative of the Crown, it might be fairly considered conclusive upon the subject of FREE WARREN; but as it cannot be too clearly understood, for the prevention of ill neighbourhood, and expensive litigation, another decision is subjoined, which took place about the same time, though in a different county.
On the 12th of July, in the same year, a writ of inquiry was executed before the Under Sheriff at Hertford, in an action wherein Henry Browne, of North Mimms, Esq. was PLAINTIFF, and Thomas Greenwood, the Younger, DEFENDANT. The action was brought for a trespass committed by the DEFENDANT, in shooting game within the FREE WARREN belonging to the PLAINTIFF, who is Lord of the Manor of North Mimms, and entitled to free warren through the whole of the Manor. It appeared, that the land on which the trespass was committed, and the game killed, by the DEFENDANT, was not, in point of fact, the land of the PLAINTIFF, but, on the contrary, belonged to Justinian Casamajor, Esq. However, as it was proved to be within the Manor of North Mimms, and the right of free warren extending over the whole of the Manor, the Jury, after considering the circumstances of the case, and the defendant's conduct, who persisted in shooting after being warned to the contrary, gave a verdict of TEN POUNDS with costs.