The messengers replied that they did not know any thing about it, and so the boats returned back to the town. Soon after this the company on board the galley saw some armed vessels coming down the harbor toward them. They were alarmed at this sight, and immediately got every thing ready for setting off at a moment's notice to withdraw from the harbor. It turned out that the king himself was on board one of the galleys that was coming down, and this vessel was allowed to come near enough for the king to communicate with the people on board Joanna's galley. After some ordinary questions had been asked and answered, the king, observing that a lady of high rank was standing on the deck with Joanna, asked who it was. They answered that it was the Princess of Navarre, who was going to be married to Richard. In the reply which the king made to this intelligence Stephen of Turnham thought he saw such indications of hostility that he deemed it most prudent to retire; so the anchor was raised, and the order was given to the oarsmen, who had already been stationed at their oars, to "give way," and the oarsmen pulled vigorously at the oars. The galley was immediately taken out into the offing. The King of Cyprus did not pursue her; so she anchored there quietly, the storm having now nearly subsided. Stephen resolved to wait there for a time, hoping that in some way or other he might soon receive intelligence from Richard.
Richard's vessel appears.
Richard's indignation on meeting Joanna's vessel.
Nor was he disappointed. Richard, whose galley, together with the principal portion of the fleet, had been driven farther to the eastward, had found refuge at Rhodes, and he set off, as soon as the storm abated, in pursuit of the missing vessels. He took with him a sufficient force to render to the vessels, if he should find them, such assistance or protection as might be necessary. At length he reached Cyprus, and, on entering the bay, there he beheld the galley of Joanna and Berengaria riding safely at anchor in the offing. The sea had not yet gone down, and the vessel was rolling and tossing on the waves in a fearful manner. Richard was greatly enraged at beholding this spectacle, for he at once inferred, by seeing the vessel in this uncomfortable situation outside the harbor, that some difficulty with the authorities had occurred which prevented her seeking refuge and protection within. Accordingly, as soon as he came near, he leaped into a boat, although burdened as he was with heavy armor of steel, which was a difficult and somewhat dangerous operation, and ordered himself to be rowed immediately on board.
When he arrived, after the first greetings were over, he was informed by Stephen that three of the vessels of his fleet had been wrecked on the coast; that Isaac, the king, had seized them as his lawful prize; and that, at that very time, men that he had sent for this purpose were plundering the wrecks. Stephen also said that he had at first gone into the harbor with his galley, but that the indications of an unfriendly feeling on the part of the king were so decided that he did not dare to stay, and he had been compelled to come out into the offing.
Richard's contest with King Isaac Comnenus.
On hearing these things Richard was greatly enraged. He sent a messenger on shore to the king to demand peremptorily that he should at once leave off plundering the wrecks of the English ships, and that he should deliver up to Richard again all the goods that had already been taken. To this demand Isaac replied that whatever goods the sea cast upon the shores of his island were his property, according to the law of the land, and that he should take them without asking leave of any body.
When Richard heard this answer, he was rather pleased than displeased with it, for it gave him, what he always wanted wherever he went, a pretext for quarreling. He said that the goods which Isaac obtained in that way he would find would cost him pretty dear, and he immediately prepared for war.
The history of the law of wrecks.
In this transaction there is no question that the King of Cyprus, though wholly wrong, and guilty of a real and inexcusable violation of the rights of property, had yet the law on his side. It was one of those cases, of which innumerable examples have existed in all ages of the world, where an act which is virtually the robbing of one man by another is authorized by law, and is protected by legal sanctions. This rule—confiscating property wrecked—was the general law of Europe at this time, and Richard, of all men, might have considered himself estopped from objecting to it by the fact that it was the law in England as well as every where else. By the ancient common law of England, all wrecks of every kind became the property of the king. The severity of the rule had been slightly mitigated a few reigns before Richard's day by a statute which declared that if any living thing escaped from the wreck, even were it so much as a dog or a cat, that circumstance saved the property from confiscation, and preserved the claim of the owner to it. With this modification, the law stood in England until a very late period, that all goods thrown from wrecks upon the shores became the property of the crown, and it was not until comparatively quite a recent period that an English judge decided that such a principle, being contrary to justice and common sense, was not law; and now wrecked property is restored to whomsoever can prove himself to be the owner, on his paying for the expense and trouble of saving it.