ESTABLISHMENT OF A PORT, the technical expression for the time that elapses between the moon’s transit across the meridian at new or full moon at a given place and the time of high water at that place. The interval (constant at any one place) may vary from 6 mins. (Harwich) to 11 hrs. 45 mins. (North Foreland). At London Bridge it is 1 hr. 58 mins. (See also [Tide].)
ESTAING, CHARLES HECTOR, Comte d’ (1729-1794), French admiral, was born at the château of Ruvel, Auvergne, in 1729. He entered the army as a colonel of infantry, and in 1757 he accompanied count de Lally to the East Indies, with the rank of brigadier-general. In 1759 he was made prisoner at the siege of Madras, but was released on parole. Before the ratification of his exchange he obtained command of some vessels, and conducted various naval attacks against the English; and having, on his return to France in 1760, fallen accidentally into their hands, he was, on the ground of having broken his parole, thrown into prison at Portsmouth, but as the charge could not be properly substantiated he was soon afterwards released. In 1763 he was named lieutenant-general in the navy, and in 1777 vice-admiral; and in 1778 he obtained the command of a fleet intended to assist the United States against Great Britain. He sailed on the 13th of April, and between the 11th and the 22nd of July, blockaded Howe at Sandy Hook, but did not venture to attack him, though greatly superior in force. In concert with the American generals, he planned an attack on Newport, preparatory to which he compelled the British to destroy some war vessels that were in the harbour; but before the concerted attack could take place, he put to sea against the English fleet, under Lord Howe, when owing to a violent storm, which arose suddenly and compelled the two fleets to separate before engaging in battle, many of his vessels were so shattered that he found it necessary to put into Boston for repairs. He then sailed for the West Indies on the 4th of November. After a feeble attempt to retake Santa Lucia from Admiral Barrington, he captured St Vincent and Grenada. On the 6th of July 1779 he fought a drawn battle with Admiral John Byron, who retired to St Christopher. Though superior in force, D’Estaing would not attack the English in the roadstead, but set sail to attack Savannah. All his attempts, as well as those of the Americans, against the town were repulsed with heavy loss, and he was finally compelled to retire. He returned to France in 1780. He was in command of the combined fleet before Cadiz when the peace was signed in 1783; but from that time his chief attention was devoted to politics. In 1787 he was elected to the assembly of the notables; in 1789 he was appointed commandant of the national guard; and in 1792 he was chosen admiral by the National Assembly. Though in favour of national reform he continued to cherish a strong feeling of loyalty to the royal family, and on the trial of Marie Antoinette in 1793 bore testimony in her favour. On this account, and because of certain friendly letters which had passed between him and the queen, he was himself brought to trial, and was executed on the 28th of April 1794.
See Marins et soldats français en Amérique, by the Viscomte de Noailles (1903); Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain, vol. v.
ESTATE (through O. Fr. estat, mod. état, from Lat. status, state, condition, position, stare, to stand), the state or condition in which a man lives, now chiefly used poetically and in such phrases as “man’s estate,” or “of high estate”; “state” has superseded most of the uses of the word except (1) in property and (2) in constitutional law.
1. In the law of property the word is employed in several senses. In the widest sense a man’s estate comprises his entire belongings; so much of it as consists of land and certain other interests associated therewith is his “real estate”; the rest is his “personal estate.” The word is more particularly applied to interests in land, and in popular and general use “an estate” means the land itself. The strict technical meaning of “an estate” is an interest in lands, and this conception lies at the root of the English theory of property in land. “The first thing that the student has to do,” says Joshua Williams (Law of Real Property), “is to get rid of the idea of absolute ownership. Such an idea is quite unknown to the English law. No man is in law the absolute owner of lands. He can only hold an estate in them.” That is, the notion of tenure, of holding by a tenant from a lord, prevails. The last lord of all from whom all land was ultimately held was the king. Persons holding directly from the king and granting to others were the king’s tenants in capite, and were the mesne lords of their tenants.
Estates in land may be classified according to (1) the quantity of their interest or duration, (2) the time of enjoyment, and (3) the number and connexion of the tenants. According to (1), an estate may be either a freehold of inheritance or a freehold not of inheritance. A freehold of inheritance may be (a) an estate in fee simple, which is the largest estate a man can hold in English law, and comes close to the idea of absolute ownership, repudiated by Williams; an estate in fee simple is inheritable by a man’s heirs generally, he has full powers of disposition over it, and may alienate the whole or part. (b) It may also be in limited fees, which are again subdivided into (i.) qualified or base fee, (ii.) fee conditional, so called at the common law, afterwards, on the passing of the statute De Donis Conditionalibus, fee tail, which may be general as to the heirs of a man’s body, or special, as to the heirs male (or female) of his body. A freehold not of inheritance may be either (1) conventional, as an estate for life, which may be either an estate for one’s own life or for the life of another (pur autre vie); (2) legal, or created by operation of law, as tenancy in tail after possibility of issue extinct (i.e. where an estate is given to a man and the heirs of his body by his present wife, and the wife dies without issue, the husband becomes tenant in tail after possibility of issue extinct); tenancy by curtesy (see [Curtesy]); tenancy in dower (see [Dower]).