Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL. Subject_2 I sat this week in the Outer-House, and so the observe are fewer.
The Magistrates of Aberdeen v. The Killers of Red Fish in the Dee and Don
Date: 18 July 1701
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The Sheriff and Magistrates of Aberdeen, as having right, by the 111th Act of Parliament, 1581, for punishing transgressors anent cruives and yairs, and killing of salmon and red fish in the rivers of Dee and Don, having pursued, by Thomas Farquharson, their procurator-fiscal, some transgressors, and fined them; they suspend on double poinding, that they live within the Duke of Gordon's regality, and so all the fines belong to him; and that the 111th Act founded on is but a temporary law, and a commission directed to these magistrates then in office, &c.; as appears by this,—that George Earl of Caithness and Alexander Earl of Sutherland are therein named, who were not immortal, and so was only a power during their life.
Answered,—The Duke's regality is but late; and as that Act derogated from regalities then in being, multo magis it must be preferred to regalities erected since; and the Act is perpetual, for it allows them to hold courts yearly; which cannot be understood only of them in office at the time, but also of their successors.
Replied,—Thir fines, by the Act, belonging to the King, he, by erecting the Duke's regality, might give them to the Duke. And this is the same case with the competition between the Laird of Grant and Dunbar of Westfield, sheriff of Murray, about the casualties, mentioned 25th November 1699, which was remitted by the Lords to the Parliament. And certainly he, as lord of regality, would have sole right to all the single escheats falling within his bounds; and why not to thir fines? seeing, if they be the King's, and at his disposal, they are conveyed by granting the right of regality.
The Lords found the Act not expired, but a perpetual law; and preferred the Magistrates to the fines in question, but prejudice to what the Duke shall impose in his own courts for such transgressions.
