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Section the fourth.
Of the Countries subject to the Laws of England.
The kingdom of England, over which our municipal laws have juriſdiction, includes not, by the common law, either Wales, Scotland, or Ireland, or any other part of the king’s dominions, except the territory of England only. And yet the civil laws and local cuſtoms of this territory do now obtain, in part or in all, with more or leſs reſtrictions, in theſe and many other adjacent countries; of which it will be proper firſt to take a review, before we conſider the kingdom of England itſelf, the original and proper ſubject of theſe laws.
Wales had continued independent of England, unconquered and uncultivated, in the primitive paſtoral ſtate which Caeſar and Tacitus aſcribe to Britain in general, for many centuries; even from the time of the hoſtile invaſions of the Saxons, when the antient and chriſtian inhabitants of the iſland retired to thoſe natural intrenchments, for protection from their pagan viſitants. But when theſe invaders themſelves were converted to chriſtianity, and ſettled into regular and potent governments, this retreat of the antient Britons grew every day narrower; they were overrun by little and little, gradually driven from one faſtneſs to another, and by repeated loſſes abridged of their wild independence. Very early in our hiſtory we find their princes doing homage to the crown of England; till at length in the reign of Edward the firſt, who may juſtly be ſtiled the conqueror of Wales, the line
