This ſeems to have been recurring to firſt principles, and calling in the law of nature to aſcertain the property of the land, when left without a legal owner. For it did not revert to the grantor; who had parted with all his intereſt, ſo long as ceſtuy que vie lived: it did not eſcheat to the lord of the fee; for all eſcheats muſt be of the abſolute entire fee, and not of any particular eſtate carved out of it; much leſs of ſo minute a remnant as this: it did not belong to the grantee; for he was dead: it did not deſcend to his heirs; for there were no words of inheritance in the grant: nor could it veſt in his executors; for no executors could ſucceed to a freehold. Belonging therefore to nobody, like the haereditas jacens of the Romans, the law left it open to be ſeiſed and appropriated by the firſt perſon that could enter upon it, during the life of ceſtuy que vie, under the name of an occupant. But there was no right of occupancy allowed, where the king had the reverſion of the lands; for the reverſioner hath an equal right with any other man to enter upon the vacant poſſeſſion, and where the king's title and a ſubject's concur, the king's ſhall be always preferred: againſt the king therefore there could be no prior occupant, becauſe nullum tempus occurrit regi[1]. And, even in the caſe of a ſubject, had the eſtate pur auter vie been granted to a man and his heirs during the life of ceſtuy que vie, there the heir might, and ſtill may, enter and hold poſſeſſion, and is called in law a ſpecial occupant; as having a ſpecial excluſive right, by the terms of the original grant, to enter upon and occupy this haereditas jacens, during the reſidue of the eſtate granted: though ſome have thought him ſo called with no very great propriety[2]; and that ſuch eſtate is rather a deſcendible freehold. But the title of common occupancy is now reduced almoſt to nothing by two ſtatutes; the one, 29 Car. II. c. 3. which enacts, that where there is no ſpecial occupant, in whom the eſtate may veſt, the tenant pur auter vie may deviſe it by will, or it ſhall go to the executors and be aſſets in their hands for payment of debts: the other that of 14 Geo. II. c. 20. which enacts, that it ſhall veſt not only in the
