the free fiſhery is an excluſive right, the common of piſcary is not ſo: and therefore, in a free fiſhery, a man has a property in the fiſh before they are caught; in a common of piſcary, not till afterwards[1]. Some indeed have conſidered a free fiſhery not as a royal franchiſe, but merely as a private grant of a liberty to fiſh in the ſeveral fiſhery of the grantor[2]. But the conſidering ſuch right as originally a flower of the prerogative, till reſtrained by magna carta, and derived by royal grant (previous to the reign of Richard I.) to ſuch as now claim it by preſcription, may remove ſome difficulties in reſpect to this matter, with which our books are embaraſſed.
VIII. Corodies are a right of ſuſtenance, or to receive certain allotments of victual and proviſion for one's maintenance[3]. In lieu of which (eſpecially when due from eccleſiaſtical perſons) a penſion or ſum of money is ſometimes ſubſtituted[4]. And theſe may be reckoned another ſpecies of incorporeal hereditaments; though not chargeable on, or iſſuing from, any corporeal inheritance, but only charged on the perſon of the owner in reſpect of ſuch his inheritance. To theſe may be added,
IX. Annuities, which are much of the ſame nature; only that theſe ariſe from temporal, as the former from ſpiritual, perſons. An annuity is a thing very diſtinct from a rent-charge, with which it is frequently confounded: a rent-charge being a burthen impoſed upon and iſſuing out of lands, whereas an annuity is a yearly ſum chargeable only upon the perſon of the grantor[5]. Therefore, if a man by deed grant to another the ſum of 20𝑙. per annum, without expreſſing out of what lands it ſhall iſſue, no land at all ſhall be charged with it; but it is a mere perſonal annuity: which is of ſo little account in the law, that, if granted to an eleemoſynary corporation, it is not within the ſtatutes of mortmain[6]; and yet a man may have a real eſtate in it, though his ſecurity is merely perſonal.
