Loose-Fish

Some wisdom from nutty Ishmael, who had better written an encyclopedia than a book:

I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
. . .
Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whaletrover litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.
. . .
[T]he very learned judge in set terms decided, to wit, - That as for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture
. . .
A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might possibly object to it . . . . But often possession is the whole of the law . . . . What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greek to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.1

And so it is with our country.


1 H Melville, Moby Dick (first published 1850. Here, London: Penguin Books, 1994), 379-81.