444 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



said and laying the rule for the general and common bays. 

 It has been suggested that the Treaty of 1818 ought not 

 to be studied as hereabove in the light of any Treaties of 

 a later date, but rather be referred to such British inter- 

 national Conventions as preceded it and clearly illustrate, 

 according to this view, what were, at the time, the princi- 

 ples maintained by Great Britain as to their sovereignty 

 over the sea and over the coast and the adjacent territorial 

 waters. In this connection the Treaties of 1686 and 1713 

 with France and of 1763 with France and Spain have been 

 recited and offered as examples also of exclusion of nations 

 by agreement from fishery rights on the high seas. I can- 

 not partake of such a view. The treaties of 1686, 1713 and 

 1763 can hardly be understood with respect to this, other- 

 wise than as examples of the wild, obsolete claims over the 

 common ocean which all nations have of old abandoned 

 with the progress of an enlightened civilization. And if 

 certain nations accepted long ago to be excluded by con- 

 vention from fishing on what is to-day considered a com- 

 mon sea, it is precisely because it was then understood that 

 such tracts of water, now free and open to all, were the 

 exclusive property of a particular power, who, being the 

 owners, admitted or excluded others from their use. The 

 Treaty of 1818 is in the meantime one of the few which 

 mark an era in the diplomacy of the world. As a matter of 

 fact it is the very first which commuted the rule of the can- 

 non-shot into the three marine miles of coastal jurisdiction. 

 And it really would appear unjustified to explain such his- 

 toric document, by referring it to international Agree- 

 ments of a hundred and two hundred years before when 

 the doctrine of SELDEN'S Mare Clausum was at its height 

 and when the coastal waters were fixed at such distances 

 as sixty miles, or a hundred miles, or two days' journey 

 from the shore and the like. It seems very appropriate, 

 on the contrary, to explain the meaning of the Treaty of 



