176 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Many cases may be supposed, each of which, should it arise, would 

 be in its particular facts a new case, in illustration of the proposition 

 for which we contend. Suppose that some method of explosive destruc- 

 tion should be discovered by which vessels on the seas adjacent to the 

 Newfoundland coast outside of the jurisdictional line could, with profit 

 to themselves, destroy all the fish that resort to those coasts, and so put 

 an end to the whole fishing industry upon which their inhabitants so 

 largely depend. Would this be a business that would be held justifi- 

 able as a part of the freedom of the sea? although the fish are ad- 

 mitted to be purely ferce naturae, and the general right of fishing in 

 the open sea outside of certain limits is not denied. 



An Atlantic cable has been laid between America and Great Britain, 

 the operation of which is important to those countries and to the world. 

 Suppose some method of deep-sea fishing or marine exploration should 

 be invented, profitable to those engaged in it, but which should inter- 

 rupt the operation of the cable and perhaps endanger its existence. 

 Would those nations be powerless to defend themselves against such 

 consequences, because the act is perpetrated upon the high sea? 



Suppose vessels belonging to citizens of one country to be engaged 

 in transporting for hire across the sea to ports of another, emigrants 

 from plague-stricken and infected places, thus carrying into those ports 

 a destructive contagion. If it should be found that measures of de- 

 fense inside of the three-mile or cannon-shot lines were totally inade- 

 quate and ineffectual, would the nation thus assailed be deprived of 

 the power of defending itself against the approach of such vessels, as 

 far outside that line as the actual necessity of the case might require? 

 This question is answered by the acts of the British Parliament before 

 referred to, applicable to just such a case. 



If a light-house were erected by a nation in waters outside of the 3- 

 mile line, for the benefit of its own commerce and that of the world, if 

 some pursuit for gain on the adjacent high sea should be discovered 

 which would obscure the light or endanger the light-house or the lives 

 of its inmates, would that government be defenseless? Lord Chief Jus- 

 tice Cockburn answers this inquiry in the case of Queen v. Kehn above 

 cited (p. 198) when he declares that such encroachments upon the high 

 sea would form a part of the defense of a country, and " come within 

 the principle that a nation may do what is necessary for the protection 

 of its own territory." 



In any of these cases, would it be necessary for the nation assailed 



