544 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



or Sow, extending about one-third across the Channel between 

 Rye and Dieppe, was recognised by France as within the 

 English jurisdiction, and French fishermen for a very long 

 period were in the habit of procuring licenses from the Warden 

 of the Cinque Ports for permission to fish there (see p. 65). 

 The other is that when the question was raised as to how 

 far the jurisdiction of the Cinque Ports extended into the 

 sea in connection apparently with complaints against French 

 fishermen towards the end of the reign of Charles II. the 

 Trinity House, while avowing their own ignorance, stated 

 that the Sergeant of the Admiralty within the Cinque Ports 

 claimed to exercise his authority " half seas over or further." 1 

 The methods of delimitation hitherto mentioned consisted 

 in drawing imaginary lines in the sea, usually at a considerable 

 distance from the coast. Another principle, which probably 

 originated among seafaring men and was capable of being 

 made use of in a rough-and-ready fashion, depended on the 

 range of vision on a fair day, seawards from the shore, or 

 usually from the sea to the land. The space of sea between the 

 coast and the horizon, or vice versa, was regarded as belong- 

 ing to the adjoining state. This was the principle adopted 

 in Scotland, but it was not confined to that country. It was 

 employed in olden times in England to determine whether a 

 bay or arm of the sea was within the body of a county, inter 

 fauces terrce, and therefore under common law, or part of 

 the high sea and under the jurisdiction of the Admiral. 2 An 

 early instance of its adoption as a boundary of international 

 jurisdiction is to be found in the nautical laws prescribed for 

 the Netherlands in 1563 by Philip II. of Spain, by which it 



1 Brit. Mui. Add. MSS., 30,221, fol. 50. The opinion of the Trinity House 

 was given in November 1686. In 1677 the Privy Council, on a petition of the 

 fishermen of Hastings complaining of the French fishing on the coast, sent to the 

 Cinque Ports for an account "of the old limitations used to be put upon the 

 French and others in their proceedings in that fishing," and also ordered two ships 

 to be sent " to forbid the French to fish on the coast as having no license thereto, 

 and to drive them away from thence" (ibid.) On the other hand, Jeakes, in his 

 Charters of the Cinque Ports, written in 1678, states with reference to the powers 

 " by land and sea" conferred on the Ports by various charters, that per mare did 

 not mean altum mare, the high sea, where the Admiral had jurisdiction, but only 

 the "havens, creeks, and arms of the sea, so far as can be judged in a county, 

 where the land is on both sides," p. 69. 



2 See p. 547. 



