546 



THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



Although the principle was not formally acknowledged by 

 the Dutch in determining their fishing on the British coasts, 

 they agreed to adhere to it (see p. 193) ; and there is evidence 

 to show that the British cruisers caused them to respect 

 this limit, at all events in connection with the herring-fishing 

 at Yarmouth. 1 A later example of the adoption of this limit 

 is to be found in a treaty concluded in 1740 between the 

 Porte and the King of Naples, by which it was stipulated 

 that neither party would permit vessels to be pursued or 

 molested on their coasts within a distance at which ships 

 could discern the land. 2 



The method of determining the extent of the territorial 

 sea by the range of vision was vague and open to obvious 

 objections, even though it was ascertained only on a fair 

 day. The distance, as Bynkershoek pointed out, would vary 

 according to the position of the observer, the keenness of 

 his vision, the climate, and many other circumstances, and 

 it was inapplicable to narrow seas, such as the Channel, 

 where the opposite coasts belonged to different states. It 

 is, however, questionable whether, under proper rules, it 

 would have furnished a zone much less definite than that of 

 the range of guns. It has been proposed by some modern 

 publicists, as Rayneval, Azuni, Heffter, and Godey, as a 

 boundary of territorial waters ; and if it had been generally 

 adopted as a principle of delimitation, there is no doubt that 

 the equivalent distance of fourteen miles as used in Scotland 

 would have proved more satisfactory in several respects than 

 the ordinary limit of three miles, which was supposed to 

 represent the range of guns. 



Still less definite was another principle, if such it can be 

 called, which was proposed as a guide in allotting the space 

 of sea within which exclusive rights of fishing should belong 

 to the adjacent state. Wei wood, Selden, and many others, 

 held, in opposition to Grotius and his school, that the fisheries 

 along a coast might be exhausted or injured by promiscuous 



1 Captain George St Lo, England's Safety, or a Bridle to the French King, 1693. 

 "During the time I was convoy to our fishing there, as aforesaid (1685-6), my 

 business was to see that no foreigner should fish in sight of the shore, because the 

 fish draw thither to spawn ; the best draughts are there." 



2 Azuni, Sistema universal* dei Principj del Diritto marittimo, i. 78. 



