HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE TERRITORIAL SEA 561 



masters, shall they not be permitted to appropriate that 

 bounteous gift of nature as an appendage to the country they 

 possess, and to reserve to themselves the great advantages 

 which their commerce may thence derive, if there is sufficient 

 abundance of fish to furnish neighbouring nations ? Thus, 

 Vattel states, the herring fishery on the British coasts might 

 have been appropriated by the English if they had originally 

 taken exclusive possession of it, instead of allowing other 

 nations to take part in it. Another reason for the extension 

 of territorial dominion over the adjoining sea, "as far as a 

 nation is able to protect its right," is the security and welfare 

 of the state ; but the author says it is not easy to fix upon 

 any precise distance. Between nation and nation, "all that 

 can reasonably be said is that, in general, the dominion of 

 the state over the neighbouring sea extends as far as her 

 safety renders it necessary and her power is able to assert 

 it." At the time he wrote, "the whole extent of the sea which 

 is within cannon-shot of the coast is considered as forming part 

 of the territory ; and for that reason a vessel taken under the 

 cannon of a neutral fortress is not a lawful prize." The prin- 

 ciple that applied to the adjacent sea applied with much greater 

 force to roads, bays, and straits, since they were more capable 

 of being possessed, and were of greater importance to the 

 safety of the country. But such areas must be "of small 

 extent," and not great tracts of sea as Hudson's Bay and 

 the Straits of Magellan : a bay " whose entrance can be 

 defended " might clearly be appropriated. 



The opinions of Vattel do not, therefore, materially differ 

 from those of Puffendorf in the previous century, though the 

 tendency of the earlier writer to allow a wide dominion is 

 modified. Bynkershoek's principle of cannon range is adopted 

 in a somewhat cautious manner, and shown to apply especi- 

 ally to captures under the guns of a neutral fortress. But the 

 general argument in regard to fisheries, the security of the 

 state, and the exercise of territorial jurisdiction as in the 

 King's Chambers on the English coast, which Vattel cites as 

 an example of the practice implies that a nation might law- 

 fully extend its sovereignty much beyond the range of guns. 



In the writings of other international jurists later in the 

 century, the tendency to narrow the extent of the territorial 



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