HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE TERRITORIAL SEA 571 



available, the same course was to be followed with muskets, 

 and, it was said, the rules had to be carried out precisely as 

 they had been ordained in a decree of 1756, when, no doubt, 

 the gunshot limit was equally in force. The Venetian decree 

 is couched in similar terms, and the size of the cannon whose 

 range was to determine the limit is mentioned. All acts of 

 force or authority between belligerents were prohibited "in 

 the ports, roads, and coasts of our dominion, and in all the 

 adjacent sea, at least to the distance within range of a large 

 cannon of battery." 1 In several of the edicts, as in the two 

 ' last referred to, the range of vision was also used as a limit 

 within which no belligerent vessel was to be allowed to station 

 itself, or cruise about waiting for the enemy's vessels : such 

 action was prohibited within view of the ports or roads. 



It will be noticed that all these edicts regarding neutral 

 waters in which the limit of cannon range was prescribed, 

 emanated from the small Mediterranean states ; but in many of 

 the international treaties which followed the Armed Neutrality 

 of 1780 the gunshot limit for neutral waters was also adopted. 

 This league, which was directed against Great Britain, had its 

 source in a declaration by the Empress Catherine II. of Russia 

 regarding the rights of neutrals ; especially that neutral vessels 

 should be free to carry on trade on the coasts of belligerents, 

 and that the property of belligerents in neutral vessels, except 

 arms, equipment, and munitions of war, should be free from 

 capture. The seizure of enemy's goods in neutral ships by 

 English cruisers bore hardly on the commerce of neutral 

 countries ; and for this reason, and, according to English 

 views, because it was perceived by the other Powers that 

 they could not directly contend against the naval force of 

 Great Britain, a new code of international law was introduced 

 which would have the effect of sapping it. 2 In some of the 

 treaties referred to, the limits of neutral waters were defined in 

 vague or general terms, as in that of 1782 between the United 



1 9th Sept. 1779, Arts, viii., ix. "Ed in tutti mari ad essi adjacenti, limitati, 

 almeno allo spazio circoscritto dalla portata d'un grosso cannone di batteria." Op. 

 cit., i. 78. 



2 Jenkinson (Lord Liverpool), A Discussion on the Conduct of the Government of 

 Great Britain in respect to Neutral Nations (1758), ed. 1801, Pref. Phillimore, 

 Commentaries, iii. 273. Wheaton's Elements (ed. 1864), 1024. Martens, Recueil, 

 iii. 158, seq. 



