GENERAL ADOPTION OF THE THREE-MILE LIMIT 581 



other purposes, and first of all by the British Government in 

 connection with the rights of fishery. During the peace 

 negotiations with the United States at Ghent, after the war 

 of 1812-14, the British Government intimated that they did 

 not intend to grant to the United States gratuitously the 

 privileges formerly given by the treaty of 1783 "of fishing 

 within the limits of British territory, or of using the shores 

 of the British territories for purposes connected with the 

 fisheries." The treaty of Ghent contained no stipulation on 

 the subject, but shortly afterwards the British Government 

 expressed its intention to exclude, and gave instructions to 

 exclude, fishing vessels of the United States from fishing 

 within the harbours, bays, rivers, and creeks, and within 

 one marine league of the shores of the British territories in 

 America, and from drying and curing their fish on shore. 

 Several American vessels were seized for trespassing within 

 British waters, and the prolonged diplomatic discussion which 

 followed resulted in the convention of 1818, by which the 

 fishermen of the United States were allowed the same rights 

 as British fishermen on certain parts of the coast, but at all 

 other parts they were forbidden to fish within a distance of 

 three miles of the "coasts, bays, creeks, or harbours." 1 This 

 was the first of the treaties in which the three-mile limit 

 was specified, and it naturally formed a precedent for those 

 which followed. 



That the principle of adopting the distance in question as 

 the proper boundary of the territorial sea had not yet become 

 firmly incorporated in British policy in all cases was, however, 

 shown a few years later in the negotiations with Russia con- 

 cerning Behring Sea. In 1821 the Emperor of Russia issued 

 a ukase or decree, in which he declared that the pursuit of 

 commerce, whaling, and fishery, and of all other industry, on 

 all islands, ports, and gulfs, including the whole of the north- 

 west coast of America, beginning from Behring Straits to 



1 Convention, 1818, Art. i. "... And the United States hereby renounce 

 for ever any liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants thereof to 

 take, dry, or cure fish on or within three marine miles of any of the coasts, bays, 

 creeks, or harbours of his Britannick Majesty's dominions in America not included 

 within the above-mentioned limits." Wheaton, Elements, 324, 463 (ed. 1864). 

 Part. Papers, North America, No. 1 (1878). Henderson, American Diplomatic 

 Qiiestions, 497. 



