QUESTION FIVE. 75 



To the British assertion of supremacy over the " narrow seas " which 

 surround the British Isles (and in consequence of a right of search 

 there), the United States objected that the time in which such pre- 

 tension could be sustained had passed. The Secretary of State said 

 (App., p. 58) : 



The progress of civilisation and information has produced a change 

 in all those respects; and no principle in the code of public law is 

 at present better established than the common freedom of the seas 

 beyond a very limited distance from the territories washed by them. 

 This distance is not, indeed, fixed with absolute precision. 



The Secretary further said that 



the only instances in which these seas (the narrow seas) are dis- 

 tinguished from other seas, or in which Great Britain enjoys within 

 them any distinction over other nations, are: first, the compliment 

 paid by other flags to hers; secondly, the extension of her territorial 

 jurisdiction in certain cases to the distance of four leagues from the 

 coast. The first is a relic of ancient usurpation, which has thus long 

 escaped the correction, which modern and more enlightened times 



have applied to other usurpations. 



******* 



The second instance is the extension of the territorial jurisdiction 

 to four leagues from the shore. This, too, as far as the distance may 

 exceed that which is generally allowed, rests on a like foundation, 

 strengthened, perhaps, by the local facility of smuggling, and the 

 peculiar interest which Great Britain has in preventing a practice 

 affecting so deeply her whole system of revenue, commerce, and 

 manufactures : whilst the limitation itself to four leagues necessarily 

 implies that beyond that distance no territorial jurisdiction is 

 assumed. 



In the same year Mr. Jefferson (the President of the United 

 States) wrote to the United States Secretary of State (8th Septem- 

 ber) defining the position of the United States in respect of bays as 

 follows (App., p. 59) : 



As we shall have to lay before Congress the proceedings of the 

 British vessels at New York, it will be necessary for us to say to 

 them, with certainty, which specific aggressions were committed 

 within the common law. which within the Admiralty jurisdiction, 

 and which on the high seas. The rule of the common law is 



that wherever you can see from land to land, all the water 

 86 within the line of sight is in the body of the adjacent county, 



and within common law jurisdiction. Thus, if in this curva- 

 ture, \^x x "c" x xj^'5 you can see from a to b. all the water within 

 the line of sight is within common law jurisdiction, and a murder 

 committed at c is to be tried as at common law. Our coast is gen- 

 erally visible, I believe, by the time you get within about twenty-five 

 miles. I suppose that at New York you must be some miles out of 

 the Hook before the opposite shores recede twenty-five miles from 

 each other. The three miles of maritime jurisdiction is always to 

 be counted from this line of sight. 



