QUESTION FIVE. 99 



over open seas surrounding her coasts of a wide extent. It is true 

 that at the beginning of the 19th century she was not insisting on 

 her claim to sovereignty over the four seas with the same vigour as 

 she had done at an earlier period, but so late as 1803 the negotiations 

 with the United States for a settlement of the right of search had 

 been broken off because the English Government would not concede 

 freedom from search within the Bitish seas, and so late as 1805 the 

 British Admiralty regulations contained an order that His Majesty's 

 ships should insist on foreign ships striking their top-sails, and tak- 

 ing in their flags, in acknowledgment of His Majesty's sovereignty 

 in his seas, which extended to Cape Finisterre. In 1818, claims to 

 British sovereignty over St. George's Channel and the King's Cham- 

 bers, which include the waters within lines drawn from headland to 

 headland as from Orfordness to the Foreland and from Beachy 

 Head to Dunnose Point, were admitted without dispute. De Mar- 

 tens states that nobody in his time (1821) contested the ex- 

 112 elusive right of Great Britain over St. George's Channel. It 

 was insisted to the full in 1818, and was admitted by Chan- 

 cellor Kent to be a proper claim. (App., p. 58.) 



BRISTOL CHANNEL. 



By the common law of England, all enclosed waters are within 

 the realm. Thus the Bristol Channel was decided by the Court of 

 Queen's Bench in 1859 to be within the counties which bound it.* 

 This case is the leading English authority on the point, and it was 

 accepted as good law by the Privy Council in 1877. The Court 

 stated in their judgment, which was delivered by Chief Justice 

 Cockburn, that they proceeded on the principle that the whole of 

 this inland sea between the counties of Somerset and Glamorgan is 

 to be considered as within the counties by the shores of which its 

 several parts are respectively bounded. 



It is clear, therefore, that by the common law of England enclosed 

 waters on the coasts of the British dominions are within the sover- 

 eignty of the British Crown. 



REGINA V. KEYN. 



The question of the extent of the jurisdiction which English courts 

 have, by the municipal law, over the open seas adjoining the coast, as 

 distinct from enclosed waters was considered by the Court of Crown 

 Cases Reserved in the case of Regina v. Keyn in 1876.* But that case 



Precis de Droit des Gens moderne de F Europe, ed. 1821, p. 87. 

 6 Rex. v. Cunningham. Bell's Crown Cases, p. 72. 



"Direct U. S. Cable Co. v. Anglo-American Telegraph Co., L. R., 2 App., 

 Cas., p. 394. 



L. R., 2 Ex Div., p. 63. 



