106 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



foundland, but also would have excluded from the territory of Great 

 Britain that part of the Bristol Channel which in Reg. v. Gunning- 

 ham a was decided to be in the county of Glamorgan. On the other 

 hand, the diplomatists of the United States in 1793 claimed a terri- 

 torial jurisdiction over much more extensive bays, and Chancellor 

 Kent, in his Commentaries, though by no means giving the weight 

 of his authority to this claim, gives some reasons for not considering 



it altogether unreasonable. 

 119 It does not appear to their Lordships that jurists and text 



writers are agreed what are the rules as to dimensions and con- 

 figuration, which, apart from other considerations, would lead to the 

 conclusion that a bay is or is not a part of the territory of the State 

 possessing the adjoining coasts ; and it has never, that they can find, 

 been made the ground of any judicial determination. 



Hall 6 treats bays as subject to very different considerations from 

 those which apply to the open sea. He points out that nations have 

 continually asserted claims to sovereignty over bays; and, after exam- 

 ining the principles on which occupation of these tracts of water may 

 be justified, comes to the conclusion that a State may claim exclusive 

 rights over waters which are supposed to be necessary to the safety 

 of the State or which are within its powers to command. 



EARLIER CONTINENTAL WRITERS. 



These views are founded on the opinions of earlier continental 

 writers. Thus Puffendorf says : 



Gulfs and channels or arms of the sea are, according to the regular 

 course, supposed to belong to the people with whose lands they are 

 encompassed. 



Azuni, writing in 1796, says: 



It is already established among polished nations that, in places 

 where the land, by its curve, forms a bay or a gulf, we must suppose 

 a line to be drawn from one point of the enclosing land to the other, 

 or along the small islands which extend beyond the headlands of the 

 bay, and that the whole of this bay, or gulf, is to be considered as 

 territorial sea. even though the centre may be, in some places, at a 

 greater distance than 3 miles from either shored 



Bluntschli 6 recognises that bays cannot be subject to the same 

 limitations as the belt of sea along the coast, and admits that other 

 considerations admit and justify a larger dominion. 



Vattel f says : 



Tout ce que nous avons dit des parties de la mer voisines des cotes 

 se dit plus particulierement et a plus forte raison des rades, des baies, 



"Bell's Or. C. f p. 72. 



* 5th Ed., p. 155. 



"Law of Nature and Nations, B. Iv, c. T., s. 8, Kennet's ed., p. 382; and aa 

 quoted by Twlss (1884), p. 294. 



* Maritime Law of Europe, New York, 1806, voL i, p. 208. 



* S. 309. 



1 1830, s. 291, p. 272. 



