100 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



and when the ignorance and want of concert among other maritime 

 countries facilitated such an usurpation. 



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 be- 

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

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

 in a small degree by written authorities, and perhaps it may be reason- 

 ably varied in some degree by local peculiarities. But the greatest 

 distance which would now be listened to anywhere would make a 

 small proportion of the narrowest part of the narrowest seas in 

 question. 



What are, in fact, the prerogatives claimed and exercised by Great 

 Britain over these seas ? If they were really a part of her domain, her 

 authority would be the same there as within her other domain. For- 

 eign vessels would be subject to all the laws and regulations framed 

 for them, as much as if they were within the harbours or rivers of the 

 country. Nothing of this sort is pretended. Nothing of this sort 

 would be tolerated. The only instances in which thes,e 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 juris- 

 diction 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 ap- 

 plied to other usurpations. The prerogative has been often contested, 

 however, even at the expense of bloody wars, and is still borne with 

 ill will and impatience by her neighbours. At the last treaty of peace 

 at Amiens the abolition of it was repeatedly and strongly pressed by 

 France ; and it is not improbable, that at no remote day it will follow 

 the fate of the title of " King of France " so long worn by the British 

 monarchs, and at length so properly sacrificed to the lessons of a mag- 

 nanimous wisdom. As far as this homage to the British flag has any 

 foundation at present, it rests merely on long usage and long 

 59 acquiescence, which are construed, as in a few other cases of 

 maritime claims, into the effect of a general, though tacit con- 

 vention. The second instance is the extension of the territorial juris- 

 diction to four leagues from the shore. This, too, as far as the dis- 

 tance 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 Britajn has in preventing a 

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

 and manufactures: whilst the limitation itself to four leagues neces- 

 sarily implies that beyond that distance no territorial jurisdiction is 

 assumed. 



But, whatever may be the origin or the value of these prerogatives 

 over foreign flags in one case, and within a limited portion of these 

 seas in another, it is obvious that neither of them will be violated by 

 the exemption of American vessels from impressments, which are 

 nowise connected with either; having never been made on the pre- 

 text either of withholding the wonted homage to the British flag, or 

 of smuggling in defiance of British laws. 



This extension of the British law to four leagues from the shore is 

 inferred from an Act of Parliament, passed in the year 1736, (9 



