104 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



into three miles or a league. All independent nations possess such 

 jurisdiction on their coasts; and the right to it is not only generally 

 contained in the acknowledgement of the independence of the United 

 States, but seems to have been specifically alluded to in the 25th 

 article of the treaty of 1794. Particular circumstances resulting from 

 immemorial usage, geographical position or stipulations of treaty 

 have sometimes led to an extension of jurisdiction, and may therefore 

 when applicable, be urged as a justification of such a pretension. 



The natural causes which should lead to such exceptions are vari- 

 ously stated by authors and those urged by the American commis- 

 sioners as applicable to their country are to be found occasionally 

 among them. Thus, the remoteness of a country from the jurisdic- 

 tion of all others is acknowledged as diminishing the inconvenience 

 of an extension of her own. The practice of some nations even at 

 this day though not of great authority is founded on such a claim, 

 and even the admitted jurisdiction over an inland sea seems to rest 

 on reasoning nearly similar. Selden, who had however a strong bias 

 in favour of extended jurisdictions argues from such a principle in 

 favour of the maritime pretensions of England, and the claim of a 

 division of the sovereignty of a sea lying between two Powers such 

 as Great Britain* and Spain has been asserted and is still seriously 

 maintained in our law books of authority. 



The space between headlands is more generally laid down, and 

 admitted by Grotius himself, as subject to the exclusive jurisdiction 

 of the power to whom the Innd belongs. But neither in theory nor 

 in practice do we find the distance between the headlands to which 

 such a rule must exclusively apply accurately defined. James 1st 

 by his royal proclamation dated 1st of March 1G04, prohibiting hos- 

 tilities between belligerent nations within his jurisdiction, stated 

 headlands more than 90 miles distant one from another as forming 

 bays necessarily dependent on and belonging to the adjoining terri- 

 tory but it is remarkable that the Spaniards who were one of the 

 objects of this prohibition, considered the order as a relaxation not 

 as an extension of his lawful jurisdiction over the seas. 



The circumstance however on which the American commissioners 

 have chiefly relied is the shelving nature of their coast; and though 

 from the east end of Long Island northwards it does not deserve such 

 a description they allege that it is so broken with rocks as to oblige 

 coasting vessels to keep at a considerable distance from the land. A 

 shelving coast is urged as a reason for an extension of jurisdiction on 

 the principle that a right over the neighbouring parts of the sea is 

 not solely founded on power but on convenience for the protection of 

 trade from the molestation of belligerent vessels; and an inference 

 may be thence drawn in favour of an extension of jurisdiction on a 

 coast where the usual limits admit of little or no navigation. 



Though such protection afforded to their coasters give them a local 

 exemption from our right of impressment, it would diminish it is 

 said, the odium attached to that practice among them in a much 

 greater degree than it would abridge the advantages resulting from 

 it to us. For, one instance of vexation within sight of the shore ex- 

 cites more discontent than many of a similar nature which do not 

 reach the country till the passions of the parties have in a great meas- 

 ure subsided. 



