ARGUMENT OF SIR WILLIAM ROBSON. 1821 



certain and determinate parcels by any marks or limits upon their 

 surface ; yet as they are contained within banks or shores, which are 

 near to one another, they are by this means made certain and de- 

 terminate enough to admit of property by occupancy." 



And then, I think to the same effect, you have Hiibner. 



That is the cannon-shot argument. 



JUDGE GRAY : What does that asterisk mean in the first line of sec- 

 tion 3, after the word " rivers " between " rivers " and " bays " ? 

 SIR CHARLES FITZPATRICK : That is the reference to Grotius. 

 1101 JUDGE GRAY : Oh, I see. 



SIR W. ROBSON: I do not know that it carries the matter 

 much farther. 



Then there is Vattel, which is already in. Vattel distinguishes 

 between " coasts " and " bays." 



I do not wish to repeat passages read by S. Robert Finlay. I just 

 wish to recall that to the minds of the Tribunal. He deals with the 

 question of how far the sea may be appropriated as bordering upon 

 the coast. 



" It is not easy to determine to what distance a nation may extend 

 its right over the sea by which it is surrounded. Bodinus pretends, 

 that according to the common right of all maritime nations, the 

 prince's dominion extends even thirty leagues from the coast. But 

 this exact determination can only be founded on a general consent 

 of nations, which it would be difficult to prove, each state may, in 

 this respect, ordain what it shall think best, in relation to what con- 

 cerns the citizens themselves, or their affairs with the sovereign; 

 but between nation and nation all that can be reasonably said, is, 

 that in general the dominion of the state over the neighbouring sea, 

 extends as far as is necessary for its safety, and it can render it 

 respected, since on the one hand, it can only appropriate to itself 

 a thing that is common, as the sea, so far as it has need of it, for 

 some lawful end (s. 281) ; and on the other, it would be a vain 

 and ridiculous pretension to claim a right that it was no ways able 

 to cause to be respected." 



Of course that puts a very narrow limit upon the coast-line, and 

 it puts a very wide limit upon the " bay." That is why at the very 

 beginning one has to observe that everybody, when you are dealing 

 with the territorial limitations, will notice there is that distinction. 

 It is true it is a component part of the coast, but it is a component 

 part of the coast under different relations. Your 3 miles, the can- 

 non-shot, is enough for the coast-line, but the moment you get into 

 the bay, then the defensibility brings quite new considerations into 

 view, and that is what the United States have omitted when they 

 simply doubled the coast-line limit in order to ascertain what they 

 called the territorial claim ; but that is a most illogical way of doing. 

 That is ignoring the bay altogether, ignoring it with all its character- 

 istics, and the facility with which it may be used for purposes of 



