AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1663 



terprising and skilled fishermen who had fished in their vessels and 

 sent their catches to the American market. It drew them away to the 

 American vessels, where they were able, as members of American crews, 

 to take their fish into market free of duty. 



There was, at the same time, a desire growing on both sides for reci- 

 procity of trade, and it became apparent that there could be no peace 

 between these countries until this attempt at exclusion by imaginary 

 lines, always to be matters of dispute, was given up until we came 

 back to our ancient rights and position. It was more expensive to 

 Great Britain than to us. It made more disturbance in the relations be- 

 tween Great Britain and her provinces than it did between Great Br tain 

 and ourselves; butitputevery man's life in peril; it put the results of every 

 man's labor in peril ; and for what ? For the imaginary right to exclude 

 a deep-sea fisherman from dropping his hook or his net into the water 

 for the free-swimming fish, that have no habitat, that are the property 

 of nobody, but which are created to be caught by fishermen. So at last 

 it was determined to provide a treaty by which all this matter should 

 be set aside, and we should fall back upon own early condition. 



Now, your honors will allow me a word, and I hope you will not think 

 it out of place it is an interesting subject; I do not think it is quite 

 out of place, and I will not be long upon it on the nature of this right 

 which England claimed in 1818, to exclude us from the three miles, by 

 virtue of some supposed principle of international law. I have stated 

 my opinion upon it ; but your honors will be pleased to observe, that on 

 that, as upon the subject of headlands, on an essential part of it, with- 

 out which it can never be put in execution, there is no fixed international 

 law. 1 have taken pains to study the subject ; have examined it care- 

 fully since I came here, and I think I have examined most of the author- 

 ities. I do not find one who pledges himself to the three-mile line. It 

 is always " three miles," or " the cannon-shot." Now, " the cannon- 

 shot " is the more scientific, though not the more practical, mode of de- 

 termining the question, because it was the length of the arm of the 

 nation bordering upon the sea, and she could exercise her rights so far 

 as the length of her arm could be extended. That was the cannon-shot, 

 and that, at that time, was about three miles. It is now many more 

 miles. We soon began to find out that it would not do to rest it upon 

 the cannon-shot. It is best to have something certain. But interna- 

 tional writers have arrived at no further stage than this, to say that it 

 is " three miles, or the cannon-shot." When they are called upon to de- 

 termine what are the rights of bordering nations, they say, " to the ex- 

 tent of three miles, or the cannon shot." But upon the question, " How 

 is the three-mile line to be determined f ' we find everything utterly afloat 

 and undecided. My purpose in making these remarks is, in part, to 

 show your honors what a precarious position a state holds which under- 

 takes to set up this right of exclusion and to put it in execution. The 

 international law makes no attempt to define what is u coast." We know 

 well enough what a straight coast is, and what a curved coast is ; but 

 the moment they come to bays, harbors, gulfs, and seas, they are utterly 

 afloat as much as the sea-weed that is swimming up and down their 

 channels. They make no attempt to define it, either by distance or by 

 political or natural geography. They say at once, " It is difficult, where 

 there are seas and bays." Names will not help us. The Buy of Bengal 

 is not national property ; it is not the King's chamber ; nor is the Bay 

 of Biscay, nor the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, nor the Gult of Mexico. 

 Names will not help us. An inlet of the sea may be called a " bay," and 

 it may be two miles wide at its entrance; or it may be called a " bay," 



