1664 AWARD OF THE FISHEKY COMMISSION. 



and it may take a month's passage in an old-fashioned sailing vessel to 

 gail from one headland to the other. What is to be done about it ? If 

 there is to be a three-mile line from the coast, the natural result is, that 

 that three-mile line should follow the bays. The result then would be 

 that a bay more than six miles wide was an international bay; one six 

 miles wide, or less, was a territorial bay. That is the natural result. 

 "Well, nations do not seem to have been contented with this. France 

 lias made a treaty with England saying that anything less than ten miles 

 wide shall be a territorial bay. 



The difficulties on that subject are inherent, and, to my mind, they 

 are insuperable. England claimed to exclude us from fishing in the 

 Bay of Fundy, and it was left to referees, of whom Mr. Joshua Bates 

 was umpire, and they decided that the Bay of Fundy was not a territo- 

 rial bay of Great Britain, but a part of the high seas. This decision 

 was piit partly upon its width ; but the real ground was, that one of 

 the assumed headlands belonged to the United States, and it was neces- 

 sary to pass the headland in order to get to one of the towns of the 

 United States. For these special reasons, the Bay of Fundy, whatever 

 its width, was held to be a public and international bay. 



Then look at Bristol Channel. That question came up in the case of 

 Queen r. Cunningham. A crime was committed by Cunningham in the 

 Bristol Channel, more than three miles from the shore of Glamorgan- 

 shire, on the north side, and more than three miles from Devonshire 

 and Somersetshire, on the south side. Cunningham was indicted for a 

 crime committed in Glamorganshire. The place where the vessel lay 

 was high up in the channel, somewhere about 90 miles from its mouth, 

 and yet not as far up as the river Severn. The question was, whether 

 that was a part of the realm of Great Britain, so that a man could be 

 indicted for a crime committed there. Now, there is a great deal of 

 wisdom in the decision made in that case. The court say, substantially, 

 that each case is a case sui generis. It depends upon its own circum- 

 stances. Englishmen and Welshmen had always inhabited both banks 

 of the Bristol Channel. Though more than ten miles in width at its 

 entrance, it still flowed up into the heart of Great Britain ; houses, 

 farms, towns, factories, churches, court-houses, jails everything on its 

 banks ; and it seemed a preposterous idea, and I admit it, that in time 

 of war two foreign ships could sail up that Bristol Channel and fight 

 out their battle to their own content, on the ground that they did not 

 go within three miles of the shore. I think it would have been prepos- 

 terous to say that a foreign vessel could have sailed up the center of 

 that channel, and detied the fleets and armies of Great Britain, and all 

 her custom-house cutters, on the ground that she was flying the Amer- 

 ican or the French flag, and the deck was a part of the soil under that 

 flag. Well, it was a question of political geography, not of natural 

 geography. It was a question of its own circumstances. It was de- 

 rided to be a part of the realm of Great Britain. I do not know that 

 Anybody can object to the decision. 



The Franconia case, which attracted so much attention a short time 

 ago, did not raise this question, but it is of some importance for us to 

 remein>e.r. There there was no question of headlands. It was a straight 

 line of coast, and the vessel was within three miles of the shore. But 

 what was the ship doing? She was beating her way down the English 



hannel against the sea and wind, and she made her stretches toward 

 the English shore, coming as near as safety permitted, and then to the 

 b rench shore. She was in innocent use of both shores. She was not a 

 trespasser because she tacked within three miles of the British shore 



