1896 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



cardinal maxim of interpretation equally by civilians and by writers on 

 international law." 



The interpretation contended for by the United States Government 

 requires that we should, in effect, insert the words, " of the shore," in 

 the article itself, as understood although not expressed, either before 

 the words "of any of the coasts, bays, creeks, or harbors," &c., as nec- 

 essary to make those words operative, or as authorized by usage ; or 

 before the words ''bays, creeks, or harbors," as demanded by the con- 

 text, and indispensable to prevent a conflict with other provisions of the 

 treaty. 



Such an interpretation, however, is, in the first place, not required to 

 make the words "of any of the coasts" operative. Assuming that we 

 should be justified in applying to the language of the treaty the decis- 

 ions of the admiralty courts of the United States, where any words 

 have received a judicial interpretation, the treaty being a contract 

 according to the law of nations, and the admiralty courts in the United 

 States being tribunals which administer that law, we find that the term 

 "coast" has received a judicial interpretation expressly with reference 

 to territorial jurisdiction; and that, according to that interpretation, 

 the woid "coasts" signifies "the parts of the land bordering on the sea r 

 and extending to low-water mark; " in other words, " the shores at low 

 low water." 



The question was formally taken into consideration in the year 1804, 

 in the case of the "Africaine," a French corvette, captured by a British 

 privateer off the bar of Charleston, and on the outside of the Rattle- 

 snake Shoal, which is four miles at least from land. (Bee's Admiralty 

 Reports, p. 205.) On this occasion, the commercial agent of the French 

 Republic claimed the corvette to be restored as captured within the 

 jurisdiction of the United States ; and it was contended in argument, 

 in support of the claim, that the term "coasts" included also the shoals 

 to a given distance; and that all geographers and surveyors of sea-coasts 

 understood by the term "coasts" the shoals along the laud. Mr. 

 Justice Bee, however, who sat in the court of admiralty in Charleston, 

 overruled this argument ; and after observing that the interpretation 

 of coasts in the large sense of the word might possibly be correct in a 

 maritime point of view, decided that " coasts," in reference to territorial 

 jurisdiction, is equivalent to shores, and must be construed to mean 

 " the laud bordering on and washed by the sea extending to low- water 

 mark." 



That the words "shores" and " coasts" are equivalent terms, accord- 

 ing to the common sense of these terms in the jurisprudence of the 

 United States, may be gathered from the language of various acts of 

 Congress. For instance, the revenue act of 1799 (Laws of the United 

 States, vol. iii, p. 13G) assigns districts to the collectors of revenue, 

 whose authority to visit vessels is extended expressly to a distance of 

 four leagues from the coast ; and the districts of these collectors, in the 

 case of the Atlantic States, are expressly recited as comprehending 

 " all the waters, shores, bays, harbors, creeks, and inlets " within the 

 respective States. This act of Congress has also received a judicial in- 

 terpretation, according to which the authority of revenue officers to 

 visit vessels is held to extend over the high seas to a distance of four 

 leagues from the shore of the mainland. Again, the judiciary act of 

 June, 1794, uses the words " coasts" and " shores" not as alternative, 

 but as equivalent terms according to judicial decisions on this very 

 point, when it speaks of the " territorial jurisdiction of the United 

 States extending a marine league from the 'coasts' or 'shores' thereof.' 



