AWARD OP THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1 ' .; 



ion over the four seas, but to the right to preserve th efface of the King 

 in all seas, and even to treat as pirates the crews of those foreign ves- 

 sels which refused to strike their colors to a Kind's ship on any sea, pro- 

 ceeds as follows (pp. 174, 175) : " Venice, in like manner, lai'd claim to 

 the Adriatic, Genoa to the Ligurian Sea, Denmark to a portion of the 

 North Sea. The Portuguese claimed to bar the ocean route to India and 

 the Indian seas to the rest of the world, while Spain made the like 

 assertion with reference to the West. All these vain and extravagant 

 pretensions have long since given way to the influence of reason and 

 common sense." The remainderof the passage quoted in the Answer in to 

 be found at p. 196 of the Report, where referring to the jurisdiction of the 

 admiral, which extended over the whole ocean as regards Kritish ships, 

 and to the reasoning of some older authorities which sought from that 

 circumstance to extend the realm of England over the whole ocean, the 

 Lord Chief Justice says : u These assertions of sovereignty were man- 

 ifestly based on the doctrine that the narrow seas are part of the realm 

 of England. But that doctrine is now exploded. Who at this day 

 would venture to affirm that the sovereignty thus asserted in those times 

 now exists? What English lawyer is there who wonld not shrink from 

 maintaining, what foreign jurist who would not deny, what foreign gov- 

 ernment which would not repel such a pretension ! n 



In what possible way this language can be made to bear upon the 

 present inquiry, Her Majesty's Government are at a loss to under- 

 stand. 



Sir Robert Phillimore, one of the judges who agreed with the Lord 

 Chief Justice in the conclusion that the conviction ought not to stand, 

 was equally careful to put the consideration of the law governing bays 

 and inland waters out of the case. He says (p. 71) : "The question ;i- 

 to dominion over portions of the seas inclosed within headlands or con- 

 tiguous shore such as the King's chambers, t* not noic under considera- 

 tion. 



The King's chambers referred to by Sir Robert Phillimore are them- 

 selves well-known bays or inland waters on the English coast, inclosed 

 within headlands, many of them as large or larger at the mouths than 

 are the Bays of Miramichi or Chaleurs. 



It is confidently claimed by Her Majesty's Government that the case 

 of the Francouia, so far from affording any support to the Answer of 

 the United States, is an authority in favor of the right of Her Maijesty 

 to exercise sovereign and exclusive jurisdiction over all 

 other inland waters lying on the coast of British America inclosed \ 

 headlands, be the distance between such headlands what it may. 



A subsequent case directly in point and containing an interpret* 

 of the very word in the very instrument now under discussion, luw 

 decided by the judicial committee of the privy council, the Ufffc 

 appellate court in the realm in relation to all British colonial mat 

 as lately as the 14th February, 1877. The case is that of 

 United States Cable Company (Limited), appellant*, y. The .- 



can Telegraph Company (Limited), and others, respondents, reamed 

 Law Reports, Appeal Cases, vol. 2, p. 394. The suit was one i 

 the respondent company had obtained and injunction against 

 lant company restraining them from laying a telegraph Oftbl 

 ception Bay, Newfoundland, and thereby infringing rights 

 the legislature of that island to the respondent company. 

 company contended that Conception Bay (which is rather 

 twenty miles wide at its mouth and runs inland between f< 

 miles) was not British territorial waters, but a part of t 



