Appendix to the Memo rial. 115 



learned Local Judge in Admiralty for the Nova Scotia Admiralty 

 District, before whom the case was tried, and who had before him 

 a number of witnesses as well for the Crown as for the defence, 

 came to that conclusion, and we must not disturb his finding unless 

 it is manifest that he is wrong. In my view it is manifest that 

 he is right. The direct evidence, the evidence of every witness 

 who made any examination, and who was in a position to testify 

 as to the result of his own actual observation, was in favour of 

 the Crown. The three officers of the seized steamer testified that 

 the Gcrring, when seized, was within the three-mile limit. None 

 of the witnesses who formed part of the crew of the seized vessel 

 ventured to assert, except as a matter of opinion unsupported by 

 actual observation, anything to the contrary. Expert evidence, 

 however, was called on behalf of the defence for the purpose of 

 showing that if at three o'clock in the afternoon the seized vessel 

 was outside the three-mile limit, it would be impossible for her 

 to be within that limit at the time of the seizure. This evidence 

 was based upon a number of hypotheses which may or may not 

 have been accurate, but its legal effect or tendency was, in my 

 view, to prove, not that the Gcrring was outside of the three-mile 

 limit at the time of the seizure, but that she was continuously 

 within it from the time the seine was set down to the time that 

 the seizure was made, and that Captain MacKenzie was mistaken 

 in his opinion as to the exact position, both of his ship and the 

 Gerring in the early part of the day. We must, however, take 

 for granted that at the time when the seine was set out the Gcr- 

 ring was outside the three-mile limit, and for the purpose of this 

 opinion 1 will assume that to have been the fact. 



The main question, therefore is: Assuming the seine to have 

 been set out and the mackerel encompassed by it outside the ter- 

 ritorial limit, and that the vessel with the seine subsequently 

 drifted, or came, no matter how, to a point within the three-mile 

 limit, and that at such point her crew were found bailing the fish 

 from the seine into the vessel, was the Gcrring, or those control- 

 ling her. doing an act which would justify her seizure and con- 

 demnation ? 



By the convention of 1818 the United States renounced 

 forever 



