186 The Frederick Gerring, Jr. 



of what may be shortly termed the "headland" claim was that of 

 the American fishing vessel Washington seized in the Bay of 

 Fundy while fishing more than three miles from the shore. A 

 claim was made by our Government for damages for this seizure 

 and under the Claims Convention of the eighth of February, 1853, 

 it was considered and the umpire decided that the seizure was 

 unlawful. 



The coast of Nova Scotia near where the Gerring was seized 

 is irregular in its outline. The two extreme projections of the 

 mainland in the neighborhood are Liscombe Light to the east of 

 where the Gerring lay, and Taylor's Head to the west. A line 

 drawn from those two points would be approximately thirty miles 

 in length. The inshore waters included within this line are not 

 and can not be denominated a bay. At the time of the seizure, 

 even assuming that the Gerring was where she was claimed by 

 the Crown to be, she was four and one-quarter miles outside the 

 line thus drawn and very much more than that from any point 

 upon the mainland of Nova Scotia. There was, however, within 

 one and three-quarters miles from the point at which it is claimed 

 the Gerring was seized and toward the Nova Scotia shores an 

 isolated ledge called Gull Ledge which in the sailing directions' 

 issued by our Government is described as "composed of two bare 

 ridges of slate of thirty feet high and separated only by a narrow 

 gulley which is wide enough to afford shelter to a boat." The 

 ledge is unhabitable and without vegetation. When the sea is 

 high it breaks over the top of these ridges of slate. It is only by 

 considering this isolated piece of rock which is three and three- 

 quarters miles from the nearest point of the mainland of Nova 

 Scotia as a part of the "coast" of Nova Scotia that it can be pre- 

 tended that the Gerring was exceeding her rights under the treaty 

 or violating the Canadian law. Upon these considerations, none 

 of which were brought to the attention of the Supreme Court of 

 Canada, it is respectfully submitted that the Gerring was upon 

 the high seas and not "within three marine miles of any of the 

 coasts, bays, creeks or harbors of His Britannic Majesty's Do- 

 minions in America," and that whatever may be said of the asser- 

 tion heretofore made by the British Government that in the case 

 of bays more than six miles wide the line of exclusion should be 

 drawn three miles from a line drawn from headland to headland, 



