THE JURIDICAL CONTROVERSIES 355 



mare proximum were open to all nations indifferently for all 

 uses, but that in the adjacent sea the neighbouring prince had 

 in particular two primary rights besides jurisdiction namely, 

 the right of navigation and the right of fishing, with the power 

 to impose taxes for either. He maintained that fishing in the 

 sea was for the most part appropriated, and for a clear reason. 

 God had appointed the fishes (herrings) to swarm along the 

 coasts of Britain and the surrounding isles at seasons and 

 places which He had pre-arranged, and for the benefit of the 

 inhabitants : why, then, should the people be hindered from 

 possessing as their own this benefit which God had granted 

 them ? He would be unwilling to deny the communication of 

 this natural advantage to other nations, "but only by the 

 same law by which they possess their own, that is by a just 

 price." Yet, notwithstanding this special blessing which had 

 been granted to the British people, they were despoiled of it 

 and of their just rights, owing to their seas being taken pos- 

 session of, as it were, by a continual inundation of foreign 

 fishermen, so that the shoals were scattered and the fishery ex- 

 hausted. Welwood then refers to the alleged old agreement 

 between the Scotch and the Dutch, whereby the latter were 

 not to fish within eighty miles of the coast of Scotland (p. 84), 

 but which they of late totally disregarded, fishing close to the 

 shore, in front of the houses. And while they were permitted 

 to carry away their fish from our seas without paying any 

 tribute, the poor Scottish fishermen had to pay tithes to the 

 Church and the assize-herring to the crown, as well as having 

 their livelihood damaged by the action of the foreigners. 



The treatises of Welwood were composed to support the 

 claim of James to the assize-herring, and the project of the 

 queen to monopolise the fishings, as much as to demonstrate 

 the law as to the dominion of the sea. On one account if 

 on no other his works deserve to be remembered. He was 

 the first author who clearly enunciated, and insisted on, 

 the principle that the inhabitants of a country had a primary 

 and exclusive right to the fisheries along their coasts that 

 the usufruct of the adjacent sea belonged to them ; and 

 that one of the main reasons why that portion of the sea 

 should pertain to the neighbouring state was the risk of 

 the exhaustion of its fisheries from promiscuous use. 



