564 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



that a nation might acquire maritime dominion beyond that 

 limit. 1 The principle of appropriation, he says, which applies 

 to lakes and rivers also applies to straits, which are in general 

 not wider than great rivers and lakes, so that the middle 

 may be reached by a cannon-ball fired from the shore; and 

 those parts of the sea which border the land may also be 

 regarded as the property and under the dominion of the 

 nation possessing the coast. By a custom generally acknow- 

 ledged, he continues, the authority of the possessor of the 

 coast extends as far as the range of guns from the shore 

 that is to say, to a distance of three leagues ; 2 and he adds 

 that this distance is the least that a nation ought to claim 

 as the extent of its dominion in the sea. But he also says 

 that a nation may occupy and extend its dominion beyond 

 that distance, and maintain it, if the security of the nation 

 require it, by a fleet of armed vessels; and, further, that 

 its sovereignty may extend as far as it has been acknow- 

 ledged to reach by the consent of other nations, and beyond 

 the boundary of its property Von Martens, like many others, 

 drawing a distinction between property in the sea and sover- 

 eignty over it. As examples of such cases, he definitely states, 

 as well established at the time he wrote, that St George's 

 Channel was under the sovereignty of Great Britain and 

 the Gulf of Bothnia under that of Sweden, while the straits 

 between Sweden and Denmark were considered to be the 

 property of Denmark. On the other hand, the Bay of Biscay, 

 the Mediterranean, the Straits of Gibraltar, the White Sea, 

 and the North Sea were acknowledged to be free. 



Towards the close of the century, an Italian author, Azuni, 



1 Precis du Droit des Gens moderne de V Europe, fondt sur les Trailed et V Usage, 

 Gottingen, 1789, Liv. iv. c. iv. In an earlier work, Primce Linece Juris Gentium 

 Europcearum, published at Gottingen in 1785, the three-league limit is omitted. 

 After speaking of ports, bays, and straits, he says, " Neque minus in genere ese 

 maris partes, quse territorio proximse sunt (mare proximum vocant) et tormentorum 

 in limite terra; constitutorum ictui subsunt, censentur esse in dominio gentis teme 

 dominse, et pro parte territorii habentur." 



2 " Sur la mer voisine en general jusqu'a la porte"e du canon place sur le rivage ; 

 c. a. d. jusqu'a trois lieues du rivage," p. 189. He also speaks elsewhere of the 

 range of guns being equivalent to three leagues; but it would appear that the 

 terms "miles" and "leagues" were sometimes used indifferently and carelessly 

 (see Bluntschli, p. 682), and three leagues was far beyond the range of guns in Von 

 Marten's time. 



