590 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



adjacent territorial waters." A similar reluctance apparently 

 to fix a definite boundary to the territorial seas for all purposes 

 has been shown by the British Government on several occasions 

 in recent years as, for example, in the Territorial Waters 

 Jurisdiction Act, and in the negotiations preceding the North 

 Sea fishery convention of 1882. 1 



The statute just referred to was the outcome of a very 

 important case which was decided in the English courts in 1876, 

 and raised indirectly the whole question of the extent of the 

 territorial sea (apart from bays) and the nature of the juris- 

 diction over it. A German ship, the Franconia, bound from 

 Hamburg to the West Indies, ran into a British ship, the 

 Strathdyde, off Dover and within two and a half miles from 

 the English coast, whereby the Strathdyde was sunk and a 

 passenger drowned. The master, a German named Keyn, was 

 convicted of manslaughter in the Central Criminal Court, 

 according; to English law, and the case was carried to the 



o o 



Criminal Court of Appeal. The defence was that as the 

 defendant was a foreigner, in a foreign vessel, on a foreign 

 voyage, sailing upon the high seas, he was not subject to the 

 jurisdiction of any court in this country, while it was con- 

 tended for the crown that inasmuch as at the time of the 

 collision he was within three miles of the English shore, the 

 offence was committed within the realm of England and was 

 triable by the English court. 2 It was held by seven of the 

 thirteen judges that in the absense of statutory enactment the 

 Central Criminal Court had no power to try such an offence, 

 inasmuch as the original jurisdiction of the admiral, which 

 had been transferred to that court, did not enable him to try 

 offences by foreigners on board foreign ships ; the other six 

 judges held the opposite, on the ground that the sea within 

 three miles of the coast of England is part of the territory of 

 England ; that the English criminal law extends over those 

 limits ; and the admiral formerly had, and the Central Criminal 

 Court now has, jurisdiction to try offences there committed 

 although on board foreign ships. In referring to the limits of 

 the territorial waters under the law of nations, the three-mile 

 distance or the range of guns from the shore was very gener- 



1 See pp. 592, 632. 



2 Regina v. Keyn, Law Reports, Excheq. Div., ii., 1876-7, p. 63. 



