GENERAL ADOPTION OF THE THREE-MILE LIMIT 597 



was a matter of tolerance, founded principally on the supposed 

 abundance of fish ; and he held the opinion, which is at variance 

 with that of most other writers, unless when confined to the 

 territorial zone, that a state does not lose the right to forbid 

 foreigners from fishing in the waters along its coasts because 

 it at one time allowed them to do so. 



Much more definite and restricted was the opinion of a con- 

 temporary English lawyer, Chitty, who published a work on 

 the law of nations in 1812. 1 Quoting Vattel, that the whole 

 extent of the sea within cannon-shot of the coast is considered 

 as making part of the territory, and that a vessel taken 

 under the guns of a neutral fortress is not lawful prize, he 

 says that the same doctrine is enforced by Von Martens ; and 

 he refers to the decisions in the English Court of Admiralty 

 in the cases of the Twee Gebroeders and the Anna, which 

 established the principle in English law. Chitty, however, 

 makes no allusion to the three-mile limit as an alternative 

 to the range of guns. 



Bynkershoek's principle, and also a fixed distance in place 

 of it, were likewise accepted by Schmalz, Professor of Law in 

 the University of Berlin. Writing in 1817, 2 he declared that 

 the adjacent sea pertained to the neighbouring land as far 

 as it could be defended by cannon from the shore ; that this 

 principle had been systematically adopted ; and that the 

 distance had been fixed arbitrarily at three marine leagues, 3 

 an erroneous statement, no doubt derived from G. F. von 

 Martens, which has been previously referred to, 4 and was 

 copied from one book into another. Two years later another 

 and a greater German authority, Klu'ber, also adopted the 

 principle of the range of guns, without, however, proposing 

 an equivalent distance in miles. 5 He allowed to the state 

 the waters susceptible of exclusive possession, over which it 

 had acquired, by occupation or convention, and maintained, 



1 A Practical Treatise on the Law of Nations relative to the Legal Effect of War 

 on the Commerce of Belligerents and Neutrals. London, 1812. 



2 Das Europdische Volkerrecht, Berlin, 1817, p. 141. 



3 " So weit der Schuss des Geschiitses vom Ufer es bestreichen moge ; dies selbst 

 nahm man mit noch ungebundenerer Will-Kuhr auf 3 Lieues an." 



4 P. 564. 



* Europdisches Volkerrecht, Stuttgart, 1821, p. 204 ; Droit dcs Gens moderne de 

 I'Europe, 1819, III. ii. 130 (ed. 1831). 



