210 THE ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Piedelievre: Precis de Droit International Public ou Droit des 

 Gens, published in 1894, vol. I, Section 417 : 



Are gulfs or bays, or considerable portions of the sea which 

 encroach upon the land, to be considered as subject to the terri- 

 torial sovereignty of the adjacent state? The general rule makes 

 them part of the territorial sea when their extent is such that it is 

 not impossible to defend their entrance from the shore; that is to 

 say, they are under the sovereignty of the riparian state when they 

 do not exceed in width the double range of cannon placed on the 

 shore, or when their entrance may be protected by artillery, or is 

 naturally protected by islands, banks, or rocks. In all these cases 

 it is evident that gulfs and wide bays are within the control of the 

 state proprietor of the land which encloses them. This state has 

 the actual possession. 



As to gulfs or bays which do not fulfill one or the other of these 

 conditions, they are free as the sea of which they constitute a natural 

 part, except that portion corresponding to the marginal sea of the 

 adjacent state, which is subject to the principles heretofore enun- 

 ciated. 



Professor Westlake, long Whewell Professor of International Law 

 in the University of Cambridge, in his International Law, vol. I, p. 

 187-88, states: 



As to bays, if the entrance to one of them is not more than twice 

 the width of the littoral sea enjoyed by the country in question that 

 is, not more than six sea, miles in the ordinary case, eight in that of 

 Norway, and so forth there is no access from the open sea to the bay 

 except through the territorial water of that country, and the inner 

 part of the bay will belong to that country no matter how widely 

 it may expand. The line drawn from shore to shore at the part 

 where, in approaching from the open sea, the width first contracts to 

 that mentioned, will take the place of the line of low water, and the 

 littoral sea belonging to the state will be measured outwards from 

 that line to the distance, three miles or more, proper to the state. 

 But although this is the general rule, it often meets with an excep- 

 tion in the case of bays which penetrate deep into the land and are 

 called gulfs. Many of these are recognized by immemorial usage as 

 territorial sea of the states into which they penetrate, notwithstand- 

 ing that theft entrance is wider than the general rule for bays would 

 give as a limit to such appropriation. Examples are the Bay of Con- 

 ception in Newfoundland, penetrating forty miles into the land and 

 being fifteen miles in average breadth, which is wholly British, 

 Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, which belong to the United States, 

 and the Bay of Cancale, seventeen miles wide, which belongs to 

 France. Similar exceptions to those admitted for gulfs were for- 

 merly claimed for many comparatively shallow bays of great width 

 for example those on the coast of England from Orfordness to the 

 North Foreland and from Beachy Head to Dunnose, which, together 

 with the whole of the Bristol Channel and various other stretches 

 of sea bordering on the British Isles, were claimed under the name of 

 the King's Chambers. But it is only in the case of a true gulf that 

 the possibility of occupation can be so real as to furnish a valid 



