224 THE ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



gation, to fix on the distance to which we may ultimately insist 

 on the right of protection, the President gives instructions to the offi- 

 cers, acting under his authority, to consider those heretofore given 

 them as restrained for the present to the distance of one sea-league, 

 or three geographical miles from the sea shores. a 



It is true, as stated in the British Case that Mr. Jefferson added 



For that of the rivers and bays of the United States, the laws of the 

 several States are understood to have made provision, and they are, 

 moreover, as being landlocked, within the body of the United States. 6 



All " landlocked " rivers and bays are a part of the territory of the 

 United States. The several States had enacted no legislation intend- 

 ing to enlarge the customary extent of maritime jurisdiction over 

 bays. 



In 1862 during the Civil War in the United States, an organized 

 force of the States in rebellion, proceeded overland, embarked on the 

 waters of the Chesapeake Bay, a body of water leading by a navigable 

 river to Washington, the national capital, and into a populous interior 

 district, as in the case of the Delaware Bay and Kiver, and captured 

 and destroyed the Alleganean, a vessel duly registered in and sailing 

 from a loyal port in the United States. When later, commissioners 

 appointed to apportion the award of the Geneva Tribunal, consid- 

 ered the claim of the owners of the Alleganean, they decided that the 

 waters of Chesapeake Bay could not be used for the operations of war 

 to the injury of the United States. The waters of this bay are open 

 to the vessels of all nations for all peaceful purposes. 



The Supreme Court of the United States, in Manchester vs. Massa- 

 chusetts, 139 U. S. Reports, p. 258, held : 



We think it must be regarded as established that, as between na- 

 tions, the minimum limit of the territorial jurisdiction of a nation 

 over tide-waters is a marine league from its coast; that bays wholly 

 within its territory not exceeding two marine leagues in width at the 

 mouth are within this limit; and that included in this territorial 

 jurisdiction is the right of control over fisheries, whether the fish be 

 migratory, free-swimming fish, or free-moving fish, or fish attached 

 to or embedded in the soil. The open sea within this limit is, of 

 course, subject to the common right of navigation; and all govern- 

 ments, for the purposes of self-protection in time of war or for the 

 prevention of frauds on its revenue, exercise an authority beyond 

 this limit. 



British Case, Appendix, 56. 6 British Case, 84. 



