86 ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



any part of Chesapeake Bay were not made on the high seas. The 

 headlands of Chesapeake Bay are 12 miles apart, and its length is 

 over 114 miles before its waters narrow to 6 miles. The fishing in 

 this bay is controlled by State legislation. 



In 1892-3, in the printed Argument of the United States in the 

 Behring Sea Arbitration Case, there is the following statement (Brit- 

 ish Case, App., p. 486, 487) : 



" Precisely what is the limit of jurisdiction upon the littoral sea, 

 and precisely what are the nature and extent of the jurisdiction that 

 can be asserted within it, whether it is absolute or qualified, terri- 

 torial or extraterritorial, are questions that have been a subject of 

 grave difference of opinion among jurists. Nor have they ever been 

 entirely settled. They will be found to be discussed with a fullness 

 of learning, a depth of research, and a masterly power of reasoning, 

 to which nothing can be added, in the opinions of the English judges 

 in the important and leading case of the Queen v. Kehn (2 Law Rep. 

 Exch. Div., 1876-77, pp. 63 to 239). These learned and eminent 

 judges were not fortunate enough to agree upon all the questions 

 involved, and every view that can be taken of them, and every con- 

 sideration that is pertinent, are exhaustively presented in their 

 opinions." 



******* 



" It is under the operation of the same principle on which juris- 

 diction is awarded to nations over the sea within the 3-mile or 



cannon-shot limit, that a similar jurisdiction is allowed to be 

 98 exercised not only over navigable rivers, bays, and estuaries, 



which may be fairly regarded as lying within territorial bound- 

 aries, but over those larger portions of the ocean comprised within 

 lines drawn between distant promontories or headlands, and often 

 extending much more than three miles from the nearest coast. Such 

 waters were formerly known in English law as ' the King's 

 Chambers.'" 



In 1903, in the Alaskan Boundary Arbitration Case, the United 

 States asserted that its boundary extended three miles beyond a line 

 joining the islands which lie off the Alaska coasts. Some of the 

 distances between these islands are more than twenty-five miles. 



PRACTICE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Great Britain, for her part, at the time the treaty of 1818 was 

 made, was asserting sovereignty not only over enclosed waters, but 

 over open seas surrounding her coasts to a wide extent. It is true 

 that, at the beginning of the 19th century, she was not insisting on 

 her claim to sovereignty over the four seas with the same vigour as 

 she had done at an earlier period, but so late as 1803 the negotiations 

 with the United States for a settlement of the right of search had 

 been broken off because the English Government would not concede 

 freedom from search within the British seas, and so late as 1805 the 

 British Admiralty regulations contained an order that His Majesty's 



