40 PROTECTION AND PROPERTY RIGHTS. 



Case of the perfect, yet it was bare and uninhabited, and, 



Harriet. 



therefore, justice required that "the shores, as 

 well as the body of the ocean, ought to be left 

 common to all ;" which proposition, if established, 

 would have justified the act of the Harriet. The 

 accuracy of this proposition the United States are 

 not now called upon to discuss, since it has no 

 bearing upon the present issues. 



In dismissing the case of the Harriet the United 

 States again insist that it is wholly irrelevant to 

 the present controversy, for the reason that no 

 occasion had arisen for the assertion of any right 

 to protect seals when away from land, and no 

 such right was, in fact, either asserted or denied 

 by either party. 



