JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 87 



as a Mare Clausum, a proposition which the Paris Board of Arbi- 

 tration happily vetoed. The tendency in modern times seems to be 

 towards the open sea. 



Certain portions, however, of the sea are still subject to terri- 

 torial jurisdiction; e.g., we hear of the three-mile limit. This was 

 the distance which formerly was considered the limit of effective gun 

 fire, and was accordingly assumed to be a harbor ; so land in a state 

 covered with water is subject to territorial rights, e.g., rivers and 

 lakes ; but where, as often happens, a river of great length, like the 

 Rhine and formerly the Mississippi, passes through the territory of 

 several states, each of those states has a right of navigation to the 

 sea. I'his point is at present aptly exemplified by the dispute 

 between the United States and ourselves with regard to the Stikine 

 River, which empties into the Pacific in United States territory, 

 upon which, even if we did not possess treaty rights of navigation, 

 we would be entitled to navigate our ships to give us access to the 

 Yukon district. 



So, too, the St. Lawrence In 1828 Great Britain, as owner of 

 the territory near the mouth, claimed the right to close the St. 

 Lawrence at pleasure, but the controversy ended in 1854 in much 

 the same way as the disputes about the passage down the Rhine, 

 and the principles then laid down were subsequently applied to the 

 South American Rivers, the Parana, the Uraguay and the Amazon, 

 each riparian owner assenting to the rights of the other. 



Turning to the rights of States over their vessels, we find that a 

 fiction of international law so dear to lawyers meets us. It is that 

 a man in a foreign country or a ship in foreign waters is conceived 

 as still within the limits of the State to which he or she belongs. 

 This fiction has been the cause of many a slave regaining his free- 

 dom after the aboHlion of slavery by Great Britain, for, when once 

 he placed his foot on a British ship he was on British territory, with 

 all the might of the British Empire at his back, and it became the 

 duty of the captain of that ship to place him in some spot where he 

 would not again be reduced to slavery. 



This doctrine of exterritorial jurisdiction originally applied only 

 to men-of-war, but in 181 2 an extension to private ships was claimed 

 by the United States. The war of 1814 between Great Britain and 

 the United States arose by reason of British ships searching United 



