ARGUMENT OF MR. ROOT 281 



The President: Do you think, Mr. Senator Root, that the 

 circumstances of the time — it was in the height of the power of 

 Napoleon that these transactions took place, 1806 — might be of 

 some influence concerning the decision of Great Britain whether 

 the benefits for revenue and commerce ought to be considered, or 

 the difficulties which in this great struggle between maritime power 

 and land power and continental power would strengthen the force 

 of the enemy ? 



Senator Root: I am sure those circumstances had a very great 

 weight, and I shall, in a very few minutes, state what I think their 

 relation was, and what the effect of these circimistances was. In 

 the meantime, however, let me ask the Tribunal to look at the 

 Monroe and Pinckney report of the 3rd January, 1807, which 

 appears in the Coimter-Case Appendix of the United States at 

 p. 96. They are transmitting the treaty itself, and they say, imder 

 date of the 3rd January, 1807 : 



"The twelfth article establishes the ■maritime jurisdiction of the United 

 States to the distance of five marine rmles from their coast, in favor of their 

 own vessels and the unarmed vessels of aU other Powers who may acknowledge 

 the same limit. This government (Great Britain) contended that three 

 marine rmles was the greatest extent to which the pretension could be carried 

 by the law of nations, and resisted, at the instance of the Admiralty and the 

 law ofiScers of the Crown, in Doctors' Commons, the concession, which was 

 supposed to be made by this arrangement, with great earnestness. The 

 ministry seemed to view our claim in the light of an innovation of dangerous 

 tendency, whose admission, especially at the present time, might be deemed 

 an act unworthy of the government. The outrages lately committed on our 

 coast, which made some provision of the kind necessary as a useful lesson 

 to the commanders of their squadrons, and a reparation for the insults offered 

 to our government, increased the difficulty of obtaining any accommodation 

 whatever.'' 



The treaty of 1806, which is at p. 22 of the same Counter-Case 

 Appendix, shows the result of this negotiation, which began with 

 the proposal of the United States to take into 'the maritime juris- 

 diction of both countries an extended belt or territorial zone and 

 the chambers between headlands and to draw the territorial zone 

 outside of a Une extending from headland to headland. 



Sir Charles Fitzpatrick: At that time England had acqui- 



