common use.

The claim of Russia to sovereignty over the Pacific Ocean north of the 51st degree of latitude, as a close sea, was considered by our government in 1822, to be against the rights of other nations. (a) It is difficult to draw any precise or determinate conclusion, amidst the variety of opinions, as to the distance to which a state may lawfully extend its exclusive dominion over the sea adjoining its territories, and beyond those portions of the sea which are embraced by harbors, gulfs, bays, and estuaries, and over which its jurisdiction unquestionably extends. (b) All that can reasonably be asserted is, that the dominion of the sovereign of the shore over the contiguous sea, extends as far as is requisite for his safety, and for some lawful end. A more extended dominion must rest entirely upon force and maritime supremacy. According to the current of modern authority, the general territorial jurisdiction extends into the sea as far as cannon-shot will reach, and no farther; and this is generally calculated to be a marine league; and the Congress of the United States have recognized this limitation, by authorizing the District Courts to take cognizance of all captures made within a marine league of the American shores. (c) The executive authority of this country, in 1793, considered the whole of Delaware Bay to be within our territorial jurisdiction; and it rested its claims upon those authorities which admit that gulfs, channels, and arms of the sea, belong to the people with whose lands they are encompassed. It was intimated that the law of nations would justify the United States in attaching to their coasts an extent into the sea beyond the reach of cannon-shot. (d)

* 30

* Considering the great extent of the line of the American

(a) Mr. Adams's Letter to the Russian Minister, March 30th, 1822.

(b) Azuni on the Maritime Law of Europe, vol. i. p. 206.

(c) Bynk. Q. Pub. J. c. 8; Vattel, b. 1, c. 23, sec. 289; Act of Congress, June 5th, 1794, c. 50; The King v. Forty-nine Casks of Brandy, 3 Hagg. Adm. 257. By the convention at London of the 13th July, 1841, between Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and the Ottoman Porte, it was declared and agreed to be an established principle of public law, that no ships of war of foreign powers should enter into the Straits of the Dardanelles and of the Bosphorus, thereby placing the territorial jurisdiction of the Sultan over the interior waters of his empire, under the protection of the written public law of Europe. Wheaton's History of the Law of Nations, New York, 1845, p. 584.

(d) Opinion of the Attorney-General concerning the seizure of the ship Grange, dated 14th of May, 1793, and the Letter of the Secretary of State to the French Minister, of 15th of May, 1793.

coasts, we have a right to claim, for fiscal and defensive regulations, a liberal extension of maritime jurisdiction; and it would not be unreasonable, as I apprehend, to assume, for domestic purposes connected with our safety and welfare, the control of the waters on our coasts, though included within lines stretching from quite distant headlands, as, for instance, from Cape Ann to Cape Cod, and from Nantucket to Montauk Point, and from that point to the capes of the Delaware, and from the south cape of Florida to the Mississippi. It is certain that our government would be disposed to view with some uneasiness and sensibility, in the case of war between other maritime powers, the use of the waters of our coast, far beyond the reach of cannon-shot, as cruising ground for belligerent purposes. In 1793, our government thought they were entitled, in reason, to as broad a margin of protected navigation as any nation whatever, though at that time they did not positively insist beyond the distance of a marine league from the seashores; (a) and, in 1806, our government thought it would not be unreasonable, considering the extent of the United States, the shoalness of their coast, and the natural indication furnished by the well-defined path of the Gulf Stream, to expect an immunity from belligerent warfare, for the space between that limit and the American shore. It ought, at least, to be insisted, that the extent of the neutral immunity should correspond with the claims maintained by Great Britain around her own territory, and that no belligerent right should be exercised within "the chambers formed by headlands, or anywhere at sea within the distance of four leagues, or from a right line from one headland to another." (b) In the case of The Little Belt, which was cruising many miles from the shore between Cape Henry and Cape Hatteras, our government laid stress on the circumstance that she was 66 hovering on our coasts"; and it was contended on the part of the United Sates, that they had a right to know the national character of armed ships in such a situation, and that it was a right immediately connected with our tranquillity and peace. It was further observed, that all nations exercise the right, and none with more rigor, or at a greater distance from the coast, than Great Britain, and none on more justifiable grounds than the

(a) Mr. Jefferson's Letter to Mr. Genet, November 8th, 1793.

*

(b) Mr. Madison's Letter to Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, dated May 17th, 1806.

United States. (a) There can be but little doubt, that as the United States advance in commerce and naval strength, our government will be disposed more and more to feel and acknowledge the justice and policy of the British claim to supremacy over the narrow seas adjacent to the British isles, because we shall stand in need of similar accommodation and means of security. (b)

It was declared in the case of Le Louis, (c) that maritime states claim, upon a principle just in itself, and temperately applied, a right of visitation and inquiry within those parts of the ocean adjoining to their shores. They were to be considered as parts of the territory for various domestic purposes, and the right was admitted by the courtesy of nations. The English hovering laws were founded upon that right. The statute 9 Geo. II. c. 35, prohibited foreign goods to be transshipped within four leagues of the coast without payment of duties; and the Act of Congress of March 2d, 1799, c. 128, sec. 25, 26, 27, 99, contained the same prohibition; and the exercise of jurisdiction, to that distance, for the safety and protection of the revenue laws, was declared by the Supreme Court in Church v. Hubbart, (d) to be conformable to the laws and usages of nations.

commerce.

As the end of the law of nations is the happiRights of 32 ness and perfection * of the general society of mankind, it enjoins upon every nation the punctual observance of benevolence and good will, as well as of justice, towards its neighbors. (a) This is equally the policy and the duty of nations. They ought to cultivate a free intercourse for commercial purposes, in order to supply each other's wants, and promote each other's prosperity. The variety of climates and productions on the surface of the globe, and the facility of com

(a) Mr. Monroe's Letter to Mr. Foster, October 11th, 1811, and President's Message, November 5th, 1811.

(b) In placing the commerce and navigation of states, by treaties of commerce, on the basis of equality, it is sometimes deemed advisable to except in express terms the coasting trade or coastwise navigation, of the respective parties, and to reserve the regulation of that trade to the separate laws of each nation. See the convention of commerce and navigation between the United States and the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, May 28, 1838, and between them and the Kingdom of Greece, August, 1838, and between them and Portugal, April, 1841, and between them and the Republic of Ecuador, June 13, 1839.

(c) 2 Dod. Adm. 245.

(d) 2 Cranch, 187.

(a) Vattel's Prelim. sec. 12, 13, b. 2, c. 1, sec. 2, 3.

munication, by means of rivers, lakes, and the ocean, invite to a liberal commerce, as agreeable to the law of nature, and extremely conducive to national amity, industry, and happiness. (b) The numerous wants of civilized life can only be supplied by mutual exchange between nations of the peculiar productions of each; and who that is familiar with the English classics, has not dwelt with delight on the description of the extent and blessings of English commerce, which Addison has given, with such graceful simplicity and such enchanting elegance, in one of the Spectator's visits to the Royal Exchange? (c) But as every nation has the right, and is disposed to exercise it, of judging for itself, in respect to the policy and extent of its commercial arrangements, the general freedom of trade, however reasonably and strongly it may be inculeated in the modern school of political economy, is but an imperfect right, and necessarily subject to such regulations and restrictions as each nation may think proper to prescribe for itself. Every state may monopolize as much as it pleases of its own internal and colonial trade, or grant to other nations, with whom it deals, such distinctions and particular privileges as it may deem conducive to its interests. (d) The celebrated English *naviga- *33 tion act of Charles II. contained nothing, said Martens, contrary to the law of nations, notwithstanding it was very embarrassing to other countries. When the United States put an entire stop to their commerce with the world, in December, 1807, by laying a general embargo on their trade, without distinction as to nation, or limit as to time, no other power complained of it; and the foreign government most affected by it, and against whose interests it was more immediately directed, declared to our government, (a) that as a municipal regulation, foreign states had no concern with it, and that the British government did not conceive that they had the right, or the pretension, to make any complaint of it, and that they had made none.

No nation has a right, in time of peace, to interfere with, or

(b) Vattel, b. 2, c. 2, sec. 21.

(c) Spectator, vol. i. No. 69.

(d) Puff. b. 4, c. 5, sec. 10. Vattel, b. 1, c. 8, sec. 92, 97; Martens's Compendium of the Law of Nations, 146, 148; 1 Chitty on Commercial Law, 76-81; Mr. Canning's Letters to Mr. Gallatin, of September 11th and November 13th, 1826; Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Canning, September 22d and December 28th, 1826, and Mr. Clay to Mr. Gallatin, November 11th, 1826.

(a) Mr. Canning's Letter to Mr. Pinckney, September 23d, 1808.

Commercial Treaties.

interrupt, any commerce which is lawful by the law of nations, and carried on between other independent powers, or between different members of the same state. The claim of the Portuguese, in the height of their maritime power in India, to exclude all European people from commerce with Asia, was contrary to national law, and a just cause of war. Vattel called it a pretension no less iniquitous than chimerical. (b) The attempt of Russia to appropriate to herself an exclusive trade in the North Pacific, met with a prompt resistance on the part of this country; and the government of the United States claimed for its citizens the right to carry on trade with the aboriginal natives, on the northwest · coast of America, without the territorial jurisdiction of other nations, even in arms and munitions of war. (c) Treaties of commerce, defining and establishing the rights and extent of commercial intercourse, have been found to be of great utility; and they occupy a very important title in the code of national law. They were consid* 34 ered, * even two centuries ago, to be so conducive to the public welfare as to overcome the bigotry of the times; and Lord Coke (a) admitted them to be one of the four kinds of national compacts that might, lawfully, be made with infidels. They have multiplied exceedingly within the last century, for it has been found by experience, that the general liberty of trade, resting solely on principles of common right, benevolence, and sound policy, was too vague and precarious to be consistent with the safety of the extended intercourse and complicated interests of great commercial states. Every nation may enter into such commercial treaties, and grant such special privileges, as they think proper; and no nation, to whom the like privileges are not conceded, has a right to take offence, provided those treaties do not affect their perfect rights. A state may enter into a treaty, by which it grants exclusive privileges to one nation, and deprives itself of the liberty to grant similar privileges to any other. Thus, Portugal, in 1703, by her treaty with England, gave her the monopoly of her wine trade; and the Dutch, formerly, by a treaty with Ceylon, engrossed the cinnamon trade, and, latterly, they

(b) B. 2, c. 2, sec. 24.

(c) Mr. Adams's Letter to the Russian Minister, March 30th, 1822. See, also, Mr. Forsyth's Letter to the American Minister at St. Petersburg, November 3d, 1837. (a) 4 Inst. 155.