We have always understood and asserted that, pursuant to public law, no nation can rightfully claim jurisdiction at sea beyond a marine league from its coast.

This opinion on our part has sometimes been said to be inconsistent with the facts that, by the laws of the United States, revenue cutters are authorized to board vessels anywhere within four leagues of their coasts, and that by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, so called, between the United States and Mexico, of the second of February, 1848, the boundary line between the dominions of the parties begins in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land.

It is believed, however, that in carrying into effect the authority conferred by the act of Congress referred to, no vessel is boarded, if boarded at all, except such a one as, upon being hailed, may have answered that she was bound to a port of the United States. At all events, although the act of Congress was passed in the infancy of this Government, there is no known instance of any complaint on the part of a foreign government of the trespass by a commander of a revenue cutter upon the rights of its flag under the law of nations.

In respect to the provision in the treaty with Mexico, it may be remarked that it was probably suggested by the passage in the act of Congress referred to, and designed for the same purpose, that of preventing smuggling. By turning to the files of your legation, you will find that Mr. Bankhead, in a note to Mr. Buchanan of the 30th of April, 1848, objected, on behalf of Her Majesty's government, to the provision in question. Mr. Buchanan, however, replied in a note of the 19th of August, in that year, that the stipulation could only affect the rights of Mexico and the United States, and was never intended to trench upon the rights of Great Britain or of any other power under the law of nations.

1875, December 1.-Secretary of State Fish to the United States Minister to Russia.1

There was reason to hope that the practice which formerly prevailed with powerful nations of regarding seas and bays usually of large extent near their coast as closed to any foreign commerce or fishery not specially licensed by them, was, without exception, a pretension of the past, and that no nation would claim exemption from the general rule of public law which limits its maritime jurisdiction to a marine league from its coast. We should particularly regret if Russia should insist on any such pretension.

1 Moore, International Law Digest, vol. 1, p. 705.

1878.-Revised Statutes of the United States.1

Section 2760. The officers of the revenue cutters shall respectively be deemed officers of the customs, and shall be subject to the direction. of such collectors of the revenue, or other officers thereof, as from time to time shall be designated for that purpose. They shall go on board all vessels which arrive within the United States or within four leagues of the coast thereof, if bound for the United States, and search and examine the same, and every part thereof, and shall demand, receive, and certify the manifests required to be on board certain vessels, shall affix and put proper fastenings on the hatches and other communications with the hold of any vessel, and shall remain on board such vessels until they arrive at the port or place of their destination.

1879, April 19.-Secretary of State Evarts to Mr. Foster.2

An attack by Mexican officials on merchant vessels of the United States, when distant more than three miles from the Mexican coast, on the ground of breach of revenue laws, is an international offense, which is not cured by a decree in favor of the assailants, collusively or corruptly maintained in a Mexican court.

1881, March 3.-Secretary of State Evarts to the United States Minister to Spain.3

The wide contradiction between the several statements does not suffice to bring the position of three of the vessels at the time within the customary nautical league. This government must adhere to the three-mile rule as the jurisdictional limit, and the cases of visitation. without that line seem not to be excused or excusable under that rule.

1882, June 5.—An Act reestablishing the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims and for the distribution of the unappropriated moneys of the Geneva award.*

SEC. 5. That the first class shall be for claims directly resulting from damage done on the high seas by Confederate cruisers during the late rebellion, including vessels and cargoes attacked on the high seas, although the loss or damage occurred within four miles of the shore, excluding claims which have been proved pursuant to section

1 P. 538.

2 Wharton, International Law Digest, vol. 1, p. 106.

3 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1881-82, pp. 1051, 1052.

4 U. S. Statutes at Large, vol. 22, p. 98.

eleven of said chapter four hundred and fifty-nine. The second class shall be for claims for the payment of premiums for war risks, whether paid to corporations, agents, or individuals, after the sailing of any Confederate cruiser.

1885, October.-Case of the Alleganean.-Stetson v. United States, Second Court of Commissioners of "Alabama" Claims.

Draper, J.:

The facts upon which a judgment to the amount of $69,334.80 is prayed for in this case are substantially as follows:

The ship Alleganean, duly registered at the port of New York, and being recently repaired and well equipped and entitled to the protection of the United States, cleared with a cargo from the port of Baltimore on the 22d of October, 1862, upon a voyage to London. Six days later, at about 10.30 o'clock in the evening, being at anchor in rough water in Chesapeake Bay south of the mouth of the Rappahannock river and opposite Guinns Island, she was boarded by some eighteen officers and men of the Confederate navy, commanded by Lieutenants John Taylor Wood and S. Smith Lee. These leaders were commissioned officers in the Confederate navy, and in the attack upon the Alleganean they were acting under the special orders of the Secretary of the Navy of the Confederate States, and the men accompanying them had been specially detailed from the James River Squadron for the purpose of preying upon United States merchant vessels in Chesapeake Bay. They came overland to Chesapeake Bay from the Patrick Henry, an armed and commissioned Confederate vessel, and securing two or three small vesselsthe largest being of fifteen or twenty tons' burden-had been cruising about two or three nights before the attack. . . .

This force boarded the Alleganean, as stated, speedily reduced the crew of that vessel to subjection and the state of prisoners of war, and then burned the ship, totally destroying her, except that some few remnants were afterward picked up and disposed of, the proceeds of which the owners account for in making up their claim.

The value of the Alleganean at the time of loss is placed by the marine experts on behalf of the Government at $52,591.03, and by the witnesses for the claimants at amounts varying from $60,000 to $75,000.

The evidence seems to establish beyond question the fact that the vessel was more than four miles from any shore at the time of capture and destruction,

1 No. 3993, class 1. Moore, International Arbitrations, vol. 4, p. 4332.

The claimant's counsel, with his case as exhaustively prepared and as fully and ably argued as any which has been before this Court, contends that these facts establish a right to a judgment, as of the first class, under the provisions of Sec. 5 of the Act of June 5, 1882, being a claim "directly resulting from damage done on the high seas by Confederate cruisers during the late rebellion, including vessels and cargoes attacked on the high seas, although the loss or damage occurred within four miles of the shore."

The learned counsel on behalf of the United States insists that the claimants ought not to recover—

First. Because all the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, even such as are more than a marine league from shore, are territorial waters of the United States, and subject to the exclusive control and jurisdiction thereof, and that in consequence the Alleganean was not attacked nor the damage done on the "high seas" within the meaning of the term as used in the act under which judgment is claimed.

The term "high seas," as used by legislative bodies, the courts, and text writers, has been construed to express a widely different meaning. As used to define the jurisdiction of admiralty courts, it is held to mean the waters of the ocean exterior to low-water mark. As used in international law, to fix the limits of the open ocean, upon which all peoples possess common rights, the "great highway of nations,” it has been held to mean only so much of the ocean as is exterior to a line running parallel with the shore and some distance therefrom, commonly such distance as can be defended by artillery upon the shore, and therefore a cannon shot or a marine league (three nautical or four statute miles). This court, after very able argument by learned counsel and after much deliberation, has held that the term was used in the act of June 5, 1882, in the same sense in which it is employed by the international law writers. (Rich and Paine, executors, et al. vs. The United States.)

From this it necessarily follows that such portions of the waters of Chesapeake Bay as are within four miles of either shore form no part of the high seas. But much of the bay is more than four miles from shore, and is accessible from the ocean without coming within that distance of the land. The distance between Cape Henry and Cape Charles, at the entrance of the bay, is said to be twelve miles, and it is stated that lines starting from points between the capes, four miles from each, and running up the bay that distance from either shore, would not intercept each other within one hundred and twenty-five miles from the starting points. The evidence shows that the Alleganean was anchored between such lines at the time of destruction. Was she upon the high seas as the Court defines the statutory term?

By common agreement, all the authorities assert that there are arms or inlets of the ocean which are within territorial jurisdiction, and are not high seas. Sir R. Phillimore (Int. Law, vol. i, sec. 200) says:

Besides the rights of property and jurisdiction within the limit of cannon shot from the shore, there are certain portions of the sea which, though they exceed this verge, may, under special circumstances, be prescribed for. Maritime territorial rights extend, as a general rule, over arms of the sea, bays, gulfs, estuaries which are enclosed, but not entirely surrounded, by lands belonging to one and the same State.... Thus Great Britain has immemorially claimed and exercised exclusiveproperty and jurisdiction over the bays or portions of the sea cut off by lines drawn from one promontory to another, and called the King's Chambers.

Grotius (bk. ii. chap. 3, ss. 7 & 8) and Vattel (vol. i. bk. i, chap. xxiii, s. 291) assert substantially the same doctrine, and the later writers follow them. Wheaton's Int. Law. (Dana's 8th ed., p. 255) says:

The maritime territory of every State extends to the ports, harbors, bays, mouths of rivers, and adjacent parts of the sea enclosed by headlands, belonging to the same State. The general usage of nations superadds to this extent of territorial jurisdiction a distance of a marine league, or as far as a cannon shot will reach from the shore, along all the coasts of the State. Within these limits, its right of property and territorial jurisdiction are absolute, and exclude those of every other nation.

Chancellor Kent avows the general doctrine and makes very much broader claims in reference to the jurisdiction of the United States over adjacent waters, and says (Commentaries, vol. i, pp. 29, 30):

Considering the great line of the American 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 waters on our coasts, though included within lands 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.

Dr. Woolsey (Int. Law, sec. 60) upholds the general doctrine, but thinks the claims of Chancellor Kent are too broad, and rather "out of character for a nation that has ever asserted the freedom of doubtful waters, as well as contrary to the spirit of more recent times.” Dr. Wharton (Int. Law, sec. 192) finishes the subject with the conclusion: