tions of its laws, by seizures made within reasonable limits, as to which, he said, nations must exercise comity and concession, and the exact extent of which was not settled; and, in the case before the court, the four leagues were not treated as rendering the seizure illegal. This remark must now be treated as an unwarranted admission. The result of the decision is, that the court did not undertake to pronounce judicially, in a suit on a private contract, that a seizure of an American vessel, made at four leagues, by a foreign power, was void and a mere trespass. In the subsequent case of Rose v. Himely (Cranch, iv, 241), where a vessel was seized ten leagues from the French coast, and taken to a Spanish port, and condemned in a French tribunal under municipal and not belligerent law, the court held that any seizures for municipal purposes beyond the territory of the sovereign are invalid; assuming, perhaps, that ten leagues must be beyond the territorial limits for all purposes. In Hudson v. Guestier (Cranch, iv, 293), where it was agreed that the seizure was municipal, and was made within a league of the French coast, the majority of the court held that the jurisdiction to make a decree of forfeiture was not lost by the fact that the vessel was never taken into a French port, if possession of her was retained, though in a foreign port. The judgment being set aside and a new trial ordered, the case came up again, and is reported in Cranch, vi, 281. At the new trial the place of seizure was disputed; and the judge instructed the jury, that a municipal seizure, made within six leagues of the French coast, was valid, and gave a good title to the defendant. The jury found a general verdict for the defendant, and exceptions were taken to the instructions. The Supreme Court sustained the verdict; not, however, upon the ground that a municipal seizure made at six leagues from the coast was valid, but on the ground that the French decree of condemnation must be considered as settling the facts involved; and if a seizure within a less distance from shore was necessary to jurisdiction, the decree may have determined the fact accordingly, and the verdict in the circuit court did not disclose the opinion of the jury on that point. The judges differed in stating the principle of this case and of Rose . Himely; and the report leaves the difference somewhat obscure. “This subject was discussed incidentally in the case of the Cagliari, which was a seizure on the high seas, not for violation of revenue laws, but on a claim, somewhat mixed, of piracy and war. In the opinion given by Dr. Twiss to the Sardinian Government in that case, the learned writer refers to what has sometimes been treated as an exceptional right of search and seizure, for revenue purposes, beyond the marine league, and says that no such exception can be sustained as a right. He adds: In ordinary cases, indeed, where a merchant 6 ship has been seized on the high seas, the sovereign whose flag has been violated waives his privilege, considering the offending ship to have acted with mala fides towards the other state with which he is in amity, and to have consequently forfeited any just claim to his protection.' He considers the revenue regulations of many states, authorizing visit and seizure beyond their waters, to be enforceable at the peril of such states, and to rest on the express or tacit permission · of the states whose vessels may be seized. "It may be said that the principle is settled that municipal seizures cannot be made, for any purpose, beyond territorial waters. It is also settled that the limit of these waters is, in the absence of treaty, the marine league or the cannon-shot." Dana, note 108, Wheaton's Int. Law, § 179, pp. 259–260. By Article V. of the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, February 2, 1848, it was provided that the boundary between the United States and Mexico should "commence in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande.” This phrase is repeated in Article I. of the treaty of December 30, 1853, relating to the cession to the United States of the Mesilla Valley. "I have had the honor to receive your note of the 30th April last objecting, on behalf of the British Government, to that clause in the fifth article of the late treaty between Mexico and the United States by which it is declared that the boundary line between the two Republics shall commence in the Gulf of Mexico three leagues from land,' instead of one league from land, which you observe is acknowledged by international law and practice as the extent of territorial jurisdiction over the sea that washes the coasts of states.' "In answer I have to state, that the stipulation in the treaty can only affect the rights of Mexico and the United States. If for their mutual convenience it has been deemed proper to enter into such an arrangement, third parties can have no just cause of complaint. The Government of the United States never intended by this stipulation to question the rights which Great Britain or any other power may possess under the law of nations." Mr. Buchanan, Sec. of State, to Mr. Crampton, British min., Aug. 19, 1848, “I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of yesterday of the clause adverted to attracted the notice of the British Government. A copy of the reply of this Department upon the subject is herewith enclosed." (Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welles, Sec. of Navy, Sept. 3, 1863, 61 MS. Dom. Let. 499.) "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 2d 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.” Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Sir Edward Thornton, Brit. min., Jan. 22, 1875, 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. Mr. Evarts, Sec. of State, to Mr. Foster, Apr. 19, 1879, MS. Inst. Mex. In 1889-1890, a correspondence took place between the United States and schooner alleged, she was nine miles from land. The Mexican Government, on the other hand, stated that the schooner was only two and a-half miles from the coast; that she had been farther out to sea, but had tacked and come inshore in order to meet a boat carrying a fugitive whom she was assisting to escape. (For. Rel. 1890, 620623, 629-631. See, also, For. Rel. 1889, 611-614.) "I have received your No. 108 of the 29th of January ultimo, with its accompanying copy and translation of the note addressed to you on the 24th of that month by the minister of state, giving the results of the investigation ordered by the Spanish Government of the circumstances under which the American vessels Ethel A. Merritt, Eunice P. Newcomb, George Washington, and Hattie Haskell were fired upon and visited by Spanish gunboats, near the island of Cuba, in May, June, and July of last year. "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. "This Government frankly and fully accepts the disclaimer of the Government of His Majesty that any intention of discourtesy existed in these proceedings. It insists, however, on the importance of a clear understanding of the jurisdictional limit. It insists likewise, on the distinction between the verification (according to the usual procedure of revenue cruisers), within a reasonable range of approach, of vessels seeking Spanish ports in the due pursuit of trade therewith, and the arrest by armed force, without the jurisdictional three-mile limit, of vessels not bound to Spanish ports. The considerations on these heads, advanced in my instruction to you of August 11, seem not to have attracted from His Majesty's Government the attention due to their precise bearing on at least three of the cases in hand under the express admissions of Mr. Elduayèn's note.” Mr. Evarts, Sec, of State, to Mr. Fairchild, min. to Spain, No. 111, March 3, 1881, For. Rel. 1881, 1051. (7) PROPOS: D EXTENSION OF TERRITORIAL ZONE. § 152. "Spain claims a maritime jurisdiction of six miles around the island of Cuba. In pressing this claim upon the consideration of the United States, Spain has used the argument that the modern improvement in gunnery renders the ancient limit of a marine league inadequate to the security of neutral states. "When it was understood at Paris that an engagement was likely to come off before Cherbourg between the United States ship of war Kearsarge and the pirate Alabama, the French Government remonstrated with both parties against firing within the actual reach of the shore by cannon balls fired from their vessels, on the ground that the effect of a collision near the coast would be painful to France. "For these reasons I think that the subject may now be profitably discussed, but there are some preliminary considerations which it is deemed important to submit to Her Majesty's Government: "First. That the United States, being a belligerent now, when the other maritime states are at peace, are entitled to all the advantages of the existing construction of maritime law, and cannot, without serious inconvenience, forego them. "Secondly. That the United States, adhering in war, no less than when they were in the enjoyment of peace, to their traditional liberality towards neutral rights, are not unwilling to come to an understanding upon the novel question which has thus been raised in consequence of the improvement in gunnery. "But, thirdly, it is manifestly proper and important that any such new construction of the maritime law as Great Britain suggests should be reduced to the form of a precise proposition, and then that it should receive, in some manner, by treaty or otherwise, reciprocal and obligatory acknowledgments from the principal maritime powers. "Upon a careful examination of the note you have addressed to me, the suggestions of Her Majesty's Government seem to be expressed in too general terms to be made the basis of discussion. Suppose, by way of illustration, that the utmost range of cannon now is five miles, are Her Majesty's Government understood to propose that the marine boundary of neutral jurisdiction, which is now three miles from the coast, shall be extended two miles beyond the present limit? Again, if cannon shot are to be fired so as to fall not only not upon neutral land, but also not upon neutral waters, then, supposing the range of cannot shot to be five miles, are Her Majesty's Government to be understood as proposing that cannon shot shall not be fired within a distance of eight miles from the neutral territory? "Finally, shall measured distances be excluded altogether from the statement, and the proposition to be agreed upon be left to extend with the increased range of gunnery, or shall there be a pronounced limit of jurisdiction, whether five miles, eight miles, or any other measured limit?" Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Burnley, British chargé, Sept. 16, 1864, Field, in his Int. Code, 2nd ed. § 28, observes that, "inasmuch as cannon Perels, Das Internationale öffentliche Seerecht der Gegenwart, § 13, says: "The extension of the line depends on the range of cannon shot at |