many treaties with various Maritime States. The dues, however, which Denmark levied upon ships passing these straits had long been the object of much complaint and the cause of much irritation to foreign States, and had become in fact very injurious to trade, owing to the detention of vessels which the collection of these dues occasioned. In 1857 the whole subject was happily adjusted by Treaty with the Great European Powers. The right of Denmark to levy these dues was not distinctly recognized, but compensation was made to her by payment of a capital sum (n) on the ground of indemnity for maintaining lights and buoys, which Denmark stipulated to maintain and to levy no further duties. The United States declined to take any part in this European Convention for what President Pierce considered "the most cogent reasons." He stated" One is, that Denmark does not offer to submit "to the Convention the question of her right to levy the "Sound dues. A second is, that if the Convention were "allowed to take cognizance of that particular question, "still it would not be competent to deal with the great "international principle involved, which affects the right "in other cases of navigation and commercial freedom, as "well as that of access to the Baltic. Above all, by the express terms of the proposition, it is contemplated that "the consideration of the Sound dues shall be commingled "with and made subordinate to a matter wholly extraneous"the balance of power among the Governments of Europe. "While, however, rejecting this proposition, and insisting "on the right of free transit into and from the Baltic, I have expressed to Denmark a willingness on the part of the "United States to share liberally with other Powers in compensating her for any advantages which commerce shall "hereafter derive from expenditures made by her for the "improvement and safety of the navigation of the Sound or 66 (n) The sum paid by Great Britain was a million and a quarter. "Belts" (o). Accordingly a separate Treaty was made between the United States and Denmark, April 11, 1857, by which Denmark declared the Baltic open to American vessels, and stipulated to maintain buoys and lights and furnish pilots, if desired, for which she received a certain sum of money. Since the making of these Treaties it would be difficult to maintain that Denmark now possesses any other dominion over the Sound than that which every State possesses over the sea along its coasts. The Declaration of August 15, 1873, was apparently only intended to regulate pilotage, and the statement in Article IV. of the Declaration, that it docs not in the least put any restrictions on the dominion over the sea near the coasts belonging to each Power respectively, according to the principles of International Law, can now scarcely admit of any other construction than that Denmark and Sweden equally possess the usual and ordinary rights of the jus littoris. (0) See Ann. Reg. for 1855, p. 291. Hertslet's Treaties, x. pp. 736, 742, 743. Dana's Wheaton, p. 185, n. 112. Laurence's Wheaton, p. 333, n. 110. CHAPTER VI. NARROW SEAS, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE OCEAN. CLXXX. CLAIMS have been preferred by different nations to the exclusive dominion over the seas surrounding their country if not to every part of such seas, to an extent far beyond the limits assigned in the foregoing paragraphs. This kind of claim is distinguished from the claim of jurisdiction over the ocean by being confined to what are called the narrow or adjacent seas, they not being (it is contended), like the ocean, the great highway of the nation. It is further distinguished from the case of the Straits which has just been discussed, by the fact of the claimants not possessing the opposite shore. CLXXXI. This claim is rested upon immemorial usage, upon national records, upon concessions of other States, upon the language of treaties. Considering the nature of the claim, and of the subject over which it is to be exercised, it cannot be built securely upon a less foundation than the express provisions of positive treaty, and can be valid only against those nations who have signed such treaty. "There may, by legal possibility" (as Lord Stowell says) (a), "exist "a peculiar property excluding the universal or common "use;" but the strongest presumption of law is adverse to any such pretension. The Portuguese affected at one time to prevent any foreign vessel from navigating the African seas near the Bissagos Islands: and it is known that Great Britain once laid claim to exclusive right of property and 66 (a) The Twee Gebræders, 3 C. Rob. Adm. Rep. 339. jurisdiction, not merely over the British Channel extending from the island of Ouessant to the Pas de Calais, but over the four seas which surround her coasts (b). Nor was this only while the Duchy of Normandy was held with the British dominions; or even while Calais, or the Pas de Calais, belonged to Great Britain, a circumstance of considerable weight with respect to their claim. Albericus Gentilis, in one of his Advocationes Hispanica (c), published in 1613, supports these pretensions. Queen Elizabeth seized upon some Hanseatic vessels lying at anchor off Lisbon for having passed through the sea north of Scotland without her permission. CLXXXII. In support of this doctrine, Selden (d) wrote his celebrated Mare Clausum, in which he sought to establish two propositions:-1. That the sea might be property. 2. That the seas which washed the shores of Great Britain and Ireland were subject to her sovereignty even as far as the northern pole. The opinions of jurists, as well as the practice of nations, have decided, that this work did not refute the contrary positions laid down by Grotius in his Mare Liberum, to which it purported to be an answer. Selden dedicated his work to Charles I.; and so fully did that monarch imbibe its principles, that in 1619 he instructed Carleton, the British ambassador, to complain to the States General of the Dutch provinces of the audacity of Grotius in publishing his Mare Liberum, and to demand that he should be punished. Not less agreeable was this doctrine to Cromwell and the Republican Parliament. They made war upon the Dutch to (b) Wheaton's Hist. Part. i. s. 18, p. 152, &c., contains a clear and valuable account. (c) Lib. i. cap. viii. (d) Joh. Seldeni Mare Clausum, sive de Dominio Maris, lib. ii. : “Primo, mare ex jure nature sive gentium hominum non esse commune, sed dominii privati sive proprietatis capax pariter ac tellurem esse demonstratur. Secundo, Serenissimum Magnæ Britanniæ Regem maris circumflui ut individuæ atque perpetuæ Imperii Britannici appendicis dominum esse asseritur." compel them to acknowledge the British empire over these seas (e). CLXXXIII. The rights occasionally claimed by Great Britain in these seas were chiefly those of exclusive fishing, and of exacting the homage of salute from all common vessels. But it is very remarkable that Sir Leoline Jenkins, who was in fact the expounder of all international law to the Government of Charles II. and James II., appears never to have insisted upon these extravagant demands, but to have confined the rights of his country within the just and moderate limits which have been already stated. CLXXXIV. It is true that the Dutch appear to have occasionally admitted the exclusive right of fishery, by making payment and taking out licences to fish-payment and licences which were afterwards suspended by Treaties between England and the Burgundian princes. It is true that, by the fourth Article of the Treaty of Westminster, concluded in 1674, the Dutch conceded the homage of the flag in the amplest manner to the English. "It was carried " (says Sir W. Temple, the negotiator of the Treaty) “to all "the height his Majesty could wish; and thereby a claim "of the crown, the acknowledgment of its dominion in the "Narrow Seas, allowed by treaty from the most powerful "of our neighbours at sea, which had never yet been yielded "to by the weakest of them that I remember in the whole course of our pretence; and had served hitherto but for an "occasion of quarrel, whenever we or they had a mind to it, upon either reasons or conjectures" (ƒ). 66 66 p. 402. (e) Comte de Garden, Traité de Diplom. t. i. (f) "Prædicti Ordines Generales Unitarum Provinciarum debite ex parte sua agnoscentes jus supramemorati Serenissimi Domini Magnæ Britanniæ Regis, ut vexillo suo in maribus infra nominandis honos habeatur, declarabunt et declarant, concordabunt et concordant, quod quæcunque naves aut navigia ad præfatas Unitas Provincias spectantia, sive naves bellica, sive aliæ, eæque vel singulæ vel in classibus conjunctæ, in ullis maribus a Promontorio Finis Terræ dicto usque ad medium punctum terræ van Staten dictæ in Norwegia, quibuslibet navibus aut navigiis ad Serenissimum Dominum Magna Britanniæ Regem spectan |