Chapter I

THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE TERRITORIAL SEA.

Various limits proposed or adopted--The old English
lawyers, Glanville, Bracton, Britton, “Fleta”--Early
Italian jurists--Bartolus, Baldus--Limits of 100 and of 60
miles--Bodin--Gentilis--No general common usage--The mid-line
or Thalweg--The “Mirror of Justice”--Plowden--Chief Justice
Hales--Jurisdiction of Cinque Ports in Channel--The range of
vision or “land-kenning”--Lord Stair--Sarpi’s proposal--Bays,
straits, and arms of the sea--The King’s Chambers--Range of
guns from shore--Proposed by Dutch in 1610--Not adopted in
seventeenth century--Selden, Pontanus, Burgus, &c.--Influence of
Loccenius and Puffendorf--Opinion of publicists at end seventeenth
century--Usage in seventeenth century--Decisions of High Court of
Admiralty regarding King’s Chambers--Gradual change of opinion
and practice--Publicists in eighteenth century--The teaching
of Bynkershoek--Dominion extends as far as projectiles can be
thrown from the shore--Connection with salute and visit and
search--Bynkershoek’s principle only slowly accepted--Opinions of
Casaregi, Abreu, Wolff, Vattel, Hübner, Valin, Moser, Lampredi,
Galiani, Von Martens--Three miles as equivalent to the utmost
range of guns proposed by Galiani (1782), C. F. von Martens
(1789), and Azuni (1795)--Summary of opinions--Usage in eighteenth
century--Tendency to fix definite boundaries--Venice--Great
Britain--Denmark--Sweden--Norway--Spain--Range of guns adopted by
Tuscany, the Pope, Genoa, Venice, and in various international
treaties--Three-mile limit first adopted by the United States of
America in 1793--Exception of bays--Various limits claimed by the
United States 537