Selected quad for the lemma: land_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A50499
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Observations concerning the dominion and sovereignty of the seas being an abstract of the marine affairs of England / by Sir Philip Medows, Knight.
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Meadows, Philip, Sir, 1626-1718.
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1689
(1689)
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Wing M1567; ESTC R9028
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41,043
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66
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order to a rateable Composition to be paid yearly into the Chequer of England And King Charles the First in the 12th Year of his Reign An. 1636 published another Royal Proclamation to the same Tenour also By which Acts those two Kings kept up the continual Claim of the Crown of England to a sole and appropriate Fishery in the British Seas and consequently to the Sovereignty and Dominion thereof but neither of those publick Edicts obtain'd from any of our Neighbours their due and just Effect Thus stands the Case of the Fishery And thus I have gone over all the chief Branches of the Sovereignty The Reasonableness of a Limited Fishing and have faithfully related the Matter of Fact and how the Practice is and has been betwixt us and our Neighbours in reference to them all not so fully indeed and amply as I might but sufficiently to my purpose who design'd not a Volume but an Abstract There is still one thing behind concerning the Fishery which I shall mention and so conclude 'T is by way of Temperament or Relaxation and yet without renouncing any thing 't is a medium betwixt grasping at All and holding Nothing 't is what would greatly accommodate England if it can be obtain'd or if a proper Season presented for offering at it I say a Season or fit Conjuncture For what in Natural Philosophy amongst Chymists is a just degree of heat necessary to the Production of all great and admirable Effects that in Politicks amongst Statesmen is a fit Conjuncture The Temperament or Expedient which I mean is briefly this A Limited Fishing not a Licensed but a Limited one without License This hath both a Foundation of solid Reason to support it and is back'd also with Presidents and Authorities sufficient to vindicate it from the Imputation of a new Project The Reasonableness of it may be thus shewn The Sovereignty of any Sea and the Right of the sole Fishing in it are so intimately connexed yea so coessential one to the other that he who Controverts the one will infallibly Dispute and Opiniastre the other but he who acknowledges one of them will by a necessary consequence yield both And yet 't is a thing undoubted and never brought into Question by any but that every Prince whose Country adjoyns to the Sea and whose Shores are indented with Bayes Creeks Havens and Rivers has some portion of the Sea belonging to him in property as an accession of the Land or appendant to it or rather incorporated with it like Veins and Arteries integral Parts of the same Body The forementioned King James Vâ—dâ—sis Mar. Claus l. 2. cap. 22. in the second Year of his Reign An. 1604 caused a Sea-Chart to be published describing all the Coasts round England by streight Lines drawn from one Promontory or Foreland to another and all that was intercepted and included within those Lines was called the King's Chambers and Royal Ports And in the Proclamation published the same time and which refers to the said Sea-Chart they are called The Places of the King's Dominion and Jurisdiction and all Hostilities betwixt Foreigners in War one with another but in Amity with England forbidden within those Precincts Our Law also makes a considerable difference betwixt Havens Rivers Creeks and Bayes and the Altum Mare or High Sea for the first are reckoned infra Corpus Comitatus as the Law-Phrase is Parts and Members of the Counties of England and all Pleas of Contract and other things done there are triable by Verdict and determinable at Common Law. V. Co. Jurisd of Courts cap. 22. But the Court of Admiralty holds Plea and Conusance of all things done upon the High Sea as being out of the Body of any County and consequently from whence no Jury can be returned for Trial of Issues If there be no certain Standard in Nature whereby to ascertain the precise Boundaries of that peculiar Marine Territory I am now speaking to which belongs to every Prince in Right of his Land yet by Treaty and Agreement they may easily be reduced to certainty For as to the Judgment and Opinion of private Persons we cannot fetch from thence any true measure for though they all agree unanimously that there is something due of Right yet they vary in the Quantum or How much Bald. ad L. de rer Dom. Baldus reckons One hundred Miles at Sea as the District of the adjacent Land. Bodin affirms it for a received Law amongst Nations That the Prince Bed. de Repub l. 1. c. 10. whose Country abuts upon the Sea should have sixty Miles Jurisdiction from the Shore and that it was so adjudged in the Case of the Duke of Savoy Another Doctor will tell us That so much of the Sea appertains to the Land as far as a Man can see from Shore in a fair day But this will not serve our turn For if a Man may see from Dover to Calais I suppose the like may be done from Calais to Dover and whose shall the Sea be betwixt Therefore the surest way is to prescribe the Limits of Fishing betwixt Neighbouring Nations by Contract and not by the less certain measure of Territory For if no Bounds be fixed how many Inconveniences and what a licentious Extravagance may such a Liberty run into Why may not the Dutch as formerly they have done dredge for Oysters upon the Coasts of Essex within the Fisheries of private persons and within Streams and Waters appertaining to particular Mannors by Grants from the Crown Why may they not fish within the mouth of the Thames Or within our Creeks Havens and Rivers as far as Salt Water flows Or to the first Bridge if they will please to stop there Is it reasonable that there should be no distinction as to fishing betwixt Native and Alien Why then do they challenge to themselves those smaller Seas and Inlets within the Vly and Texel and all other Streams which breaking in at a streight Neck or Isthmus of Land form Peninsula's of Waters and in the nature of standing Lakes are inclosed within the Banks of those Low-Countries The States there farm out the fishing of the South Sea or Zuyder and other Streams to their own People and Subjects under the Reservation of a Yearly Rent to be paid therefore and consequently exclude all others from it I hint these things only to shew the Reasonableness of a Limited Fishing and as to the Authorities by which it is strengthened I shall touch upon them also It was anciently Covenanted betwixt the Crown of Scotland and the Netherlands that they should not Fish within Fourscore Miles from the Scottish Shoars My Author is Welwood a Scotch Lawyer in a little Tract of his which I have read De Dominio Maris in the Third Chapter His words are Non possum praeterire quod ante Saeculum hoc post cruentissimam ex occasionibus Maritimis discordiam inter Scotos Batavosque res in hunc modum compâ—sita fuit