of nations." And the same learned commentator adds: "Considering the great extent of the 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 the waters on our coasts, though included within lines 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." 2

§ 573 a. While the views mentioned in the latter part of the last section are substantially conformable to reason, a better representation of the matter seems to be as follows: The jurisdiction of our country extends no further than the marine league from the shore, as already explained. But all nations may punish attempts to break their laws, though the act of attempting were done abroad, only they must be able to arrest the persons engaged in such attempts, without violating the territorial jurisdiction of other nations. Arrests, however, may be made on the high seas, which are the common highways of nations. And a nation may well assume, and by law establish, that certain acts done near its shores shall conclusively be taken and punished as attempts to infringe its regulations of internal police or otherwise; while it could not, on any just principles, interfere with those acts done at points of the ocean more remote.

§ 574. The foregoing doctrines determine our territorial limits on the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean. Our remaining northern and southern boundaries are established by treaties with Great Britain, on the one side; and with Spain and Mexico, on the other; and by

11 Kent Com. 31.

2 1 Kent Com. 30. See Wheaton International Law, 6th ed. 496.

the awards of commissioners to settle boundaries under the treaties. The treaties and awards are published in the volumes of laws of the United States, and they need not be particularly set out here.

§ 575. Concerning these remaining boundaries, the rule of international law runs the line in the middle of rivers and other streams of water dividing two countries; unless a treaty stipulation, or a prescription, otherwise directs in a particular instance. And our treaties and the awards of commissioners have followed usually this general doctrine in express words; extending it also to lakes, especially to the great lakes which form a part of our northern limits. The lines have been so run, moreover, both in river and lake, as not to divide islands, but to leave the whole of each island in the territory of one or the other of the adjoining powers. Our treaties provide also fór some mutual rights of navigation, by the vessels of the two nations, in each other's waters, along these lines. In regard to the lakes between the British possessions and our own, it may be further observed, that, since if they were entirely within one country they would constitute in the complete sense portions of its territory,2 evidently the respective parts of them belong, wherever the treaties are silent, in the same complete way to the particular government; there being no third power having the right, by reason of its possessions bordering upon or connecting with them, to interfere.

II. Our Government over Citizens abroad.

§ 576. It is a general principle, that the laws of a country do not extend beyond its territorial limits; because the gov

1 The Twee Gebroeders, 3 Rob. Adm. 336; Flanders Maritime Law,

$ 44.

2 Wheaton International Law, 6th ed. 252, 253.

Bishop Mar. & Div. § 144; ante, § 66 c, 86; post, § 577.

ernment has neither interests nor power to execute its will beyond. On other grounds we saw in the last chapter, that at common law the courts cannot proceed against a defendant out of the county in which the criminal act was done. To this latter proposition there is no exception, unless we deem the admiralty jurisdiction to be one. But to the former proposition, that the laws do not have effect beyond the territory, there are common law exceptions or qualifications, produced by the operation of various principles. Still it is difficult to say fully what the common law exceptions are; for we have necessarily few adjudications to guide us. If an offence is committed abroad, it cannot, more than if committed at home, be tried without a tribunal to try it;1 and no tribunal, having general authority in these cases, has ever been established either in England or in this country. A statute sometimes gives jurisdiction in a particular matter of this sort, but usually we cannot well say whether it creates a new offence, or confers a new power over an old one. Let us here, however, take a few steps where we find light in our path.

§ 577. The general proposition therefore is, that no man is to suffer criminally for what he does out of the territorial limits of the country. Yet, on principles considered by us when speaking of counties,3 he may be personally out of the country while his act is in it; and in such a case he is punishable where the act is done. Thus if a man, standing beyond the outer line of our territory, by discharging a ball over the line kills another within it; or, himself being abroad, circulates

1 See ante, § 17.

Musgrave v. Medex, 19 Ves. 652; Commonwealth v. Green, 17 Mass. 515, 540; Rex v. Hooker, 7 Mod. 193; Putnam v. Putnam, 8 Pick. 433; Adams v. People, 1 Comst. 173; Manley v. People, 3 Seld. 295. And see Graham v. Mosergh, 22 Vt. 543.

Ante, § 556, 560.

Adams v. People, 1 Comst. 173, 179; United States v. Davis, 2 Sumner, 482, 485; ante, § 556. In the United States v. Davis, a ball discharged

through an agent libels here; or in like manner obtains goods by false pretences; 2 or does any other crime in our own locality, against our laws; he is punishable, though absent, the same as if he were present.

4

7 § 578. Still there must be, in these as in all other cases, a court competent to try the offender, or he cannot practically be brought to justice. On this ground it has been held, that, if the offence is a felony, committed here by a responsible agent who is therefore a principal felon under our laws, the procurer, being an accessory before the fact and not a principal in the felony, can be indicted only in the foreign country, if at all; in obedience to the rule, that he must answer where, and only where, he does the procuring. Yet without questioning the doubtful doctrine of the accessory being answerable only in the county in which he entices the principal, as applied to offences committed wholly in our own country or State, there is reason for another view; namely, that, since we cannot take notice of any power the foreign government may or may not have over the procurer, we must therefore deem that he is not answerable in the locality of the procurement, and so hold him here as we hold a man doing an act through an innocent agent; the same reason of necessity ex

from a gun on board an American ship, killing a person in a foreign vessel in a foreign harbor, was held not to subject to punishment the person discharging it, for an offence against the United States laws, — the act, in legal contemplation, being done on board the foreign vessel.

1 Commonwealth v. Blanding, 3 Pick. 304; Rex v. Johnson, 7 East, 65. 2 Adams v. People, 1 Comst. 173, 3 Denio, 190, 610.

3 Commonwealth v. Gillespie, 7 S. & R. 469; Rex v. Munton, 1 Esp. 62; Barkhamsted v. Parsons, 3 Conn. 1, 8; Wooten v. Miller, 7 Sm. & M. 380. "If a man employ a conscious or unconscious agent in this country, he may be amenable to the laws of England, although at the time he was living beyond the jurisdiction." Lord Campbell, C. J., in Reg. v. Garrett, Dears. 232, 241, 6 Cox C. C. 260, 24 Law J. N. s. M. C. 116, 1 Jur. N. s. 406, 22 Eng.. L. & Eq. 607.

190.

The State v. Moore, 6 Fost. N. H. 448. See People v. Adams, 3 Denio,

6 Ante, § 561.

isting in the two cases alike.1 If we look at this question on principle, plainly the view last stated is the true one.

§ 579. The sea being common to all nations,2 all vessels, public and private, navigating it, must be deemed to be parts or elongations of the territory of the sovereignty to which they are attached. And therefore the judicial power of every country has a territorial jurisdiction over offences committed on board the vessels of that country, at least while they are afloat, outside the limits of any State. Moreover we shall by and by see, that, when a private ship of another nation comes into our harbors, the persons on board her are, while here, subject to our laws; but it does not follow that they are not also subject to their own laws, criminal 5 as well as civil, except in particulars where ours are directly repugnant to them. In cases of repugnance, ours must evidently prevail; and in these cases also, it would appear clearly to follow from principles already discussed in these pages,6 that, on the ground of necessity, the persons attached to such vessel would be excused at home for doing what they were thus compelled. And this doctrine, of the binding effect of the laws of one's country upon subjects afloat in her ships and belonging to them, even while within the territorial limits of foreign States, appears to be recognized both in the legislative acts and judicial decisions of England and America alike."

1 See Commonwealth v. Gillespie, 7 S. & R. 469, 478. * Ante, § 570.

Wheaton International Law, 158, 174; Polson Law of Nations, 25; United States v. Pirates, 5 Wheat. 184; United States v. Imbert, 4 Wash. C. C. 702; United States v. Holmes, 5 Wheat. 412; United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76; Reg. v. Serva, 2 Car. & K. 53, 1 Den. C. C. 104. And see Reid v. Ship Vere, Bee, 66; United States v. Palmer, 3 Wheat. 610; Rex v. Amarro, Russ. & Ry. 286.

4 Post, § 590.

Polson Law of Nations, 25.

Ante, § 270 et seq.

Rex v. Allen, 7 Car. & P. 664, 1 Moody, 494; Church v. Hubbart, 2 Cranch, 187; United States v. Pirates, 5 Wheat. 184; United States v.