[987] Mare Liberum, c. v. [See p. 347].
[988] Foreigners were not to fish “nerer the land nor nor yai mycht see the shoir out of yair main toppis.”
[989] Stair, The Institutions of the Law of Scotland, bk. ii. tit. i. 5 (1681). “The vast ocean is common to all mankind as to navigation and fishing, which are the only uses therof, because it is not capable of bounds; but where the sea is enclosed, in bays, creeks, or otherwise is capable of any bounds or meiths, as within the points of such lands, or within the view of such shores, there it may become proper, but with the reservation of passage for commerce, as in the land. So fishing without these bounds is common to all, and within them also, except as to certain kinds of fish, such as herrings, &c.” The qualification and the “etcetera” are peculiar.
[991] Captain George St Lo, England’s Safety, or a Bridle to the French King, 1693. “During the time I was convoy to our fishing there, as aforesaid (1685-6), my business was to see that no foreigner should fish in sight of the shore, because the fish draw thither to spawn; the best draughts are there.”
[992] Azuni, Sistema universale dei Principj del Diritto marittimo, i. 78.
[993] Dominio del Mar’ Adriatico e sue Raggione per il Jus Belli della Serenissima Repvblica di Venetia, Venezia, 1686.
[994] Hale, A Treatise relating to the Maritime Law of England, c. iv. Coke’s Fourth Institute, c. xxii. p. 140 (ed. 1797). Blackstone, Commentaries, i. 110. Hale, Pleas of the Crown, ii. 54. An early authority is in Fitzherbert’s La Grande Abridgment (1565), Corone et Plees de Corone, fol. 259, placit 399, “Nota p. Stanton justic q̃ ceo nest pas sa͠nce demere ou hoe puit veier ceo q̃’est fait del ou part del ewe et del aut, coe a rier de lun terr tanq̃ a laut q̃ le cozon viendr’ en ceo cas et fra son offic auri coe auent a vyent en vu brau del mer la ou home puit vier de lun parte tanque a lauter del auer que en cel lieu auient puyt paiis auer conisans.” There are some words in this passage difficult to translate, but the following has been given as its rendering: “Nota per Stanton Justice, that that is not sance [which Lord Coke translates ‘part’] of the sea where a man can see what is done from one part of the water and the other, so as to see from one land to the other; that the coroner shall come in such case and perform his office, as well as coming and going in an arm of the sea, there where a man can see from one part to the other of the [word undeciphered], that in such a place the country can have conusance.”
[996] Lib. ii. cap. iii. s. xiii. 2, “Ratione territorii, quatenus ex terra cogi possunt qui in proxima maris parte versantur, nec minus quam si in ipsa terra reperirentur.” [See p. 349].