Note 994 — Chapter I · THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE TERRITORIAL SEA.
Reading edition
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.”