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exhaustive analysis of the law would have commented on
such acts as the Suppression of Piracy Act 1698 (Halsbury's
Statutes IV p.334), the Piracy Act 1821 (p.343 op. cit.),
the Offences at Sea Acts 1799 and 1806 (pp. 401 and 417),
the Murders Abroad Act 1817 (p. 440), the Piracy Act 1837
(p.461), the Admiralty Offences Act 1844 (p.476) and
the Piracy Act 1850 (p. 520) had he considered that the
provisions of any of those Acts either expressly or
impliedly referred to foreigners, for although the crime
charged in Reg. v. Keyn was manslaughter the principle at
issue was sufficiently wide to render relevant the various
municipal Acts dealing with piracy had the advocates in
the case or other members of the Court cited them as
conferring statutory criminal jurisdiction over foreigners
in foreign ships.
Up to 1878 therefore we think that while for the
purpose of regulating national defence and such matters as
customs and revenue, municipal law had in certain cases
been applied to foreigners in foreign ships at sea, there
was no statute which had extended the jurisdiction of our
criminal Courts in respect of crimes committed by foreigners
at sea unless committed on board a British ship or falling
under the definition of piracy 'jure gentium'. The ratio
decidendi of Cockburn C.J. and the majority of the Court
was responsible for the drafting of the Territorial Waters
Jurisdiction Act of 1878. The effect of that Act was to
declare and enact (see the preamble and per Coleridge C.J.
in R. v. Dudley and Stephen, 14 Q.B.D. at 281), that the
jurisdiction of our Courts extended to all offences
committed within three miles of the coast; but subject to
that extension we think that the law of the high seas
remains to-day as it was stated by Cockburn C.J. (see
Harris/