Sea
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
Prior to the series of decisions which have made the term admiralty juiisdiction independent of the ebb and flow of the tide (see Admiralty), the decisions of American courts were to the effect that the word sea includes not only the high seas (q. v.), but arms of the sea, waters flowing from it into ports and havens, and as high up a river as the tide ebbs and flows.
Waring v. Clarke, 5 How. 441, 462.
In other words, ail waters within the ebb and flow of the tide are to be considered the sea.
Baker v. Hoag, 3 Barb. 203; Hubbard v. Hubbard, 8 N. Y. 196; Gwin's Will, 1 Tuck. 44.
We do not understand that the decisions enlarging admiralty jurisdiction to rivers above the ebb and flow of the tide have any effect on the legal meaning of the word sea; that remains limited by the tidal line. But this remark does not apply to " sea " in all its compounds. See Seaman and Sba-