Part 27 (2/2)

Hogarth laid claim to the sea as his private property, and warned the nations.

XXIX

PRIORITY OF CLAIM

A gentleman--a Permanent Under-secretary--stood one noon, his back to a fireplace in a bright-carpeted room at the Foreign Office, letting his eyes move over some opened letters submitted to him, and presently came upon the following doc.u.ment, its crest a flag, containing in blue the letters ”R. F.”:

”17 LEADENHALL STR., E.G.

”To the Most Hon.,

”The Marquis of Hallam, K.G.,

”Foreign Office,

”Westminster, S.W.

”MY LORD MARQUIS:

”I have the honour hereby to make formal announcement to Your Lords.h.i.+p that I am on the point of setting up in the midst of the world a new Power, whose relations with the King's Government will, I trust, be relations of friendliness.

”It is my desire that Your Lords.h.i.+p forthwith convey to the King's Most Excellent Majesty the announcement which is the subject of this Memorandum.

”My purposes and policy in the establishment of the new Power will hereafter appear; and my properly accredited Ministers will, in due course, present themselves at the Chancelleries of the world.

”Hitherto a British subject, it is my will to acquire diplomatic recognition--as soon as such shall comport with the dignity of the Great Powers--as an Independent Sovereign, under the t.i.tle of: 'Lord of the Sea'. (Address: 'Your Lords.h.i.+p's Majesty', or 'My Lord King'.)

”The domain of my Power will be the sea: and to the sea I hereby set up claim as far as such points of lat.i.tude as have been attained by Man, and over all degrees of longitude. Provided only: that nothing in this claim shall be held to infringe upon the prior claim of any nation to a 'three-mile limit' round its coasts, nor to any national fisheries whatsoever, nor to any claim of the Kingdom of Denmark with respect to the Sound.

”The validity of my t.i.tle to the sea must be considered to rest on the same basis as the t.i.tle of any private owner to any area of the earth's crust: namely, Priority of Claim. If one is valid, so, necessarily, is the other, this t.i.tle to land, based on _Priority of Claim_, being admitted in the Law of all civilized Nations.

”This my claim will come into operation on this day three years hence.

”I have the honour to subscribe myself

”Your Lords.h.i.+p's

”Obdt. Servant,

”RICHARD HOGARTH ”.

The Under-secretary, a pale, distinguished man, read this letter with a little lift of one eyebrow, then let it drop from him into a waste-paper basket.

At the German, the Turkish, capitals it met much the same reception.

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