The end of War, regarded as a High Trial of Right between Nations, is either to redress past injury, or to prevent future injury, and the mode, whereby Belligerent Force operates to accomplish one or other of these objects, is by taking security (pignoratio) from the wrongdoer; in other words, by the seizure of his property. Hence War implies necessarily a direct operation of Force against Property, whilst it entails only accidentally the employment of Force against the Persons of individuals, by reason of the resistance which they may offer to the process of taking security from the wrong-doer. A Declaration of War implies indeed, that a Nation intends to overcome by Force any resistance, which may be offered to it in exacting satisfaction; but whilst the seizure of the Property of the Enemy is a necessary means for procuring satisfaction, which no Belligerent can be expected to renounce, the measures to be adopted for overcoming resistance are susceptible of infinite modifications; and it is in respect of such modifications that the Civilisation of the nineteenth century is far in advance of that of the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries, and may be expected in its turn to be left behind by the Civilisation of future ages.

With regard to the Rights, which a state of War gives rise to between the Subjects of two Belligerent Powers, the greater mildness of modern manners, coupled with the instinct of Human Nature, which leads us to pity in others what we fear for ourselves, has insensibly operated to restrain the extreme exercise of those Rights, and wherever the employment of Belligerent Force in an extreme manner has fallen into desuetude, the revival of its exercise would justly be regarded as an innovation upon the modern Practice, and, as such, a breach of the Customary Law of Nations.

On the other hand, if we regard the Duties, which a state of War gives rise to between a Belligerent Power and the Subjects of a Neutral Power, a tacit agreement would seem to have been entered into between Neutral and Belligerent Powers, that on the one hand the

Neutral State shall not be implicated in the misconduct of the individual, and on the other hand the offender shall be subject to the exercise of Belligerent Right. Forfeiture of Property is under such circumstances the penalty which the Belligerent State inflicts upon the Subjects of a Neutral Power for every departure from Neutrality, whilst the Neutral State abstains from all interference between the captors and the captured, on the understanding that it shall not be responsible for the misconduct of its Subjects, nor be involved by their acts in War against its will. It is the duty of every Neutral Power, as such, to observe Impartiality, and consequently, if its Subjects voluntarily array themselves under the banner of one of the Belligerent parties, to make no complaint, if they are treated by the other as Enemies. But it will always be a question of a most delicate nature with regard to its own citizens for a Neutral State to renounce the obligation of protecting them from the operation of Belligerent Force, unless it shall be satisfied of the justice and legality of the rules of conduct, which the Belligerent

Power prescribes to its Commissioned Agents. Hence, whilst the Neutral Nation allows to a Belligerent Nation the unobstructed exercise of the Rights of War, her own dignity and security require that a Court of the Law of Nations should sit in judgment on each case, and pronounce whether her Subjects have been guilty of a breach of Neutrality, or the Commissioned Agent of the Belligerent Power has exceeded his authority. It was in this direction, that the first step was made to vindicate the equality and independence of Neutral Powers by Treaty-Stipulations, that all questions of Prize of War in regard to Neutral property should be submitted by the Belligerent captor to a judicial enquiry, so that the Neutral Subject might be heard in his defence, and not be deprived of his property, until his complicity with the Enemy should have been established. No wrong will have been inflicted upon the Subject of a Neutral Power, if he should be punished by the strong arm of a Belligerent Power for a breach of Neutrality, as soon as his bad Faith has been established; but an intolerable wrong may be inflicted upon a

Neutral merchant by a Belligerent captor, if his property should have been seized and detained in bad faith, under the pretext of the Right of every Belligerent to submit the conduct of the Subjects of a Neutral Power to the ordeal of a judicial enquiry. The prompt action of Prize Tribunals is intended to mitigate this evil, and it is therefore incumbent on the good Faith of every Belligerent Power to prevent any unreasonable delay in the action of those Tribunals.

A great concession has been made to the convenience of Neutral Commerce by the Declaration issued by the Powers assembled in Congress at Paris in 1856, under which they have renounced in regard to one another the exercise of Belligerent Right against Enemy's goods laden in vessels under the mercantile flag of a Neutral State. The Neutral Mer-. chant has ever been a great instrument under Providence in mitigating the extreme exercise of Belligerent Right, and the victories of Commerce may be traced through a long series of Treaties and Declarations, which serve to mark