With these expositions of the probable practical rule as to blockade, it had appeared to me that the object of those who desired immunity of private property would be effected by the adoption of Mr. Marcy's amendment. The occurrences of the last two years show that President Buchanan and Secretary Cass were entirely correct in connecting the proposition with the abolition of commercial blockades, confining them, as you propose to do, to places actually besieged. Had Mr. Marcy's amendment been accepted, it is not perceived that the interruption of commerce would have been sensibly less than it has been during our war; while, as the blockade excludes Southern ships from the ocean, with the exception of what has been effected against our merchantmen by the Confederate cruisers abroad, and whose existence raises another question, little would have been gained from it, even for the trade of belligerents. It is the blockade, and uot the right of belligerent capture, that has so seriously affected the commercial intercourse of the civilized world. I have, you may remember, referred both to you and to Mr. Cobden in my note on this subject: Lawrence's Wheaton, pp. 820 826. While noticing the declaration of Paris, I cannot omit expressing my regret, that what has been achieved for neutral rights, by declaring that free ships make free goods, without detracting from the other rule that neutral property is safe in the ships of an enemy, should not have received the authoritative sanction between the United States and France and England which it possesses in the convention made by Mr. Marcy with Russia. I fear, if the question should arise in our prize tribunals, the inefficacy of a less formal arrangement, and that, as in the case at the beginning of the war, when the Admiralty Court at New York condemned a vessel for having on board a cargo laden after notification of blockade, though the proceeding had been sanctioned by the correspondence between Mr. Seward and Lord Lyons, the right of the executive to change the law of nations by his own authority may be denied. Notwithstanding our frequent attempts to alter the rule by convention, our courts, equal with yours, have ever held that enemy's property in neutral vessels, where no treaty provided for the contrary, was prize of war. I know not how the law, as expounded by our Supreme Court, can be changed except by the treaty-making power, which is vested in the President and Senate, or by an act of legislation. The latter course, under a constitution similar to ours, has been adopted by the Confederate States. I have looked with much attention on the question as respects the violation of neutral obligations involved in the case of the Alabama and the other vessels alleged to have been built for the Confederates in British waters, and I purpose examining the matter more fully for my French notes. As regards the sale of ships, whether armed or not, in neutral ports, as matters of commerce, I cannot think that, under the law of nations, they stand on any less favourable footing than the sale of munitions of war, both of which are included within the term used by you, of passive contraband; nor according to the decision of our courts do I consider the case altered by any provision of our neutrality act. Moreover, I can conceive of no right, as was attempted in the case of the Terceira expedi tion, to enforce your municipal laws against foreigners beyond your jurisdiction. It seems to me that the offence of the neutral is in permitting, as you express it, "the hostile use of neutral territory as the starting point of expeditions and the base of their operations." We had no neutrality act when, in the administration of General Washington, we effectually interposed to prevent French privateers being fitted out in our ports to cruise against English commerce, and made compensation in those cases in which it was not in our power to restore the illegal prizes. The gist of the matter is using the neutral territory as the basis of a hostile expedition, and in that respect, where the ship was built or to whom it belongs is immaterial. It falls within the same category as carrying on hostilities in neutral waters, or using them in order to watch for the enemy. The distinction to which I allude is well traced in the case referred to on the trial of the Alexandra, though the controlling portion of Judge Story's judgment does not appear in any report of the Chief Baron's opinion which I have seen. Judge Story, after stating that the capturing vessel had been sent from Baltimore to Buenos Ayres as American property, which he deemed a commercial adventure and not illegal, and there sold to the Government of that country, by which she was made a public ship of war, restored the property in question, which had been captured on a subsequent cruise, to the Spanish claimants. The decision was founded on the fact that after the Santissima Trinidad had become an acknowledged public vessel of Buenos Ayres, she had, preparatory to the cruise in which the goods were taken, enlisted an additional crew and strengthened her armament by the purchase of a tender in the port of Baltimore. (Wheaton's Reports, vol. vii. p. 340-The Santissima Trinidad.) In the same volume is the case of the Gran Para: p. 487. There the property, though the capturing vessel was not commissioned as a privateer till her arrival in the Rio de la Plata, continued in the same party who had purchased her in Baltimore; and the court were of opinion that she was armed and manned there for a cruise. The most delicate question, if not the most difficult, to which the late prize cases have given rise, concerns the right of capture of a vessel going to a neutral port with the intent to sail from thence to a blockaded port, or resorting to a neutral port with the intention of using it for the introduction of contraband into the enemy's country. The decisions on these points have not, as far as I am aware, received in reference to the cases arising during this war, the ad. judication of the Supreme Court. In referring to the books, I find that Wildman, as well as our American authors Duer and Halleck, pronounce more emphatically than the cases would seem to warrant against the neutral cruiser. I appreciate your criticisms as to those cases which relate to the indirect trade of a citizen of the belligerent country with the enemy. They fall within the general interdict of all intercourse of that nature. The other cases from the English reports generally relate to a violation of British Orders in Council of questionable validity, or to infraction of the rule of 1756, which, during the wars growing out of the French revolution, was a source of constant difficulty between the United States and England. The rule which at one time was understood to be agreed on between the two Governments, was to consider the continuity of the voyage broken by the cargoes being landed and the duties paid on them. It is somewhat extraordinary that the Congress of Paris, in touching on the matters included in the declaration, should have omitted a declaration of contraband, as to which of all matters connected with the subject the most doubt existed. On this point, I presume that we are to consider, as the authoritative exposition by your Government, the note of Earl Russell to Lord Lyons, of Jan. 23, 1862, and which, omitting the suppressed clause from Bynkershoek, confines contraband to arms, munitions of war, and soldiers-the rule as adopted on the continent. (See Lawrence's Wheaton, p. 801.) The suggestion in my letter of last year was made with the endeavour to render unnecessary the visitation and search, in time of war, of neutral vessels; and for which, if the declaration of Paris, as to enemy's property in neutral vessels, and neutral property in enemy's vessels, be universally adopted, there would no longer be any pretext. Your objections I find are to any enlargement of the law of blockade, or to any apology for its extension. Should your views prevail and blockade be confined to places beseiged, it seems to me that it would perfect the system of commercial freedom to abrogate the whole doctrine of contraband. This is a subject which I should be glad to discuss further, did not my watch remind me that expect to write to you by this week's mail, my letter must be at once despatched to the postoffice. I will only venture to add that the importance of the questions of maritime law, now the subjects of debate, points out the necessity, with the view of diminishing the causes of future wars, of their authoritative settlement by the general concurrence of nations. Associations such as yours may mature the public mind for an international congress, for the assembling of which a proposition was introduced into the House of Representatives in 1861-2. I am, my dear sir, W. B. LAWRENCE. John Westlake, Esq. INDEX. 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Burton, John Hill, Extracts from writ- Capture during war of private property Carpenter, Mary, on the treatment of Cave, Stephen, M.P., observations on Chesshire, Edwin, F.R.C.S., on a new Children, pauper, education of, xxx. See also Stepney Union Establish- Christison, Professor, address on public Classes. See Universities. Clay, Rev. W. L., observations on re- large towns, by Henry D. Little- Cleghorn, Sheriff, observations on the Cochran, F. J., on our institutions Cochrane, Adam, jun., notes on the Committee of Privy Council on Edu- Committees, reports of. See Reports. Congress and tribunal, an interna- tional, for the prevention of war, by Contract, breach of, by workmen, by as a means of securing in Germany, by Max Kyll- its origin, advocates, progress, "" on the past and present aspects |