man the vessel, a legion was raised in France, called the Legion of Luxembourg. "The State of South Carolina agreed to pay the Prince 100,000 francs cash, and, in case the vessel should be lost, 400,000 francs more; in addition to which the Prince was to receive one quarter of the value of the prizes. The legions were engaged upon the terms at which persons were then commonly enlisted to serve on board ships of war. "The Prince, at the period of these engagements, owed the King 248,000 francs for sums advanced to him. "The Indien, under the name of South Carolina, made many prizes while in the employment of the American State, but was finally taken by the enemy. "Two orders of creditors then present themselves, claiming their shares of the prize money; to wit, the prince of Luxembourg and the members of the legion. "After the peace, as the Prince was indebted to France, the royal treasury protested against the sum being paid to him. In consequence, an arrangement was effected, by which the Prince's debt was ultimately discharged by South Carolina in 1807. There now remain only the claimants of shares in the prizes in the name of the legion. "The lapse of time, the character of the claimants, death and dispersion, have caused these claims to pass into an infinite number of hands. Syndics of doubtful creation, or whose powers are obsolete, lawyers in the same predicament, the smallness of the individual claims, and other circumstances, combine to lengthen out the proceedings, and increase the accumulation of papers, without advantage to any one except the agent, who has established himself for life, as he expects, at Charleston. "All these difficulties can not but increase, on account of the deaths of the primitive claimants; and especially to the United States, will their heirs become troublesome. "But one equitable mode of adjusting the affair presents itself. Let the State of South Carolina, which has no interest in the distribution, surrender to the French Government as the natural protector of the rights of its subjects, and, above all, as the guardian of the French seamen, all the shares of the prize money now deposited in its care; the French Government being charged with distributing it to those who make good their claims." French minister of foreign affairs to Mr. Rives, minister of the United States, June 15, 1831, H. Ex. Doc. 147, 22 Cong. 2 sess. 191, 199. "This is obviously a question between the legionnaires and the State of South Carolina, to which the Government of the Union is entirely a stranger." Mr. Rives, min. to France, to Count Sebastiani, French minister of foreign affairs, June 19, 1831, H. Ex. Doc. 147, 22 Cong. 2 sess. 201, 207. "In 1814, during the war between the United States and Great Britain, the legislature of New York passed an act to constitute every association of five or more persons, embarking in the trade of privateering, a body politic and corporate, with corporate powers, on their complying with certain formalities." 2 Halleck's Int. Law (Baker's ed.) 13. The fact that the commander of a private armed vessel is an alien enemy does not invalidate a capture made by it. The Mary and Susan, 1 Wheat. 46. Writing to Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward said: "There are no privatearmed or uncommissioned vessels. A portion of our public marine service are commissioned through the War Department as transports; a portion through the Treasury, as revenue. All are subjected to the regulations of the Navy as to foreign and maritime war.” Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Lord Lyons, British min., Jan. 4, 1864, MS. Auxiliary naval forces. . "The two points in the declaration [of Paris] upon which, as already remarked, considerable light has been thrown during the Franco-German war of 1870, are the interpretation that is to be given to the term 'la course,' which occurs in the first resolution, and likewise the interpretation to be given to the term 'contraband of war,' which occurs in the second and third resolutions. The phrase la course' dates from a period, when it was the practice of states, whenever there was occasion to have recourse to an armed expedition on the high seas against another state, to grant letters of marque to the commanders of private cruisers, authorising them to make reprisals against the vessels and cargoes of the subjects of the other state. By and by commissions of war come to be issued by sovereign princes to private ships fitted out either by their own subjects, or by the subjects of other powers, so that it was competent for a power which had no public ships of war of its own to harass the commerce of its enemy by issuing letters of marque and reprisals not merely to vessels of its own subjects, but to the vessels of the subjects of other powers, and when commissions of war came to be granted to both classes of such vessels in the sixteenth century, they had lawful authority to exercise belligerent rights against neutrals as well as against the enemy. It can well be imagined, as the crews of such ships were brought together by the prospect of plunder, and were under no naval discipline, that, when a single corsair or privateer hove in sight on the high seas, it caused a greater terror to a neutral merchant ship than a fleet of public ships of war. "In the present century, however, as the practice of states in intrusting their defence on land to regiments of foreign origin serving them for pay has generally been discarded, so the practice of granting commissions of war to the subjects of foreign states, serving for plunder, has fallen into disrepute, to say nothing of the license of maritime warfare so conducted being intolerable to the civilisation of the present age. That a main object, which the two allied powers in the war of 1854 against Russia had in view, was to put an end to the practice of belligerents issuing letters of marque and reprisals to the subjects of neutral states, is confirmed by the memoir of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, already mentioned. “What influenced especially the English Government was the fear of America inclining against us, and lending to our enemies the cooperation of her hardy volunteers. The maritime population of the United States, their enterprising marine, might furnish to Russia the elements of a fleet of privateers, which, attached to its service by letters of marque and covering the seas with a net work would harass and pursue our commerce even in the most remote waters. To prevent such a danger the cabinet of London held it of importance to conciliate the favourable disposition of the Federal Government. It had conceived the idea of proposing to it at the same time as to the French Government and to all the maritime states, the conclusion of an arrangement, having for its object the suppression of privateering, and permitting to be treated as a pirate everyone, who in time of war should be found furnished with letters of marque. This project, which was in the end abandoned, is evidence of the disquiet felt by England. We thought, as they did, respecting privateering, a barbarous practice which marked too often, under an appearance of patriotic devotion, violence excited by the allurement of lucre. At former epochs, justified by the fury of war, it was able in the midst of numerous iniquities, to give rise to some heroic action, to transmit even to history some glorious names. But we considered it to be incompatible henceforth with the usages of civilized nations, which can not allow private persons to be armed with the rights of war, and which reserve their terrible application to the public power of established states.' "Such was the object in view of the allied powers in the war against Russia, according to the highest authority. We find also a statement from the same authority, namely, the French minister for foreign affairs, in his report to the Emperor of the French, of 29th March, 1854, that the motive of the allied powers was to miti gate the disastrous effects of war upon the commerce of neutral nations and to relieve it from all unnecessary shackles, and accordingly the Emperor of the French published a declaration at the conclusion of which he announced that he had no intention to deliver 'lettres de marque pour autoriser les armements en course.' On the other hand the British Government issued a corresponding declaration on 28th March, 1854, announcing that is was not the intention of the Queen of the United Kingdom to issue letters of marque for the commissioning of privateers. "No occasion for the interpretation of the first article of the declaration of Paris of 1856 arose in its application to a war, in which both the belligerent parties were signatories of that declaration, before the Franco-German war of 1870, when the Prussian Government issued a decree (24th July, 1870), relating to the constitution of a volunteer naval force. Under that decree the King of Prussia invited all German seamen and shipowners to place themselves and their forces and ships suitable thereto at the service of the fatherland. The officers and crews were to be enrolled by the owners of the ships and were to enter into the Federal navy for the continuance of the war, and to wear its uniform and badge of rank, to acknowledge its competence and to take an oath to the articles of war. The ships were to sail under the Federal flag and to be armed and fitted out for the service allotted to them by the Federal royal navy. The ships destroyed in the service of their country were to be paid for to their owners at a price taxed by a naval commission, and a sum was to be paid by the state as a deposit, when the ships were placed at the service of the state, which, at the end of the war, when the ships were restored to their owners, was to be reckoned as hire. The French Government, regarding the institution by Prussia of a volunteer naval force as the revival of privateering under a disguised form, lost no time in calling the attention of the British Government to the Royal Prussian decree, as instituting an auxiliary marine contrary to Prussia's engagements under the declaration of 1856. Earl Granville, on behalf of the British Government, referred the matter to the law officers of the Crown, and in accordance with their opinion returned for answer, that there was a substantial difference between the proposed naval volunteer force sanctioned by the Prussian Government and the system of privateering which, under the designation of "la course," the declaration of Paris was intended to suppress, inasmuch as the vessels referred to in the Royal Prussian decree would be for all intent and purposes in the service of the Prussian Government, and the crews would be under the same discipline as the crews on board vessels belonging permanently to the Federal navy.' Upon these considerations the British Government could not object to the decree of the German Government as 6 infringing the declaration of Paris. (Brit. and For. St. Pap., LXI. p. 692.. Perels, Manuel de Droit Maritime International, p. 195. Paris, 1884.) "There is not an unanimity of opinion amongst text writers on international law on the subject of this Prussian auxiliary marine, as to whether its institution was in conflict with the declaration of Paris or not. M. Charles Calvo, ancien ministre, considers that vessels equipped in accordance with the Prussian decree may be regarded as privateers of an aggravated character, seeing that the owners are not required to give security for their good conduct (Le Droit International. Troisième edition. Tome Troisième, p. 303. Paris, 1880); and Mr. W. E. Hall, in his recent work on International Law, p. 455 (International Law. Oxford, at Clarendon Press. 1880.) observes that unless a volunteer navy could be brought into closer connection with the state than seems to have been the case in the Prussian project, it would be difficult to show that its establishment did not constitute an evasion of the declaration of Paris.' But neither of these eminent publicists seem to have given sufficient weight to the provisions of the Prussian decree, under which the officers and crew were required to enter into the Federal navy for the continuance of the war, were to wear its uniform and to take an oath to the articles of war. Further, the vessels were to be fitted out by the state, and were to sail under the public flag of the state. "On the other hand, Professor Geffcken, in his recent edition of Heffter's Droit International de l'Europe (Paris, 1883), p. 278, and Dr. Charles D. Boeck in his masterly treatise on enemy's property under an enemy's flag, have recognised a broad distinction between such an auxiliary force, which under the Royal decree was intended to be employed solely against the enemy, and privateers, which may be of no matter what nationality, and whose main object it has always been to prey upon neutral commerce, keeping up the worst traditions of private warfare under cover of letters of marque. It should be observed that the Prussian Government never gave practical effect to the Royal decree on this subject, and that no vessel of the seewehr,' as instituted in 1870, ever put to sea. (Staats Archiv., 4345, 4346.)" Twiss, Belligerent Rights, etc., London, 1884. See, also, W. B. Lawrence in 127 N. Am. Review for July, 1878, 32, citing 22 Solicitor's Journal, 523; 9 Rev. de Droit Int. 552. April 22, 1898, the Department of State, in a telegraphic instruction to the diplomatic representatives of the United States, declared among other things that, in the event of hostilities with Spain, the "policy" of the United States" will be not to resort to privateering." This announcement was reaffirmed in a proclamation issued by the |