See, also, the cases of the Charming Nancy and the Patrixent, Marsden's Below are copies of two marine passports issued by the United States to vessels in order to protect them from molestation: "I, Timothy Pickering, Secretary for the Department of State, of the United States of America, hereby certify and make known, that the ship Benjamin Franklin, whereof Lloyd Jones, a citizen of the said States, is master, and Francis Breuil, also a citizen thereof, is owner, is employed as a flag of truce by the consul-general of the French Republic to the said United States, to transport a number of the citizens of his nation to France: Wherefore I request all armed vessels, sailing under the flag of the said States, and whomsoever else it may concern, to permit the said ship Benjamin Franklin, freely to pursue her intended voyage without giving or suffering to be given to her any let or molestation, but on the contrary to afford her every aid and protection of which she may stand in need. In faith whereof I have signed these presents and caused my official seal to be hereto affixed, at Philadelphia, the first day of June, A. D. 1798, and in the twenty-second year of the Independence of the said States. [L. S.] "TIMOTHY PICKERING." 10 MS. Dom. Let. 422. "DEPARTMENT OF STATE, "December 21, 1814. "To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting: "Whereas Andrew de Daschkoff, esq., envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the Russias, is desirous of obtaining a passport for the steamboat to come from New York or Philadelphia to Alexandria in the District. of Columbia, loaded with wines, furniture, &c. for his use: and it has been determined on the part of the Government of the United States to afford him this accommodation: In pursuance, therefore of a provision in the second section of a law of Congress entitled 'An act to prohibit the use of licenses or passes granted by the authority of Great Britain and Ireland,' authority is hereby given to the steamboat whereof is commander or master, to proceed on the voyage aforesaid notwithstanding the passport, or license which the said vessel may have from any British admiral or other officer: Provided, however, That the said vessel does not in other respects violate the laws of the United States, "In faith whereof, I have caused the seal of the Department of State to be hereunto affixed. Done at Washington, this 21st day of December, anno Domini eighteen hundred and fourteen, and of the Independence of the United States the thirty-ninth. 16 MS. Dom. Let. 181. "JAS. MONROE.“ July 22, 1898, the United States consul at Martinique was instructed by telegraph to issue to the Spanish transatlantic steamer Alicante a safe conduct as follows: "By direction of the President of the United States I hereby issue this safe conduct to the Spanish steamer Alicante, while proceeding under contract with the Government of the United States to Santiago de Cuba and sailing therefrom to Spain with Spanish prisoners surrendered to the Army of the United States in Cuba. All persons under the jurisdiction of the United States are commanded to respect this guarantee.“ Mr. Moore, Act. Sec., of State, to Sec. of War, July 25, 1898, 230 MS. The United States consul at Vera Cruz was instructed to issue safe See, also, Mr. Moore, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Canada, consul at Vern Definitions. XII. PRIVATEERS. 1. WHAT ARE, AND WHAT ARE NOT. • § 1215. "A private armed vessel or privateer is a vessel owned and officered by private persons, but acting under a commission from the State, usually called letters of marque. It answers to a company on land raised and commanded by private persons, but acting under rules from the supreme authority, rather than to one raised and acting without license, which would resemble a privateer without commission. (It is equipped not so much to fight an enemy's war ships, to which it would be unequal, as to plunder his commerce; its value to the state commissioning it is thus mainly incidental.) The commission, on both elements, alone gives a right to the thing captured, and insures good treatment from the enemy. A private vessel levying war without such licer se, although not engaged in a piratical act, would fare har lly in the enemy's hands." Wooley's Int. Law, § 127. H. Doc. 551-vol 7-35 "By Swift a privateer is defined to be an armed vessel, belonging to one or more private individuals, licensed by Government to take prizes from an enemy. "In Wilhelm's Military Dictionary (Phil. 1881), the name 'partisan' is stated to be given to 'small corps detached from the main body of an army, and acting independently against the enemy. In partisan warfare much liberty is allowed to partisans.' But if so in military, why not in naval warfare? The objection is to the plunder of private property on the high seas, against which the United States have always remonstrated, not to the particular agency employed. "In McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, London, 1882, privateers are defined to be ships of war fitted out by private individuals to annoy and plunder the enemy. But before commencing their operutions, it is indispensable that they obtain letters of marque and reprisal from the government whose subjects they are, authorizing them to commit hostilities, and that they conform strictly to the rules laid down for the regulation of their conduct. All private individuals attacking others at sea, unless empowered by letters of marque, are to be considered pirates."" Wharton, Com. Am. Law, § 201, note; citing Butler-Johnstone, Handbook of Maritime Rights (London, 1876), 12. "Though she [a merchant vessel] has arms to defend herself in time of war, in the course of her regular commerce, this no more makes her a privateer, than a husbandman following his plough, in time of war, with a knife or pistol in his pocket, is thereby made a soldier." Mr. Jefferson, Sec. of State, to Mr. Morris, Aug. 16, 1793, 1 Wait's State The term "letter of marque," though originally indicating the commission issued to a privateer, came in the course of time to be applied almost exclusively to a trading vessel that was authorized to make reprisals, whether in peace or in war. The term "privateer" was reserved for a vessel which, although privately fitted out, was employed solely as a cruiser. Hamilton, therefore, in his circular of August 4, 1793, said: "The term privateer is understood not to extend to vessels armed for merchandise and war, commonly called with us letters of marque, nor, of course, to vessels of war in the immediate service of the government of either of the powers at war." Am. State Papers, For. Rel. I. 140. "On the 1st March, 1803, the King of France lent the ship Indien, for the term of three years to the Prince of Luxembourg. The Prince then ceded his right to the State of South Carolina; and in order to 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. quence, 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 "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, |