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can not be by itself regarded as a violation of neutrality; the object of the agent must be an alliance for the continuance of the war, in which case the arrest and carrying off would be not unjustifiable." Perels dissents from Gessner's distinction that such arrest would not be justifiable, even in the latter case, if made when the agent was passing between two neutral ports.

Bernard maintains that, in order to condemn a neutral ship for carrying enemy individuals, it is necessary to prove that she was virtually acting as a transport of the enemy, and that in this view the number of the persons conveyed, the nature of their employment, their importance, and their immediate or ultimate destination may then become material elements of proof, and that there should be evidence of intention, or of knowledge from which intention may be reasonably inferred, on the part of the owner or his agent or the master. He further says: "It is not lawful, on the high seas, to take persons, whatever their character, as prisoners out of a neutral -hip which has not been judicially proved to have forfeited the benefit of her neutral character."

Dana's Wheaton, 650, 651, note; Perels, Das internationale öffentliche Seerecht (Berlin, 1882), § 47, citing Heffter, § 161a; Bernard, Neutrality of Great Britain, chap. 9.

The position of Mr. Seward that the Trent should have been sent before a prize court is criticised in 95 North American Review (July, 1862), 1.

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"One thing
the Trent case did settle conclusively, and that is,
that where the passage of contraband persons is to be interrupted,
it is unjustifiable to remove them bodily from the vessel and to allow
her to proceed. She must herself be seized and carried into the
belligerent port for trial in the prize courts." (5 American Law
Review, 269.)

See, also, Letters of Historicus, 192.

**Though dispatches are classed as contraband articles, and their car-
riage is illegal because of their peculiar character, ambassadors are
neither contraband articles nor denounced by international law."
(Abdy's Kent, 359.)

For further notices of the Trent case, see Goldwin Smith, 13 Macmillan's
Magazine, 169; 46 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 1; 8 Southern Law
Review, N. S. 33; 1 Life of Thurlow Weed. Autobiography, €39;
111 London Quarterly Review (Jan, 1862), 239; 2 Revue de Droit
International, 126,

Woolsey, referring to the seizure of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, says: → The vessel itself was allowed to pursue its way, by waiver of right as the officer who made the detention thought, but no dispatches were found. On this transaction we may remark: (1) That there is no process known to international law by which a nation may extract from a neutral ship on the high sea a hostile ambassador, a traitor, or any criminal whatsoever. Nor can any neutral ship be brought

in for adjudication on account of having such passengers on board. (2) If there had been hostile despatches found on board, the ship might have been captured and taken into port; and when it had entered our waters, these four men, being citizens charged with treason, were amenable to our laws. But there appears to have been no valid pretext for seizing the vessel. It is simply absurd to say that these men were living despatches. (3) The character of the vessel as a packet ship, conveying mails and passengers from one neutral port to another, almost precluded the possibility of guilt. Even if hostile military persons had been found on board, it might be a question whether their presence would involve the ship in guilt, as they were going from a neutral country and to a neutral country. (4) It ill became the United States-a nation which had ever insisted strenuously upon neutral rights-to take a step more like the former British practice of extracting seamen out of neutral vessels upon the high seas, than like any modern precedent in the conduct of civilized nations, and that, too, when she had protested against this procedure on the part of Great Britain and made it a ground of war. As for the rest, this affair of the Trent has been of use to the world, by committing Great Britain to the side of neutral rights upon the seas." Woolsey, Int. Law § 199.

"88. A commander should detain any neutral vessel which is being actually used as a transport for the carriage of soldiers or sailors by the enemy.

66

"89. The vessel should be detained, although she may have on board only a small number of enemy officers; or even of civil officials sent out on the public service of the enemy, and at the public expense.

"90. The carriage of ambassadors from the enemy to a neutral state, or from a neutral state to the enemy, is not forbidden to a neutral vessel, for the detention of which such carriage is therefore no

cause.

“91. It will be no excuse for carrying enemy military persons that the master is ignorant of their character.

"92. It will be no excuse that he was compelled to carry such persons by duress of the enemy.

"93. A vessel which carries enemy military persons becomes liable to detention from the moment of quitting port with the persons on board, and continues to be so liable until she has deposited them. After depositing them the vessel ceases to be liable.

"94. The commander will not be justified in taking out of a vessel any enemy persons he may have found on board, and then allowing the vessel to proceed; his duty is to detain the vessel and send her in for adjudication, together with the persons on board.

"95. The penalty for carrying enemy military persons is the confiscation of the vessel and of such part of the cargo as belongs to her

owner.

Holland's Manual of Naval Prize Law, 25-26.

Under paragraph 88, the learned editor cites Carolina, 4 C. Rob. 256; Friendship, 6 C. Rob. 420; Rebecca, 2 Acton, 119; Commercen, 1 Wheat. 382; under paragraph 89, Orozembo, 6 C. Rob. 430; under paragraph 91, ibid.; under paragraph 92, Carolina, 4 C. Rob. 256; under paragraph 95, Friendship, 6 C. Rob. 420, and Atalanta, 6 C. Rob. 440.

Paragraphs 96-105 of the Manual contain analagous provisions on the carrying of enemy's despatches, which comprise "any official communications, important or unimportant, between officers, whether military or civil, in the service of the enemy on the public affairs of the government" (par. 97), the only exception being "official communications between the enemy's home government and the enemy's ambassador or consul resident in a neutral state," it being presumed that "they concern the affairs of the neutral state, and therefore are of a pacific character" (par. 98). “Official communications between the enemy and neutral foreign governments are under no circumstances ground for detention" (par. 99).

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VII. OBSTRUCTION OF NAVIGABLE CHANNELS. § 1286.

I. A BELLIGERENT RIGHT.

§ 1266.

"A siege is a military investment of a place, so as to intercept, or render dangerous, all communications between the occupants and persons outside of the besieging army; and the place is said to be blockaded, when such communication, by water, is either entirely cut off or rendered dangerous by the presence of the blockading squadron. A place may be both besieged and blockaded at the same time, or its communications by water may be intercepted, while those by land may be left open, and vice versâ.”

Halleck, Int. Law (3rd ed., by Baker), II. 184, § 3. See, also, id. 193, § 15.

“On principle, it might well be questioned whether this rule [the right to confiscate vessels bound to a blockaded port] can be applied to a place not completely invested by land as well as by sea. If we examine the reasoning on which is founded the right to intercept and confiscate supplies designed for a blockaded town, it will be difficult to resist the conviction that its extension to towns invested by sea, only, is an unjustifiable encroachment on the rights of neutrals. But it is not of this departure from principle, a departure which has received some sanction from practice, that we mean to complain. It is, that ports not effectually blockaded by force capable of completely investing them, have yet been declared in a state of blockade, and vessels attempting to enter therein have been seized, and on that account confiscated."

Mr. Marshall, Sec. of State, to Mr. King, min. to England, Sept. 20, 1800, 2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. 486, 488.

See 3 Wheaton, appendix, note 1, for an extract from this instruction, and also for a note of Mr. Merry, British minister, to Mr. Madison, April 12, 1804, and an instruction of Mr Smith, Sec. of Navy, to Commodore Preble, Feb. 4, 1804.

The blockade of an enemy's coast in order to prevent all intercourse with neutral powers "is a claim which gains no additional strength by an investigation into the foundation on which it rests; and the evils which have accompanied its exercise call for an efficient remedy." The investment of a place by sea and land with a view to its reduction is a mode of warfare which can not reasonably be objected to, so long as war is recognized as an arbiter of national disputes. The original theory of blockades was that of reducing places by means of investment. Marshall, when Secretary of State, in an instruction of September 30, 1800, to Mr. King, American minister in London, declared that it might well be questioned whether the rule of blockade could be applied to a place “not completely invested by land as well as by sea," and that, if the foundations of the subject were examined, it would be difficult to resist the conviction that the extension of the doctrine to towns invested by sea only was “an unjustifiable encroachment on the rights of neutrals." Elementary writers abound in expressions indicating a close connection between blockades and sieges, and similar expressions had been used by Lord Stowell. The blockade of a coast or of commercial positions along it, without any regard to ulterior military operations and with the real design of carrying on a war against trade, and from its very nature against the trade of peaceable and friendly powers, instead of a war against armed men, is a proceeding which it is difficult to reconcile with reason or with the opinions of modern times. . . . Unfortunately, however, the right to do this has been long recognized by

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