matic intercourse with the Miramon government was thus finally terminated. In March, 1859, Mr. Robert M. McLane was sent out as a new minister to the Mexican Republic, with discretionary authority to recognize the government of President Juarez, if he should find it to be entitled to such recognition, according to the established practice of the United States. Mr. McLane proceeded to Vera Cruz, where the Juarez government was then established, and finding it to be, as he declared, "the only existing government of the Republic," presented his credentials. The administration at Washington having sub-equently been led to believe that arrangements were making by the Miramon government to blockade Vera Cruz and other ports on the Gulf of Mexico, the commanders of the United States vessels of war in those waters were instructed that the President had decided "that no such blockade will be recognized by the United States; and they were therefore directed to employ the forces under their command to afford American vessels free ingress and egress at all Mexican ports and fully to protect them. Mr. Toucey, Sec. of Navy, to Capt. Jarvis, U. S. S. Savannah, Mar. 13, 1860, 8. Ex. Doc. 29, 36 Cong. 1 sess. Similar instructions were sent to Captain Farragut of the Brooklyn, and to Commanders Thomas Turner of the Saratoga, Thornton A. Jenkins of the Preble, and Hazard of the Pocahontas, See, supra, § 63. "I acknowledge the receipt of your despatch (No. 30) of December 13, 1869, with enclosures, narrating your proceedings in relation to a threatened blockade of Port-au-Prince by armed vessels in the service. of insurrectionists. Your conduct in protesting against the enforcement of the proposed blockade against the vessels of the United States, and in requesting the good offices of the consul-general of France to convey notice of your protest by a French man-of-war to the blockading fleet, is approved. It is to be regretted, however, that you did not somewhat more distinctly disavow a desire for the employment. of force, and that when the consul-general informed you that the French man-of-war would guaranty to our commercial vessels a free passage both on coming in and going out of the port, without permitting them to be stopped by the vessels destined to establish the blockade, you did not inform him that any action involving violence would exceed your request or desire. It is unfortunate that the commander of a foreign man-of-war should be invested, or allowed to suppose himself invested, with any discretionary power to be exercised on behalf of this Government. Your situation, however, was an embarrassing one, and in expressing the regret forced upon me by the peculiar circumstances attending that blockade it is not intended to convey any reproof of your conduct." Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, to Mr. Bassett, min. to Hayti, No. 30, Jan. 22, 1870, Early in the civil war in Chile, in 1891, the Congressional deputation on the insurgent fleet notified the Government authorities and the foreign representatives that Iquique and Valparaiso would be blockaded on February 1, 1891. Protests against the institution of blockades by the insurgents were made by the consular bodies at both those ports. The British Government, however, stated, January 24, 1891, that, if an "effective blockade " should exist, "escort through it can not be given." In reality neither port was ever blockaded. Blue Book, Chile, No. 1 (1892), 2, 8, 25-41; Naval War College, International Law Situations, 1901, 113. In the case of the naval insurrection in Brazil of 1893-1894, the American minister at Rio de Janeiro was instructed, January 11, 1894: "The insurgents have not been recognized as belligerents, and should they announce a blockade of the port of Rio the sole test of its validity will be their ability to make it effective." Mr. Gresham, Sec. of State, to Mr. Thompson, min. to Brazil, Jan. 11, 1894, For. Rel. 1893, 98, 99. 2. EFFECTIVENESS. § 1269. "To a country whose principal exports are, and for a long period will be, the various articles of provisions, it is essential to obtain an entire exemption from restraint in their exportation, except to a blockaded place. And to guard against the abusive extension of the term blockade, it will be necessary explicitly to describe its meaning, and to confine it, as in the declaration of the armed neutrality, to a port where, by the disposition of the power which attacks it, with vessels stationed sufficiently near, there would be evident danger to enter it."" Mr. Pickering, Sec. of State, to Mr. Rufus King, min. to England, June 8, 1796, MS. Inst. U. States Ministers, III. 146. For an extract from a dispatch of Mr. King to Mr. Pickering, July 15, 1799, see 3 Wheaton, Appendix, note 1. An extract from a note of Mr. King to Lord Grenville, May 23, 1799, will be found at the same place. "Ports not effectually blockaded by a force capable of completely investing them, have yet been declared in a state of blockade. If the effectiveness of the blockade be dispensed with, then every port of the belligerent powers may at all times be declared in that state. and the commerce of neutrals be thereby subjected to universal cap ture. But, if this principle be strictly adhered to, the capacity to blockade will be limited by the naval force of the beligerent, and, of consequence, the mischief to neutral commerce can not be very extensive. It is, therefore, of the last importance to neutrals that this principle be maintained unimpaired. I observe that you have pressed this reasoning on the British minister, who replies that an occasional absence of a fleet from a blockaded port ought not to change the state of the place. Whatever force this observation may be entitled to, where that occasional absence has been produced by an accident, as a storm, which for a moment blows off the fleet and forces it from its station, which station it immediately resumes, I am persuaded, that where a part of the fleet is applied, though only for a time, to other objects, or comes into port, the very principle requiring an effective blockade, which is, that the mischief can only be co-extensive with the naval force of the belligerent, requires that, during such temporary absence, the commerce to the neutrals to the place should be free." 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; Marshall on Insurance (Condy's ed.), 81, note (3), and cases there cited; Williams r. Smith, 2 Caines's Rept. 1; Radcliffe r. United States Ins. Co., 7 Johns. Rept. 38. Mere liability by neutral vessels to capture, by belligerent cruisers hovering around a coast, can not constitute a blockade of a port on such coast. Mr. Madison, Sec. of State, to Mr. C. Pinckney, min. to Spain, Oct. 25, 1801, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 476. An extract from this instruction is given in 3 Wheaton, Appendix, note 1. The law of nations requires, to constitute a blockade, that there should be the presence and position of a force rendering access to the prohibited place manifestly difficult and dangerous. Every jurist of reputation, who treats with precision on this branch of the laws of nations, refers to an actual and particular blockade.” Mr. Madison, Sec. of State, to Mr. Thornton, Oct. 27, 1803, 14 MS, Dom. Let. 215. See also letter of Mr. Madison to Mr. Merry, Dec. 24, 1803, id. 245. No maxim of the law of nations is better established than that a blockade shall be confined to particular ports, and that an adequate force shall be stationed at each to support it. The force should be stationary, and not a cruising squadron, and placed so near the entrance of the harbor or mouth of the river as to make it evidently dangerous for a vessel to enter I have to add, that a vessel entering the port ought not to be seized, except in returning to it after being warned off by the blockading squadron stationed near it." Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State, to Mr. de Onis, Spanish min., Mar. 20, 1816, In 1826 and 1827 a discussion took place between representatives of the United States and Great Britain on the one hand, and of Brazil on the other, as to the validity of certain blockades declared by the Brazilian forces. Great Britain as well as the United States maintained the principle that blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective. See Mr. Forbes, chargé d'affaires to Buenos Ayres, to Admiral Lobo, commanding the Brazilian squadron blockading Buenos Ayres, Feb. 13, 1826, 13 Br. & For. State Papers, 822. The message of President J. Q. Adams, of May 23, 1828, containing a mass of correspondence in relation to the Brazilian blockades, as well as to claims against the Brazilian Government, is given in H. Ex. Doc. 281, 20 Cong. 1 sess. Am. State Papers, For. Rel. VI. 1021, 22. See, also, 14 Br. & For. State Papers, 1165. As to the blockade of Buenos Ayres by Brazil and Mr. Raguet's demand As to the Brazilian blockades of Pernambuco and the river Plate, see 16 For comments on the position of the British Government concerning the It is not inconsistent with the principles of international law for a neutral sovereign to send an armed cruiser to watch a blockaded coast, so as to see no injustice is done to his own merchant vessels, and that they may be prevented from any irregular proceedings. Mr. Van Buren, Sec. of State, to Mr. Azambujo, Mar. 8, 1831, MS. Notes to For. Legs. IV. 373. Referring to the blockade by the United States naval forces of the west coast of Mexico in 1846, Mr. Buchanan, as Secretary of State, in a note to Mr. Pakenham, British minister, of December 29, 1846, said: "It is as yet sufficiently apparent from the whole proclamation [of Commodore Stockton] that he did not intend to establish a paper blockade. This would have been equally unwarranted by his instructions and by the principles which the United States have maintained in regard to blockades ever since we became an independent nation." In a circular from Mr. Mason, Secretary of the Navy, of December 24, to the commanding officers of the United States Navy in the Pacific, it is said that "a lawful maritime blockade requires the actual pres ence of a sufficient force stationed at the entrance of the ports sufficiently near to prevent communication. The only exception to this rule, which requires the actual presence of an adequate force to constitute a lawful blockade, arises out of the circumstance of the occasional temporary absence of the blockading squadron, produced by accident, as in the case of a storm, which does not suspend the legal operation of a blockade. The law considers an attempt to take advantage of such an accidental removal a fraudulent attempt to break the blockade. The United States have at all times maintained these principles on the subject of blockade; and you will take care not to attempt the application of penalties for a breach of blockade, except in cases where your right is justified by these rules. You should give public notice, that under Commodore Stockton's general notification no port on the west coast of Mexico is regarded as blockaded unless there is a sufficient American force to maintain it, actually present, or temporarily driven from such actual presence by stress of weather, intending to return.” 37 Br. & For. State Papers, 565 et seq. It appears by a dispatch from General Taylor, of April 23, 1846, that when General Ampudia summoned him to fall back from his position, he ordered a blockade of the mouth of the Rio Grande, deeming this, as he said, a measure "perfectly proper under the circumstances, and, at the same time, the most efficient means of letting the Mexican commander understand that this state of quasi war was not to be interpreted to his advantage only, while we reaped the inconveniences attending it." On April 17 Lieutenant Renshaw of the Navy, pur suant to General Taylor's instructions, warned off two American schooners, which were about to enter the river with provisions. Gen eral Ampudia protested against this action, stating that one of the vessels was wholly and the other partly laden with provisions which the contractors had engaged to supply to the Mexican forces, that one of the proprietors was the Spanish vice-consul, and the other the British vice-consul, and that the commerce of nations was not to be interrupted, except in consequence of a solemn declaration of blockade communicated and established in the form prescribed by international law. He demanded that the vessels be allowed to return to the mouth of the river, and that the provisions belonging to private contractors be restored. It seems that both vessels had been taken with their cargoes to Brazos Santiago. General Taylor, on April 22, 1846, replied, and contested General Ampu dia's position. (See correspondence accompanying the message of President Polk to Congress, May 12, 1846, H. Ex. Doc. 197, 29 Cong. 1 sess.) "It will be your duty, however, to bear in mind the true principles of blockade contended for and insisted upon by the United States. They are well known to the world. We deny that general and diplomatic notifications of blockade are of binding force; though they may be regarded as friendly notices. Blockade must be confined to particular and specified places, with a sufficient force near to intercept H. Doc. 551-vol 7-51 |