with injustice. Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Mr. Nelson, min. to Spain, April 28, 1823, This is quoted by Lawrence in his edition of Wheaton (1863), 846. "It is in vain for Spain to pretend that during the existence of a civil war, in which by the universal law of nations both parties have equal rights with reference to foreign nations, she can enforce against all neutrals by the seizure and condemnation of their property the laws of colonial monopoly, and prohibitions by which they have been excluded from commercial intercourse with the colonies, before the existence of the war, and when her possession and authority were alike undisputed. And if at any stage of the war this pretension could have been advanced with any color of reason, it was preeminently nugatory on the renewal of the war, after the formal treaty between Morillo and Bolivar, and the express stipulation. which it contained, that if the war should be renewed, it should be conducted on the principles applicable to wars between independent nations, and not the disgusting and sanguinary doctrine of suppressing rebellion." Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Mr. Nelson, min. to Spain, April 28, 1823, Part of this extract is given by Lawrence in his edition of Wheaton See 9 Br. & For. State Papers, 784. "It is seen with surprise that the Brazilian Government persists in the measure of exacting from neutrals clearing from the port of Montevideo bonds obliging them not to enter any Buenos Ayrean port. That measure can find no justification whatever in the usage or laws of nations. Its pretext is the violation of blockade instituted by the Government of the Brazils. A blockade must execute itself. The belligerent has no right to resort to any subsidiary means. Such a resort is a tacit admission of the incompetency of the blockading force to sustain the blockade, and consequently confesses its illegality. The belligerent can have no right, especially, to exert any municipal authority, as the measure in question is, over neutral vessels to execute his belligerent designs. The belligerent has no more right to lay the neutral under bond to respect the rights of war, than the neutral has to lay the belligerent under bond to respect the rights of neutrality. . . The measure in question is attended with the greatest practical inconvenience. It must be often difficult, if not altogether impracticable, for our traders to obtain in distant and foreign ports the securities satisfactory to the local authorities. We can not submit to the measure. If it shall be in operation on the receipt of this dispatch, you will remonstrate against it with an urgency proportionate to its manifest want both of principle and precedent. And if necessary you will notify the Brazilian Government that the commanders of our public vessels will be instructed to disregard and resist it." Mr. Clay, Sec. of State, to Mr. Tudor, chargé d'affaires to Brazil, No. 8, 4. CLOSURE OF INSURGENT PORTS. § 1271. The Spanish minister at Washington, in 1834, notified the Department of State that the Queen of Spain had declared the coast of that country from Cape Finisterre to the river Bidasoa to be in a state of blockade, and had directed the seizure and embargo of all vessels loaded with articles contraband of war, which should come within six miles of the coast, as being justly under suspicion of intending to aid the followers of Don Carlos. Mr. Forsyth, who was then Seeretary of State, by direction of the President, replied that the United States "can not acknowledge the legality of any blockade which is not confined to particular designated ports, each having stationed before it a force competent to sustain the blockade; nor the justice of any seizure of an American vessel on suspicion of improper designs; nor the legality of any capture for breach of blockade, unless the vessel captured has attempted to enter a blockaded port after having been previously warned off." Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Chevalier Tacon, Spanish min., Nov. 18. 1834, MS. Notes to Spanish Leg. VI. 5. This position was reaffirmed by Mr. Forsyth in replying to an announcement made by the Spanish minister at Washington that, in conse quence of the insubordinate conduct of the governor of Santiago de Cuba, the captain-general of the island had received orders from Madrid to cut off all communication with that district and to blockade its ports, in order to deprive it of the revenue which it would receive from customs duties. (Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Calderon de la Barca, Spanish min., Nov. 25, 1836, MS. Notes to Spanish Leg. VI. 22.) March 20, 1837, Mr. Monastario, acting minister of foreign affairs of Mexico, complained of a public notice issued by the commander of the U. S. S. Constellation, January 24, 1837, offering convoy to merchant vessels bound from New Orleans to Texas. Mr. Monastario represented that this offer was in derogation of the Mexican decree of February 9, 1836, closing the ports of Texas to foreign commerce, and asked that the commanders of American men-of-war might be instructed to respect that decree. Mr. Forsyth replied that, while it was the right of the Mexican Government to designate which of its ports should be open to foreign vessels, it was also its duty as an independent power to execute its laws pursuant to its treaty obligations and public law. The United States had, said Mr. Forsyth, in the contest between Mexico and Texas pursued a neutral course. As it was, he said, notorious that the authority of Mexico in Texas was annulled and that the inhabitants of the country had declared themselves independent and had organized a government of their own, "the mandate of the Mexican Government was obviously tantamount to a blockade by notification merely, the illegality of which has invariably been asserted by the United States and has been agreed to by Mexico in the treaty." The request of the Mexican Government, therefore, could not, said Mr. Forsyth, be complied with, and convoy would consequently be afforded to merchant vessels of the United States destined to ports of Texas or to those of Mexico. Mr. Forsyth also adverted to the fact that at the time when he wrote the independence of Texas had been acknowledged by the United States. Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Monastario, May 18, 1837, MS. Notes to Mexican Leg. VI. 74. As to blockades on the Mexican coast and the River Plate, see President Van Buren's message of Feb. 22, 1839, H. Ex. Doc. 211, 25 Cong. 3 sess. The American brig Toucan, bound from Boston to St. Catherines. Brazil, and a market, was detained at San Joze do Norte from February 13 to March 2, 1836, by the imperial authorities, who refused her a clearance and prevented her from going to Porto Alegre, which was her next place of destination, because it was in the possession of insurgents. A claim for this detention was laid before Mr. George P. Fisher, commissioner appointed under the act of Congress of March 29, 1850, 9 Stat. 422, to distribute the indemnity under the convention between the United States and Brazil of January 27, 1849. Mr. Fisher rejected the claim, saying: "The preventing of the Toucan and other vessels by the Brazilian authorities from going up to an interior port which had been closed on account of a civil insurrection existing there at the time, was but the exercise of a right incident to a sovereign state, and amounting to no embargo upon that ship or other vessels in San Joze, nor to a detention of her or them so long as they were free to go elsewhere than to said port of Alegre." Moore, Int. Arbitrations, V. 4616. With reference to this decision, it may be observed that Mr. Forsyth, writing with regard to the claim in 1839, said: "It appears from the first protest of Captain Hamlin that the Toucan was detained ... by order of Ribeiro, the imperial president, for the alleged reason that Porto Alegre was in the possession of the insurgents. It is believed that Ribeiro was at this time on board the ship of war the Seventh of September, which, with perhaps other vessels, was engaged in blockading the entrance to the lake and river leading up to Porto Alegre." (Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hunter, chargé d'affaires to Brazil, No. 45, March 13, 1839, MS. Inst. Brazil, XV. 57.) “I have to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 22, and to inform you that your course in the correspondence between you and the governor of Panama upon the subject of the decree closing certain ports not in possession of the authorities of New Granada, is approved. The ground assumed by the governor, that the 15th article of the treaty was intended to apply to a state of foreign and not civil war, is considered to be quite untenable. His point, that a government has a perfect right to close any of its ports which may have been opened to foreign commerce is correct, provided such ports be in the possession of its authorities. If, as in this case, the fact be otherwise, the decree referred to, so far as it relates to those facts, must be considered as tantamount to a blockade by proclamation, a proceeding which is not recognized by the treaty. You will conse quently take note of any damages which our citizens may have sustained, in order that reparation may be demanded therefor." Mr. Trescot, Assist. Sec. of State, to Mr. Corwine, consul at Panama, Oct. 26, 1860, 53 MS. Dom. Let. 207. In the records of the Department of State there is a memorandum by Mr. Seward, dated April 18, 1861, recommending a blockade of the ports in the seceded States, both on grounds of expediency and of constitutional right. After the blockade was proclaimed, Mr. Seward advised the members of the diplomatic corps that it would be strictly enforced upon the principles recognized by the law of nations." Memorandum of Mr. Seward, Sec, of State, April 18, 1861, MS. Inst. See, also, Mr. Seward, Sec, of State, to Mr. Dayton, min. to France, No For correspondence between the United States and Great Britain concerning the blockade, see Br. & For. State Papers, vols, 51 and 55. In the case of the British brig Herald, which was taken possession of at sea on July 16, 1861, for an alleged violation of the blockade of Beaufort, North Carolina, Mr. Seward suggested that orders be given for the release of the vessel, as it appeared that the rules prescribed in the proclamation of the President and in the instructions of the Navy Department on the subject of the blockade were not observed. (Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welles, Sec. of Navy, July 29, 1861, 54 MS. Dom. Let. 370.) In a dispatch of June 28, 1861, Mr. Adams reported an interview with Lord John Russell in which the latter adverted to the report that the Congress of the United States would probably pass a law declaring the Confederate ports to be closed to commerce, and in this relation stated that the law officers had advised, in the case of New Granada, that the Government had no right to close ports in the pos session of insurgents except by a regular blockade. The question of the action of the New Granadian authorities was also the subject of a debate in the House of Commons on June 27, when Lord John Russell stated that the law officers had advised that, while it was perfectly competent for the government of a country in a state of tranquillity to say what ports should be open to trade and what should be closed, yet the attempt so to close ports de facto in the hands of insurgents would be an invasion of international law with regard to blockade. Lord John Russell added that the British naval commanders had been ordered not to recognize the closing of the insurgents' ports in New Granada. By the act of Congress of July 13, 1861, the President was authorized to proclaim the closure of Confederate ports. Mr. Seward enclosed a copy of the act to Mr. Adams, and said that, if the United States should undertake to close the insurrectionary ports under the statute and Great Britain should, in pursuance of the intimation previously made, disregard the act, no one could suppose that the United States would acquiesce, but that the President, as well as himself, had felt an earnest and profound solicitude to avert foreign war. For the same reason he did not wish to dogmatize, but to act practically, with a view to immediate peace and ultimate good understanding. It was not, he said, his purpose to anticipate or even indicate the decision which would be made with regard to the enforcement of the statute in question, but simply to suggest what Mr. Adams might properly and advantageously say while the subject was under consideration. Mr. Adams was accordingly instructed to say, first, that the law only authorized the President to close the ports in his discretion. accordingly as he should regard existing or future exigencies; secondly, that the passage of the law, taken in connection with attendant circumstances, did not necessarily indicate a legislative conviction that the ports ought to be closed, but only showed the purpose of |