impartial toward the belligerent powers," and exhorting all citizens to avoid acts tending to contravene that policy, it declared that no citizen would be protected against punishment or any forfeiture which he might incur, under the law of nations, by "committing, aiding, or abetting hostilities against any of the said powers, or by carrying to any of them those articles which are deemed contraband by the modern usage of nations." The chief feature, however, of the proclamation was the announcement that the President had instructed the proper officers to institute prosecutions "against all persons who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the law of nations with respect to the powers at war, or any of them." At this time the United States had no statutes on the subject of neutrality.

As the object of M. Genet was not only to use the United States as a base of maritime warfare, but to involve the country in war with England, this proclamation was an object of attack by him and the French party in America. Gratitude to France for her assistance in obtaining our independence, sympathy with democratic institutions for which France was at war, and the remains of hostile feeling against England, combined to make the support and execution of this proclamation matter of great difficulty. (Am. State Papers, i, 44.)

The privateers fitted out in the United States, under the auspices of the French minister and French consuls, took many prizes, and brought them into ports of the United States. In these ports the French consuls undertook to hold prize courts, authorized thereto by the French Republic, and to condemn and sell the prizes. The British minister, Mr. Hammond, remonstrated. M. Genet claimed the right under the law of nations and the Treaty of Commerce. The claim was denied by the United States Government, in a letter by the Secretary of State, Mr. Jefferson, and the ground was taken that, of national right, all judicial functions within the territory of the United States must be exercised only by the Government of the United States, and that such right had not been impaired by any treaty with France. (Am. State Papers, i, 144.) This, with the decision of the Supreme Court in The Betsey, (Dallas, iii, 6, infrà,) put an end to French consular courts of prize in the United States.

It appeared that the French privateers were not only fitted out and manned, but commissioned, within the United States, and that American citizens were enlisted to serve on board them. M. Genet contended that the laws of the United States did not forbid its citizens joining a foreign service, and that such an act was, pro tanto, a renunciation of allegiance; that no law prohibited French citizens from doing acts of belligerent business in the United States, including the giving and receiving of commissions, not being acts of violence or overt war. (Am. State Papers, i, 79, 83.) This was denied by the Government of the United States. But, at the same time, it became necessary to draw a line between commercial dealings with belligerents in materials of war and the fitting out of vessels, enlisting of men, and commissioning of officers here for hostile operations. The British minister had' objected to the export of arms to France by our citizens, or from our ports by French citizens. In reply to this, Mr. Jefferson wrote his celebrated letter of 25th May, 1793. (Jefferson's Works, iii, 588; Am. State Papers, i, 69.) In that he declared that "the commissioning, equipping, and manning vessels in our ports, to cruise against any of the belligerent parties, is entirely disapproved, and the Government will take effectual means to prevent a repetition of it;" but that the right of our citizens "to make, vend, and export arms," which were mechanical and com

mercial callings, was one which a foreign war could not take away. If our citizens exported arms on their own account, they did it subject to capture and condemnation by belligerents.

In respect to the fitting out of privateers, the Government was soon called upon to act by the bringing into Philadelphia of a prize to the French privateer Citizen Genet, which had been fitted out at Charleston. Mr. Jefferson wrote to M. Genet that the "arming and equipping of vessels in the ports of the United States to cruise against nations with whom they were at peace was incompatible with the territorial sovereignty of the United States, made them instrumental to the annoyance of those nations, and thereby tended to compromise their peace; and that he thought it necessary, as an evidence of good faith to them, as well as a public reparation to the sovereignty of the country, that the armed vessels of this description should depart from the ports of the United States."

Genet claimed the right of remaining in our ports, under the 17th and 26th articles of the treaty of commerce. But the Government held that the privilege did not extend to vessels fitted out in our ports to cruise against friendly commerce.

The British minister claimed that the prizes captured by such cruisers, and coming within American jurisdiction, should be restored. This claim was embarrassing to Washington, under the treaty with France. The result was, a dispatch of 5th June, 1793, to the British and French ministers, which became an epoch in American neutrality. It declared that the fitting out and commissioning of cruisers should be prohibited hereafter, and demanded the departure of such vessels from our ports; but, as to the surrender of prizes already taken by French privateers so fitted out, the Government declined to enforce it, on the ground that these acts were done in remote ports, at the beginning of the war, before the proclamation, when parties did not know their rights under the treaty, and the laws of nations were not ascertained, and the difficulty of communication was great; and that, if the United States did its duty in suppressing such acts in the future, it ought to be accepted as a reasonable measure of justice between the belligerent powers under the peculiar situation of the country. It was suggested also, that, if the captures were invalid, the courts of admiralty in the United States would deliver up the prizes, on private application and suit.

M. Genet refused to abandon the fitting out of privateers, and especially, in one case, sent a privateer, Le Petit Democrat, (previously the merchantman Little Sarali,) to sea, in violation of his pledged word to Mr. Jefferson.

The dispatch of 5th June was now followed up by a circular letter of 4th August, 1793, to the collectors of customs throughout the United States. This circular laid down rules for the guidance of the revenue officers as to vessels equipped in ports of the United States: 1. The "original arming and equipping" of vessels by belligerents, for military service, is unlawful. 2. "Equipments of merchant vessels, purely as such," is lawful. 3. "Equipments of vessels cf war in the immediate service of the government of any of the belligerent parties, which, if done to other vessels, would be of a doubtful nature as being applicable to either commerce or war, are deemed lawful." 4. Equipments, by any of the parties at war with France, of vessels fitted for merchandise or war, whether with or without commissions, which are doubtful in their nature as being applicable either to commerce or war, are deemed lawful. 5. Applies the same rule to French vessels. 6. Equipments of every kind of privateers of the powers at war with France, are deemed

unlawful. 7. Equipments of vessels which are of a nature solely adapted to war, are deemed unlawful. 8. Vessels of either of the parties not armed, or armed previously to their coming into ports of the United States, which shall not have infringed any of the foregoing rules, may lawfully engage or enlist their own subjects or citizens not being inhab itants of the United States.

To most of the rules was added an exception, intended to fulfill the 17th article of the French treaty, which is of no general importance

now.

Under these rules, the revenue officers were instructed to refuse asylum to armed vessels of a belligerent, originally fitted out in the United States, or to the prizes of any such vessel. But the "purchasing and exporting, by way of merchandise, any articles commonly called contraband, being generally warlike instruments and military stores, are free to all parties." (Am. State Papers, i, 122.)

At the same time with the issuing of these rules, Mr. Jefferson, on the 7th August, (Am. State Papers, i, 136,) wrote to M. Genet, that the President had determined to make the notice of 5th June, 1793, the date of a new rule as to France; that the President would consider the United States bound to restore all prizes which had been captured by privateers fitted out in the United States, and brought into port after that day, or to make compensation therefor; and that the President therefore expected the French minister to deliver up to the Government all prizes taken by such vessels and brought into port after that date. A new rule was also applied to Great Britain, founded on the dispatch of 5th June and the letter to M. Genet of 7th August, which was declared by a letter from Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Hammond, of 5th September, 1793. (Am. State Papers, i, 165.) This rule was, that restitution was refused of prizes brought into the United States before the notice of 5th June; but was to be made of prizes brought into port after that and before the 7th August, with compensation in default of restitution. This was on the ground that the United States, to preserve amicable relations with France under its treaty, had purposely forborne to use all the means in its power for the restitution of such vessels. As to prizes so taken and brought in after the 7th August, the President felt bound to use all the means in his power for their restitution; but, if these failed, he did not admit, as a rule, an obligation to make compensation, but left the cases for special consideration as they should occur. After the 7th August, 1793, it is believed that no privateers were fitted out; and those which had been fitted out in ports of the United States before that time, and had returned, were not permitted to go to sea with armaments on board. In December, 1793, M. Genet was superseded, at Washington's request, by a new minister, who was instructed to disarm the privateers fitted out in the United States, to remove the consuls who had acted in violation of the proclamation, circular, and dispatches of Washington, and to disavow the acts of M. Genet.

The trials of Guinet and Henfield, and the proceedings in the case of Les Jumeaux, (afterward Le Cassius,) and other acts of the Government, are involved in the judicial proceedings, and are considered under the subsequent head of the Judicial History of this subject.

At the opening of the next session of Congress, (December, 1793,) Washington communicated his proclamation, dispatches, and circulars, with the facts that preceded and attended them, and suggested legislation for the better preservation of neutrality. Congress approved the policy of the President, and passed the celebrated statute of 5th June,

1794, (U. S. Laws, i, 381,) generally called, at the time, the Neutrality Act.

The course pursued by Washington and his Cabinet, in sustaining neutrality and impartiality, has received the commendations of the masters of public law in all nations. Aided by the genius of two such men as Hamilton and Jefferson, he may be supposed to have been well supported; but his task was a hard one. The French had a constant appeal to the gratitude and sympathy of the Americans; popular feeling ran high; the jurisdiction of the courts in criminal cases was doubtful; and the power of the Government-itself a recently inaugurated experiment to resist popular opinion had never been tested. He had no navy, nor even a naval department, and substantially no army. He was obliged to rely upon the militia of the States to make the seizure of vessels and persons, where resistance was feared. The French privateer Republican was seized at New York by Governor Clinton, with the State forces, in June, 1793, and was retained in custody for more than a year, against the remonstrances of M. Genet, and with the acknowledgments of Mr. Hammond. (See State Papers, i, 152-4; Hamilton's Works, iv, 424.)

Mr. Randolph, now Secretary of State, writes to Mr. Jay, August 11, 1794, in proof of our honest efforts to preserve neutrality, that the militia of Richmond, in Virginia, "actually marched, at a moment's warning, between seventy and eighty miles to seize a vessel supposed to be under preparation as a French privateer." Writings of Washington, (Sparks,) ii, 42.

In 1816, during the civil wars between the South American provinces and the parent states in Europe, the Portuguese minister complained that privateers were fitted out in American ports, and sailed thence under colors of the revolted Portuguese colonies, often officered and manned by Americans, and returned to American ports and were refitted. He acquitted the Government of any want of disposition to punish the offenders, and suggested that the difficulty lay in the want of preventive remedies in the act of 1794. He said, "I am persuaded that my magnanimous sovereign will receive a more dignified satisfaction, and worthier of his high character, by the enactment of such laws by the United States as, insuring the respect due to his flag in future, would show their regard for His Majesty, than in the punishment of a few obscure offenders." (M. J. Correa de Serra to Mr. Monroe, 20th December, 1816.) President Madison, within a week of the receipt of this letter, on the 26th December, sent a message to Congress, calling its attention to the enlargement of the preventive powers under the statute, and recommending that power be given to require security against improper employment of vessels, and to seize and detain them in suspicious cases. Mr. Forsyth, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, in a letter to the Secretary of State, sketched the changes proposed by the committee, which were considered satisfactory by the Administration; and, on the 3d March, 1817, an act was passed, limited to two years, which was made permanent by the act of 20th April, 1818. The latter act repealed the act of 1794, and renewed its provisions, but with the additional preventive powers. The amended acts of 1817 and 1818 were entirely satisfactory to the Portuguese minister, who considered the preventive powers of far more value than those which merely punished a completed offense. The new clauses required the owners or consignees of any armed vessel to give bond, with sufficient sureties, in double the value of the vessel, cargo, and armament, that it should not be employed by them to cruise or commit

hostilities against any State or people with whom the United States were at peace, and authorized the revenue officers to detain any vessel about to depart under circumstances rendering it probable that she would be so employed. (§§ 10, 11, act 20th April, 1818.) At the same time, from a suggestion of the Spanish minister that the South American provinces in revolt, and not recognized as independent, might not be included in the word "state," the words "colony, district or people" were added.

Persons in the service of the insurgent colonies seized upon two places near the American coast, but beyond our jurisdiction, and not within the certain limits of any responsible power, (Amelia Island and Galveston,) and made them bases of naval operations against Spain and Portugal. President Madison having called the attention of Congress to this state of things, Congress recommended the suppression of these establishments, and the President took the extreme step of breaking them up by military force, apparently on the ground that they were a kind of international nuisance which it was in our power to suppress without a serious violation of territoriality of any responsible sovereign. The committee of Congress reasons that, "if not checked by all the means in the power of the Government, the existence of these establishments would have authorized claims from the subjects of any foreign governments for indemnities, at the expense of this nation, for captures by our people in vessels fitted out in our ports, and, as could not fail of being alleged, countenanced by the very neglect of the necessary means of suppressing them."

II. THE UNITED STATES STATUTES FOR THE BETTER PRESERVATION OF NEUTRALITY.

The original and chief act is that of 5th June, 1794. It was continued in force for a limited time by the act of 2d March, 1797, and perpetuated by the act of 24th April, 1800. On the 14th June, 1797, an act was passed to prevent citizens from privateering against nations in amity with the United States. The amended act, giving preventive powers, was passed 3d March, 1817. The whole subject was codified in the act of 20th April, 1818, and the former acts repealed.

The provisions of the act of 1818 are as follows:

Sect. 1 prohibits any citizen within the United States from accepting and exercising a commission to serve, in war, any foreign state, &c., against any state, &c., with which the United States are at peace.

(The phrase used throughout the act is "any foreign prince, state, colony, district, or people.")

Sect. 2 makes it criminal for any person within the United States to enlist on board any armed vessel of a foreign state, &c., whether public vessel or privateer, or to procure any other person so to enlist, or to go beyond the jurisdiction of the United States for the purpose of so enlisting; with an exception, permitting such enlistment on board a vessel of a subject of the state owning the vessel, where it was completely fitted and commissioned as a vessel of war before its arrival in the United States, and the person enlisting was only transiently within the United States.

Sect. 3 makes it criminal for any person within the United States to fit out or arm a vessel, or attempt or procure, or be concerned in, &c., with intent that it shall be employed in the service of any foreign state to commit hostilities against any state at peace with the United States, or issue or deliver a commission to such a vessel with like intent. This