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 HANDBOOK 
 
 OP 
 
 MARITIME RIGHTS, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE DECLAEATION OF PARIS CONSDERED. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. A. M[JNEO-BUTLEE-JOHNSTONE, M.P. 
 
 LONDON: 
 W. RLDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1876.
 
 '^ Maritime Rights " are the title deeds of 
 tliis country. Without them, an insigni- 
 ficant island in the German Ocean could 
 never have attained its present height of 
 greatness and of splendour. Deprived of 
 them, it must infiillibly relapse into a 
 position of third or fourth rate importance. 
 It is for the people of England to say 
 whether they will tamely submit to seeing 
 their title deeds torn up before their eyes, 
 or whether they will, without delay, take 
 the steps necessary to restore them in their 
 integrity. 
 
 ' H. A. M. B. J.
 
 ^UtTBi 

 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 At the end of the Great War (1815), it 
 would have been a superfluous task to 
 instruct the people of England as to the 
 meaning of " Maritime Rights/' Unfortu- 
 nately it is no longer so. Sixty years of 
 peace, interrupted only by wars, scarcely 
 one of which can be dignified by the name 
 of a Great War, have blunted the country's 
 perception on this question. But should 
 we ever be again overtaken by a serious 
 war, it will not be long before the sense of 
 what we once possessed and considered our 
 most precious heritage will force itsdf 
 upon the attention of the nation. It is no 
 uncommon thing now-a-days to find even 
 well educated politicians ignorant of the 
 elementary questions involved in " Mari-
 
 VI 
 
 time Rights." It is for the instruction of 
 such persons that I have written this short 
 hand-book. 
 
 Should any one wish for more informa- 
 tion on the subject, or should any important 
 town in England desire to form a branch 
 Committee of the Maritime League of 
 Great Britain, I place myself at their 
 disposal. 
 
 H. A. MUNRO-BUTLEK-JOHNSTONE. 
 
 5, Hamilton Place, 
 Piccadilly.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter. 
 
 I. Blockades 
 
 Page 
 1 
 
 11. Priyateees 
 
 . 8 
 
 III. The Eight of Seaech . 
 
 . 17 
 
 IV. The Eight of Captuee . 
 
 . 25 
 
 y. Inteenational Law and the Eeason 
 
 of the Thing . . .35 
 
 VI. Teeatt Exceptions to the Law of 
 
 Nations . . . .46 
 
 VII. The Peussian Eemonsteance . . 63 
 
 VIII. The Aemed Netjtealities . . 73 
 
 IX. The Ceimean Wae and the Declaea- 
 
 TioN op Paeis . . .83 
 
 X. Consequences of the Deolaeation of 
 
 Paeis . . . .97 
 
 XI. Spaeing all Peivate Peopeett at Sea 106 
 
 XIL Conclusion . . . .120
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 LETTERS ON lEELAND. 
 
 THE FAIR OF NIJNI-NOVaOROD AND A 
 
 TRIP UP THE VOLGA, 1875. 
 
 THE EASTERN QUESTION IN 1875. 
 
 THE TURKS: THEIR CHARACTER, MAN- 
 NERS, AND INSTITUTIONS, AS BEARING ON THE 
 EASTERN QUESTION, 1876. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 JAMES PAEKEE & CO., 377, STEAND. 
 
 ALSO, 
 
 THE BULGARIAN HORRORS AND THE 
 
 QUESTION OF THE EAST. A Letter addressed to the 
 Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 1876. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 WILLIAM RIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY. 
 
 \^
 
 THE DECLARATION OF PARIS 
 
 /^ 
 
 AND 
 
 MAEITIME EIGHTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Blockades. 
 
 To begin with, What is "War ? 
 
 War is a sentence of death and confisca- 
 tion pronounced against your enemy for 
 refusing to do t/ou Justice. War for any other 
 motive, or on any other pretext, is the 
 greatest of national crimes; and wars of 
 ambition or aggrandisement are brigandage 
 and rapine on a stupendous scale. War is 
 
 1
 
 *2 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 either the greatest of crimes or the most 
 sacred of duties ; and, when it is the latter, 
 the man who talks of peace is either a traitor 
 or a coward. The sentence of confiscation is 
 the lesser right included in the greater, viz. 
 that of putting your enemy to death, and 
 to distrain his goods is the milder and more 
 humane compulsion applied to him prior to 
 the exercise of the right of killing him. 
 
 War on land is more terrible than war 
 on sea. It includes occupation and annex- 
 ation of your enemy's territory, the dena- 
 tionalization of his provinces (the greatest 
 calamity which an independent people can 
 undergo), and the striking at his capital, the 
 heart of his empire and the centre of his 
 government, which, when successful, puts 
 an end to the war and brings him to 
 terms. 
 
 War at sea, in the nature of things, can 
 lead neither to occupation nor annexation, 
 and consists solely in naval actions and 
 bombardment of fortresses, and in compul-
 
 BLOCKADES. 3 
 
 sion applied to your enemy's commerce. 
 This compulsion consists in two descrip- 
 tions of measures. 
 
 (1) Blockading enemy's coasts and har- 
 bours. 
 
 (2) Seizing- his goods at sea. 
 
 The first practice (blockading) has un- 
 dergone a limitation by the practice of 
 modern times and the Declaration of Paris. 
 
 Formerly an Order in Council declared 
 certain ports or coasts blockaded, and all 
 vessels found on the high seas bound for 
 those ports or coasts were held to have 
 broken the blockade, and were seized ac- 
 cordingly. According to the new rule (the 
 IVth rule of the Declaration of Paris), 
 a blockade to be valid must now be 
 effective; that is, it must be effected by 
 means of a blockading squadron off the 
 particular blockaded coast or harbour, and 
 must be so eifective as to constitute a real 
 danger to the vessels attempting to enter 
 the ports in question. This new rule puts 
 
 1*
 
 4 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 an end to paper blockades, and what I 
 should call ocean blockades, that is, block- 
 ades ordered in Council and effected by- 
 cruisers in the open sea. It consequently 
 considerably limits the power of blockading 
 at all times, and puts an end to it in the 
 winter altogether in those seas (such as the 
 Baltic and Black Seas), where no block- 
 ading squadron could maintain itself at 
 that season. 
 
 This conventional limitation imposed by 
 the Declaration of Paris is further increased 
 by the improvements in the means of 
 internal communication between nations, 
 especially by the great extension of rail- 
 ways ; for even where the whole coast of 
 a particular country is effectually block- 
 aded, the blockaded belligerent can trans- 
 port his goods by land to the nearest neutral 
 harbour (as the Eussians did to Memel and 
 Konigsburg during the Crimean war), and 
 there ship them on board neutral vessels, 
 where they will be perfectly safe from
 
 BLOCKADES. 5 
 
 capture under the Declaration of Paris, 
 at tlie simple inconvenience of paying 
 the enhanced cost of transport, repre- 
 senting the difference of the distance 
 of the place of produce from the neutral 
 harbour as compared with its usual place of 
 export. Prior to the Declaration of Paris^ 
 this would have availed him nothing, be- 
 cause his cargoes were seizable by the 
 hostile cruisers the moment they left the 
 neutral harbour, in whatever vessel they 
 might be. In Lord S to well's words (the 
 concisest form of the expression of mari- 
 time belligerent rights), '^ enemies' cargoes 
 " were seizable at sea, whatever the ships, 
 *' whatever the cargoes, and whatever the 
 " destination.' ' This ancient rule was re- 
 pealed by the Declaration of Paris, which 
 introduced instead of it the new rule that 
 enemies' goods were safe in neutral bot- 
 toms, which is the maxim which I intend 
 to examine at length in subsequent chapters. 
 But before taking leave of the subject of
 
 6 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 blockades I must notice some fctlier pre- 
 tensions on the subject put forward by 
 neutral nations and by those whose manifest 
 interest it is to cripple England's power at 
 sea, and which, although not yet adopted, 
 can be equally supported by exactly the 
 same class of argument by which the 
 Declaration of Paris is defended. 
 
 In the Berlin decrees of the First Napo- 
 leon, and in a circular of Count Beust, 
 the pretension was raised that the right of 
 blockading should be confined to fortified 
 'places^ thus putting an end to commercial 
 blockades altogether, and involving that 
 larger pretension which I shall examine 
 later on, viz., the immunity of all private 
 property at sea. 
 
 But in order to clear the ground for the 
 examination of the chief point on which 
 we have to fix our attention (viz., the 
 maxim of the flag covering the cargo) it 
 may be as well to dispose of the 1st rule 
 of the Declaration of Paris, which abolished
 
 BLOCKADES. 7 
 
 privateers, and to say a few words on this 
 subject, which has really very little indeed, 
 or rather nothing, to say to the main ques- 
 tion, and has been, I firmly believe, pur- 
 posely introduced into the discussion in 
 order to confuse people's minds and prevent 
 their arriving at a clear understanding and 
 resolute determination on the main ques- 
 tion.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Privateers. 
 
 I HAVE already said that the question of 
 privateering has nothing to do with the 
 real question at issue. The distinction 
 between them is made clear by this fact. 
 The question of privateering regards the 
 belligerents only; if both belligerents agree 
 to abstain from the practice, well and 
 good ; if either refuses, the other is i^so 
 facto absolved from the obligation of ab- 
 staining. This is what happened the other 
 day in the war between Spain and Chili. 
 Chili had adhered to the Declaration of 
 Paris, the first article of which abolished 
 privateering — Spain had not. When war 
 broke out between them, Chili re-asserted a
 
 PRIVATEERS, 
 
 right wliicli lier adversary had never re- 
 Imquished, and this re-assertion was ac- 
 quiesced in by Spain and approved of by 
 every other Government. In fact the other 
 Governments had nothing to say to the 
 matter; it in no way regarded them. But 
 very different is the case when it is a 
 question of the neutral flag covering the 
 cargo. Then the rights of neutrals step in, 
 a,nd other Governments besides those of the 
 belligerents have a voice in the matter. They 
 will keep, and have a right to keep, the 
 belligerent who has signed the Declaration 
 of Paris to his engagement, by which it is 
 their turn to profit, and by which he him- 
 self profited all the time he was a neutral, by 
 driving a flourishing carrying trade with 
 one or both of the belligerents. It is this 
 distinction which clearly detaches the ques- 
 tion of privateering from that far more seri- 
 ous question of the neutral flag covering the 
 enemies' cargoes. / am not myself an 
 enthusiast for privateering. I take no par-
 
 10 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 ticular interest in the matter. I am not in 
 favour of binding om'selves beforehand not 
 to use this or that mode of naval warfare. 
 It is for the interest, I believe, of a maritime 
 nation like ourselves to use all modes of 
 naval warfare, to put forth its naval strength 
 in all directions, and all juggles by which 
 modes of warfare are limited and crippled 
 must turn out for the exclusive benefit of 
 the weaker maritime belligerent. Privateer- 
 ing was in the last great war supposed to 
 lead to abuses, and the sense of responsibility- 
 was believed to be not so strongly felt by 
 the commander of a privateer as by that of 
 a regular commissioned man of war. These 
 abuses have, I believe, been exaggerated, 
 and precautions of a stringent nature were 
 certainly taken to enforce and strengthen 
 this sense of responsibility. Owners of 
 privateers were under heavy obligations to 
 confine themselves within the limits of their 
 commission. This commission was not '' to 
 kill, burn, and destroy," as ran the com-
 
 PRIVATEERS. 11 
 
 mission of the officers of the Eoyal Navj, 
 but exclusively to capture and bring inta 
 port captured vessels and cargo, there to be 
 duly adjudicated on by the properly consti- 
 tuted tribunals (Admiralty Courts) of the 
 country, and under no pretext whatever 
 were they allowed to break bulk. Any 
 violation of these obligations was severely 
 and summarily punished, and commanders- 
 of privateers were required to find large 
 pecuniary security for their conduct. 
 
 That these regulations were not always- 
 sufficient to restrain lawless men and to 
 prevent abuses may be true, but has never 
 been very clearly established. It clea^'ly 
 will not do to go for examples of excesses 
 to the days of Captain Kidd and his com- 
 peers, for those were lawless days, and the 
 exploits of these heroes can be matched by 
 those of regular commissioned officers in 
 those days. Buccaneering was then in 
 vogue, and the code of honour of buccaneers 
 was such as might be expected.
 
 12 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 A very prevalent confusion of ideas on 
 the subject of privateers has considerably 
 enhanced the prejudice against them. It is 
 often stated that letters of marque may be 
 issued to individuals of any nationality to 
 prey on the commerce of the enemy, or, at 
 any rate^ that an individual of the nation- 
 ality of the belligerent may fit out a 
 privateer in any neutral port, select his 
 crew from sailors of any nationality, and 
 set out with his letters of marque to prey 
 on the commerce of the enemy. Nothing 
 can be clearer than the law of nations on 
 this subject. A vessel so fitted out is not 
 a privateer at all, but a pirate, and its 
 captain and crew, if captured, are clearly 
 liable to the pains and penalties of piracy. 
 The Alabama was a buccaneer pure and 
 simple, and it was essentially the interest 
 of England to recognize her, indeed to 
 insist on her being recognized and viewed 
 as such. Consider for a moment the con- 
 sequences of the opposite doctrine. Accor-
 
 PKIVATEERS. 13 
 
 ding to it, Switzerland, Bavaria, or any 
 other microscopic inland state, having a 
 quarrel with England or the United States, 
 might declare war, and, whilst their geo- 
 graphical situation placed them beyond the 
 reach of offensive operations from them, 
 might send letters of marque to the cut- 
 throats of every port in the four continents 
 of the globe to prey on and destroy the 
 commerce of their enemy. This is a con- 
 clusive reductio ad ahsurdum^ I take it, of 
 an assertion which is continually being 
 made on the subject of privateering. It is 
 highly important to prevent the slightest 
 confusion on this matter. Privateering may 
 be a good or a bad thing, but it is clearly 
 quite distinct from buccaneering. Pirates, 
 however, having been dignified with the 
 name of privateers, it is not surprising that 
 privateers should be stigmatized with the 
 name of pirates, and the whole subject 
 enveloped in a maze of prejudice and mis- 
 conception.
 
 14 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 If privateers were abolished, substitutes 
 for privateering would immediately take 
 its place. During the last war, Prussia 
 was engaged in chartering large merchant 
 steamers, arming them, and putting them 
 under the command of naval officers, with 
 a view of sending them out to prey on 
 French commerce. The overwhelming 
 superiority which she soon managed to 
 establish over her enemy on land ren- 
 dered any mode of naval warfare super- 
 fluous, and put an end to the device. 
 Prussia fought the battle of her cruisers 
 on land, for she imposed a contribution of 
 1,000,000 francs per occupied department, 
 overtly as compensation for the mischief 
 inflicted on her commerce by French 
 ■cruisers. England could very easily char- 
 ter any number of merchant steamers, 
 convert them into cruisers, put them under 
 the command of naval officers, and so find 
 an effective substitute for privateers. 
 The question of privateers is therefore quite.
 
 PRIVATEERS. 15 
 
 a secondary question. It is unwise, I think, 
 to make arrangements beforeliand on this 
 subject with foreign nations. Keep all 
 your arms stored in your national arsenal. 
 Don't part with any of them. If it is 
 unnecessary or inexpedient in any parti- 
 cular war^ according to the circumstances 
 of that war, to employ a particular weapon, 
 let it remain stored up until the necessity or 
 expediency for using it arises. The day 
 might come when some disaster to our regu- 
 lar military marine might endanger our very 
 existence, and then it might become expe- 
 dient and highly necessary to call into 
 activity every privateer which the wealth 
 of our private enterpnse and the daring of 
 our seafaring population could place at the 
 disposal of the Crown. To limit or control 
 or trammel that reserve power by conven- 
 tion or treaty with foreign nations seems to 
 me unwise and impolitic ; and when I 
 remember that the Spanish Armada was 
 defeated and England saved by a fleet
 
 16 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 composed exclusively of privateers, I am 
 at any rate unwilling to join in tlie unrea- 
 soning clamour raised against this parti- 
 cular mode of naval operations.
 
 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Right of Search. 
 
 The right to seize enemies^ cargoes is 
 often, tliough improperly, called '^ the 
 right of search.'^ This latter right is of 
 course included in the larger right of 
 seizure, but it is by no means co-extensive 
 with it. Even if the right of seizure were 
 abolished the right of search would remain, 
 with a view to ascertain the ship's nation- 
 ality, and also that she had no contraband 
 of war on board. It has never been pro- 
 posed to abolish the right of search, and as 
 long as contraband of war is prohibited the 
 right of search must remain. 
 
 A certain limitation of the right of 
 search was proposed by the Powers who 
 formed the second armed Neutrality of 
 
 2
 
 18 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 1800, viz., tliat merchant vessels under 
 convoy should not be searched ; that the 
 man-of-war under whose protection the 
 convoy was sailing should be, as it were, a 
 guarantee that no contraband was on board ; 
 and that a merchantman belonging to 
 any one of the coalesced neutrals might put 
 itself under the protection of a man-of- 
 war belonging to any of the coalesced 
 neutrals that it might chance to meet in 
 the open sea, and that such convoy should 
 be sufficient to protect it against search. 
 England, however, refused to acknowledge 
 this pretension, issued letters of marque 
 against the coalesced neutrals, and within 
 twelve months dissolved this armed neu- 
 trality. It is fair to state that, when peace 
 was made, England made one concession to 
 the armed Neutrality, viz., that merchant- 
 men under convoy should only be searched 
 by men-of-war and not by privateers. 
 
 It is sometimes, very incorrectly^ stated 
 that the war of 1812 with the United
 
 THE RIGHT OF SEARCH. 19 
 
 States was brouglit about by tlie exercise 
 on the part of this country of the right of 
 search. No statement can be more absurd, 
 and it is an instance, among so many, of 
 the extremely loose way in which technical 
 expressions are used, and patent historical 
 facts perverted. The overt cause of war 
 with the United States was the right claimed 
 by this country of impressing English sailors 
 found on board American vessels. That 
 English sailors often took refuge under the 
 American Flag to avoid impressment was 
 notorious, but that the right claimed by this 
 country was often very injudiciously exer- 
 cised, and that bona fide citizens of New York , 
 and Boston were often impressed under the 
 mistaken idea or pretext that they were 
 Britishers, appears now to be acknowledged. 
 The American Government did not deny 
 that the English had a grievance, and they 
 offered to redress it by a change in their 
 municipal law if we would abandon our 
 high-handed proceedings ; but for many 
 
 2 *
 
 20 MAEITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 years before this,' between 1809 and 18 12, 
 many irritating discussions had taken place 
 between the two Governments relative to 
 the abuses of so-called maritime rights on 
 our side and fraudulent evasions of neutral 
 obligations on the part of the Americans, 
 and in all these discussions, which are to be 
 found at length in the official correspon- 
 dence with the American Government 
 during those years, not one word appears 
 concerning the right of search. The real 
 irritating topic was our paper blockades, 
 by which we practically prohibited all 
 neutral trade ; and what greatly aggravated 
 the feeling of irritation on the part of the 
 Americans, as distinctly stated by the 
 American President, was an exception to 
 this general prohibition which we made in 
 favour of our own trade^ so that whilst 
 forbidding neutrals to trade with our 
 enemy we actually traded with him our- 
 selves and enriched ourselves at the neu- 
 trals' expense. The Americans retaliated
 
 THE RIGHT OF SEARCH. 21 
 
 on our Orders in Council by passing '^ Acts 
 of non-intercourse" with us; and with France 
 too, on account of her Berlin and Milan 
 decrees (1806 and 1807) which forbade all 
 trade with England and England's produce, 
 and which were in fact the pretext and the 
 alleged justification for our Orders in 
 Council, which claimed rights beyond what 
 the law of nations accorded us and were 
 justifiable only as retaliatory acts. It is 
 clear therefore that the right of search had 
 absolutely nothing whatever to do with the 
 war of 1812. It was the impressment of 
 sailors which was the cause, working on 
 ground already prepared by previous con- 
 troversies on the subject of blockade. The 
 right of -search was a pretension and a 
 right which the Americans acknowledged 
 a few years before on so memorable an 
 occasion that I cannot do better than refer 
 to it. 
 
 On the 6th February 1778, the United 
 States made a treaty with France, one
 
 22 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 clause of which contained the provision that, 
 as between these two countries, the Flag 
 (neutral) should cover the merchandise {i,e. 
 the enemies'). In 1794 they made a treaty 
 of commerce and navigation with Great 
 Britain, one clause of which contained ex- 
 pressly the opposite provision, viz. that, as 
 between these two nations^ the flag should 
 7iot cover the merchandise. When the war 
 broke out between England and France the 
 English proceeded (not only by virtue of 
 their express stipulation Avith the United 
 States, but in accordance with the law of 
 nations on the subject), to seize French 
 goods on board American vessels; the 
 French on the other hand, in consequence 
 of their treaty with the United States, could 
 not seize English goods on board Ameri- 
 can ships. The French loudly complained 
 of this inequality, and quoted the " most 
 favoured nation" clause in their treaty with 
 the United States as a ground for claiming 
 reciprocity of right in this matter. The
 
 THE RIGHT OF SEARCH. 23 
 
 American President however, refused to 
 recognize either the claim or the ground on 
 which it was urged, stating distinctly that 
 the English right was founded not on 
 England's treaty with the United States 
 but on the general law of nations, and was 
 therefore prior to and independent of the pro- 
 visions of the French treaty with the United 
 States. These are the words of Jefferson 
 — no partisan of this countr3\ '' Before 
 " the treaty with Great Britain^ the treaty 
 '^ with France existed. It follows then that 
 ^' the rights of England^ being neither 
 '^ diminisiied nor increased by compact, 
 " remained precisely in their natural state, 
 " which is to seize enemies* goods whenever 
 " found. And this is the received and 
 " allowed practice of all nations where no 
 " treaty has intervened/' Thus has the 
 quarrel with the United States in 1812 
 (relative to a matter of municipal jurisdic- 
 tion, the right of impressment, and not of 
 international law at all), been, by an
 
 24 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 ignorant or perverse confusion of terms, 
 called a quarrel about the right of search, 
 and as this term is often loosely used to 
 express the right of capturing enemies' 
 goods under the neutral flag, the current 
 fallacy has arisen of supposing that the war 
 of 1812 had something to do with the exer- 
 cise of this latter right.
 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 The Right of Capture. 
 
 The right of capturing enemies' goods on 
 the high seas (which, as we have seen, is 
 often improperiy called the right of search) 
 may be classed under three heads. 
 
 (1.) Where ship and cargo both belong 
 to the enemy. 
 
 (2.) Where the ship belongs to the 
 enemy and the cargo to a neutral. 
 
 (3.) Where the ship belongs to a neutral 
 and the cargo to the enemy. 
 
 The first case has never yet given rise to 
 any dispute, both ship and cargo being of 
 course liable to confiscation^ although a 
 theory, which we shall have to examine 
 later on, has been lately started to exempt 
 all private property at sea from capture.
 
 26 MAEITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 The second case has never justified the 
 seizure of the cargo as a recognized maxim 
 of international law, although an abuse of 
 belligerent rights has often, as we shall see, 
 claimed this right, and in all those 
 numerous treaties in the 17th and 18th 
 centuries in which the principle of '^ free 
 ships free goods " was stipulated, the 
 opposite or converse principle " enemies' 
 ships enemies' goods " was likewise agreed 
 upon between the contracting parties, as a 
 set-off against the concession. 
 
 The third case (where the ship belongs 
 to a neutral and the cargo to the enemy) 
 involves the principal matter on which we 
 have to fix our attention. Previous to 1854 
 the English practice (leaving out of account 
 for the present the modifications introduced 
 into our practice by treaty engagements 
 which will form the subject of a separate 
 chapter) was founded on the simple theory 
 that enemies' property was seizable wher- 
 ever it was found: in Lord Sto well' swords:
 
 THE EIGHT OF CAPTURE. 27 
 
 '* whatever the ships, whatever the cargoes, 
 and whatever the destination," and that 
 neutral property was under all circum- 
 stances to be restored, and the neutral sub- 
 jected to as little loss and inconvenience as 
 was consistent with the exercise of our 
 rights over the enemy's property. For this 
 purpose Admiralty Courts were established 
 at our seaports, together with higher Courts 
 of Appeal, for the decision of all cases in 
 which neutral property was involved, and 
 so delicate were we in dealing with neutral 
 rights that the captain of the neutral vessel 
 was entitled to the full amount of the 
 freight which he would have earned by 
 carrying the enemy's cargo to its port of 
 destination had not the cargo been seized, 
 and to demurrage too for illegal or unneces- 
 sary detention, amounting sometimes to the 
 full amount of his freight. 
 
 No penalty was imposed on the neutral 
 for carrying enemies' goods, except the 
 discouragement inseparable from having
 
 28 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 those goods liable to confiscation, and the 
 consequent contingent loss of future freight. 
 This equitable rule was laid down as early 
 as the 12 th century in a remarkable compi- 
 lation called the '' Consolato del Mare," a 
 code of maritime laws compiled, it is sup- 
 posed, by order of St. Louis of France, from 
 the customs of the sea actually in usage 
 among all the maritime states of the world, 
 including the Hanse towns, all the Mediter- 
 ranean States, Genoa, Venice, Barcelona, 
 Cyprus, Jerusalem, &c. This code there- 
 fore was not a new law dating from this 
 period, but the mere codification of laws of 
 immemorial antiquity in usage among the 
 maritime states of the world. It was this, 
 and not the authority of St. Louis, which 
 gave it its high sanction, together with the 
 fact that its equitable provisions met with 
 the approval of all the great jurists who 
 wrote on the subject of maritime law. Its 
 provisions hence became essentially entitled 
 to the name of laws of nations.
 
 THE RIGHT OF CAPTURE. 29 
 
 It seems to me a convenient place to 
 pause here a moment to inquire what is a 
 law of nations, especially as it is a question 
 very germane to our inquiry, and has been 
 surrounded with a good deal of unnecessary 
 confusion. 
 
 Laws of nations are of two kinds, ac- 
 cording to the source from which they are 
 derived : (1) Jura naturae. (2) Those 
 founded on Universus consensus gentium. 
 
 The first we may translate the law of 
 common sense, the natural law founded on 
 reason. 
 
 The second, the general agreement be- 
 tween the nations of the world. • 
 
 It is sometimes considered that the second 
 source is sufficient to constitute a law of 
 nations ; but it is evident that such a law 
 might conflict with a still higher law, such 
 as that of self-preservation, the first law of 
 nature and of nations, and then it must 
 yield to this higher law. A law merely 
 founded on convention, however general 
 the agreement, is a law of nations in an
 
 30 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 inferior sense only. A fortiori^ when tlie 
 agreement is only partial, the term " law 
 of nations" is not applicable at all. 
 
 But when a law is both agreed upon by 
 common consent, and is in accordance with 
 the highest natural law, and is so regarded 
 by the great authorities on International 
 Law, then it becomes entitled to the full 
 dignity of a law of nations in the largest 
 acceptation of the term. 
 
 The maritime code of the Consolato del 
 Mare constituted the maritime law of 
 nations in this highest sense. Not only for 
 centuries were the rules there laid down 
 accepted, without dispute, by all maritime 
 nations, large and small, but all the great 
 international jurists, Grotius^ Vattel, Byn- 
 kershoek, Zouch, Heineccius, Azuni, Lam- 
 predi, Puffendorf, and Kent, approved of 
 these rules on the highest grounds of equity. 
 I shall consider this point more at length 
 hereafter. 
 
 When modifications began to be intro- 
 duced into the practice consecrated by the
 
 THE RIGHT OF CAPTURE. 31 
 
 rules of the Consolato del Mare, they 
 were on the side of greater strmgency and 
 severity. England was the nation that de- 
 parted least from the rules here laid down. 
 Her general practice was for centuries in 
 strict conformity with them, and, unless as 
 exceptions introduced by Orders in Council, 
 for a particular war, and as a particular 
 exception, the rules of the Consolato were 
 always recognized as the law of nations 
 on the subject of maritime capture, and, as 
 such, incorporated into the municipal law 
 of England. France by means of her 
 marine ordinances (having much the same 
 force as our Orders in Council) overstepped, 
 the provisions of the law of nations (and 
 therefore the rules of the Consolato) far 
 more systematically than we did; and, so far 
 from its being true that the French practice 
 was milder and more humane than our 
 own, the exact contrary was the case, as 
 I shall proceed to show. 
 
 By a decree of Francis I. (1563), con- 
 firmed by another in 1584, all neutral trade
 
 32 
 
 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 with tlie enemy was forbidden, tlie neutral 
 vessel carrying enemies' cargoes was itself 
 confiscated, and also tlie neutral cargo in 
 an enemy's vessel. 
 
 The maritime ordinance of 1681 re- 
 affirmed all these three extensions of what 
 I may call normal belligerent rights as 
 laid down in the Consolato del Mare. 
 
 By the marine ordinance of 1704 still fur- 
 ther extensions were introduced in retalia- 
 tion, be it said, of the Anglo-Dutch measures 
 adopted by William of Orange against the 
 power of Louis XIV. All articles of the 
 ^produce and manufacture of the enemy's 
 country on board a neutral were made 
 seizable (although not entailing the confis- 
 cation of the neutral vessel itself as was 
 the case with enemy's property). 
 
 The marine ordinance of 1744 modified 
 the severity of these above mentioned rules, 
 so that only enemies' property and produce 
 were confiscated but not the neutral vessel. 
 
 And in 1773 a fuU return was made
 
 THE RIGHT OF CAPTURE, 33 
 
 to the provisions of the Consolato del 
 Mare. 
 
 Here I will close the account of the 
 French practice, because from this date 
 began the policy dictated by the events 
 (1) of the American War of Independence, 
 and (2) of the French revolution, — in 
 which exceptional feelings of animosity and 
 bitterness introduced exceptional regula- 
 tions, and threw considerations of equity 
 and of law into the background. 
 
 But before taking leave of the review of 
 French practice between 1543 and 1744, 
 there is a very interesting incident to be 
 recorded, worthy of attention inasmuch as 
 it exemplifies the fact that the idea of a 
 law of nations, independent of and superior 
 to municipal regulations in conflict with 
 that law, had not up to that date deserted 
 the public conscience in France. The 
 incident is this. — 
 
 The ordinances of 1543 and 1584 
 enacted, as we have seen, the confiscation 
 of the neutral vessel as well as the enemy's 
 
 3
 
 34 MAKITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 cargo. But the Parliament of Paris in 
 1592 adjudged the contrary (on the express 
 grounds of international law) in the case of 
 a Hamburg ship. 
 
 To sum up, we may divide the history of 
 the law on the subject of marine captures 
 into three epochs. 
 
 I. From the earliest times consecrated^ not 
 introduced, by the Consolato del Mare, up 
 to the middle of the 16 th century, when 
 the equitable rules of the Consolato were 
 never departed from. 
 
 II. From the middle of the 16th century 
 to the American revolution, when the rules 
 were frequently departed from for state 
 reasons of policy, and as retaliatory mea- 
 i^res, but with the tendency to return to 
 the norma laid down in the Consolato del 
 Mare. 
 
 III. From the period of the American 
 revolution down to the Peace of Vienna, 
 lb J 5^ which I will consider in a future 
 chapter.
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 International Law and the "reason 
 of the thing." 
 
 I HAVE claimed the rank of International 
 law in tlie highest sense for the provisions 
 of the Consolato del Mare, as being founded 
 on all the three necessary sanctions of sucfi. 
 law, viz., (a) the reason and common sense 
 of the thing ; (b) the approval of the most 
 eminent jm-ists ; (c) the general consent of 
 nations, when they were not under the 
 influence of motives of state policy. 
 
 1 wish to examine a little closely the 
 first of these sanctions — the reason of the 
 thing. 
 
 3 *
 
 36 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 Nations at war with eacli other have 
 been compared to individuals carrying on 
 war with each other in the primitive con- 
 dition of society. If I am at war with a 
 man, I have no right to insist on any one 
 taking my side in the dispute^ but I have a 
 right to insist on no one, who claims the 
 privileges of neutrality, taking my adver- 
 sary's side, which if he does, he violates 
 impartiality and departs from neutrality. 
 Now, if I am able to prevent my enemy 
 from carrying his goods by sea, what right 
 has a third party, calling himself a neutral, 
 to step in and do for him what he is unable 
 to do for himself? Not only this, but by 
 his conduct he does me a double injustice, 
 for he not only does for my enemy what 
 my enemy is unable to do for himself, but 
 thereby he enables him to increase, pro- 
 portionately to the aid he receives, his 
 means of offensive operations against me ; 
 for every sailor whom he lends my enemy 
 to carry on his trade is a man subtracted
 
 THE SEASON OF THE THING. 37 
 
 from his commercial marine and added 
 to his military marine, which he is at 
 liberty to use for the purpose of invading 
 or otherwise injuring me. 
 
 But this neutral, it will be urged, has 
 rights too and interests as well, and what 
 right have I— from the fact of being at war 
 with another nation — to interfere with his 
 rights and affect his interests? Let us 
 examine this objection a little closely. 
 
 With some part of his trade clearly the 
 belligerent has a right to interfere, and this 
 right of interference is not even contested ; 
 I mean his right to blockade and hermeti- 
 cally seal his enemy's ports, which is ?i 
 very considerable interference with neutral 
 trade. Again, his right to interfere with 
 the neutraFs trade in respect to contraband 
 of war has never been called in question, a 
 right accruing only in time of war, and in 
 consequence of the state of war — for at any 
 other time this trade of the neutral is 
 perfectly innocent. So that the absolute-
 
 38 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 ness of the objection falls to tlie ground, 
 and the objection is reduced to pleading for 
 the immunity of what is called the lawful 
 trade of the neutral. As, however, the 
 question of what the law should be is the 
 very point in question, we are not advanced 
 a step in the decision of the question as to 
 whether the lawful trade of the neutral 
 should or should not include the carrying 
 trade of the enemy, a trade which the 
 enemy would not be able to carry on 
 himself. 
 
 That part of the trade of the neutral 
 which consists (with the limitation as to 
 blockades and contraband of war) in selling 
 his own produce to the enemy and buying 
 the enemy's produce in return for his own, 
 is not interfered with by the old maritime 
 rule which we are at present considering. 
 
 What the rule does forbid is that a 
 neutral should undertake the carrying of the 
 enemy's property, in order to enable him to 
 carry on a trade which otherwise would be
 
 THE REASON OF THE THING. 39 
 
 stopped. And when we consider that the 
 carrying trade of almost every nation is, in 
 peace, carried on by itself, and that England 
 is almost the only nation which has a carry- 
 ing trade over and above the requirements 
 of its own commerce, it is obvious that this 
 claim to carry belligerents^ goods is not a 
 claim for the retention of a privilege which 
 the neutral enjoyed in peace, but for the 
 acquisition of an advantage which the neu- 
 tral never even pretended to in peace. In a 
 famous instrument in which neutral rights 
 are put forward, it is said that " there is no 
 " reason why the neutral should forego the 
 " considerable advantage offered him b}6 a 
 " state of war between other nations." 
 This pretension at any rate puts the matter 
 in its true light. It is in fact a claim to 
 mate profit out of its neighbours' calamities, 
 to coin money out of their blood, and reap 
 a harvest from their misfortunes — a claim, 
 when analysed, as preposterous and as 
 monstrous as was ever put forward. And
 
 40 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 remark that this modest pretension was put 
 forward (by the author of the armed neu- 
 trality) in the very name of humanity and 
 civilization, and on the pretext of mitigating 
 the horrors of war ! 
 
 The very utmost damage which a neutral 
 sustains by the exercise of this right is the 
 loss (or liability to loss) of that infinitesimal 
 portion of the carrying trade of its belli- 
 gerent neighbour of which it had the 
 enjoyment in time of peace, a damage 
 which would very frequently amount to 
 zero. But even if it amounted to an appre- 
 ciable loss, when rights come into conflict, 
 the lesser right must yield to the greater, 
 and against the neutral right to carry must 
 be set the belligerent rights of nations at 
 war perhaps for their very existence, and in 
 defence, may be, of the highest interests of 
 mankind. 
 
 And in such a war is it to be asserted 
 that the neutral right to pelf is sacred and 
 the neutral's obligations are imaginary?
 
 THE KEASON OF THE THING. 41 
 
 The fact is we hear a great deal of neutral 
 rights but very little of neutrals' obliga- 
 tions, and yet common sense and the 
 conscience of mankind agree in laying 
 down that, if there is any meaning in the 
 term Community of nations^ and if there 
 are any duties which nations owe one 
 another more sacred and binding than 
 others, it is the obligation to endeavour to 
 shorter, the duration of wars, to reconcile 
 by every means in their power the belli- 
 gerents to each other, and studiously to 
 avoid everything which could prolong the 
 duration of hostilities. To acquire a vested 
 interest as it were, — as Prussia did during 
 the Crimean War, — in the prolongation of 
 the war, to give " aid and succour " to one 
 or both belligerents by carrying his or 
 their goods, and so providing the sinews 
 of war, is in direct and flagrant viola- 
 tion of the most sacred obligations of neu- 
 trality. 
 
 I cannot disguise from myself; and I do
 
 42 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 not think I am travelling out of tlie record 
 by insisting for a moment on tliis con- 
 sideration, that the character of many, if 
 not most, of the late wars in Em-ope has 
 been such as to throw discredit on belli- 
 gerents and belligerents' rights^ and to 
 invest with a credit and dignity, which by 
 no means essentially belongs to them, 
 neutrals and so-called neutral rights. Wars 
 of aggression and of policy, thinly disguising 
 motives of covetousness and brigandage, 
 have been the general character of the 
 wars that have taken place in our day. 
 This fact seems to me to be that which has 
 debauched the public conscience, and utterly 
 confused the public mind, on the true cha- 
 racter of war and neutrality. War is really 
 either the greatest of crimes or the most 
 sacred of duties, and, as I began this book 
 by saying, the only possible justification of 
 war (and then it is a complete one) is the 
 refusal of your enemy to do you justice, 
 in a matter judicially investigated and
 
 THE REASON OF THE THING. 43 
 
 pronounced upon by the highest tribunal 
 of the land. If this were the character of 
 all wars^ — and I firmly believe it will 
 henceforth be the character of all wars in 
 which this country will be engaged — it 
 is the rights of belligerents that would be 
 invested in the public mind with the 
 character of sacredness, and we should hear 
 far less about the rights of neutrals. The 
 rights of neutrals, as they are often put 
 forward; are nothing more nor less than 
 the wrongs of belligerents. 
 
 Before I dismiss this part of my subject 
 I must shortly examine two arguments (if I 
 may so call them) which are often put 
 forward against the right of searching 
 neutral vessels with a view to capturing 
 enemies' cargoes. 
 
 (1.) It is said that the neutral vessel is 
 part of the territory of the neutral nation, 
 and therefore the belligerent has no right 
 to violate it, any more than to land on 
 the neutral territory and there seize the
 
 44 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 enemy's goods. Ward reduces this argu- 
 ment to its simplest expression, which 
 makes it a redudio ad absurdum. It 
 amounts to this : because a (say) Swedish 
 ship belongs to Sweden therefore it is not a 
 ship at all but a part of Sweden. Again, 
 if the neutral ship is to be invested with 
 the territorial character, what becomes of 
 the undisputed belligerent right to seize 
 contraband of war on board ? 
 
 The fact is that the power of locomotion 
 of a ship invests it with a character which 
 is peculiar to it, and its power of harbour- 
 ing enemies* goods is a very different one 
 fi'om that possessed by the neutral's terri- 
 tory. A bale of cotton stored at Charleston 
 is a very different thing from that same 
 bale invested with locomotive power (by 
 means of the neutral's ship) and going to 
 Liverpool or Havre to be exchanged for 
 money and the sinews of war. 
 
 (2.) It is said that no nation has a right 
 to exercise dominion over the seas, which
 
 THE REASON OP THE THING. 45 
 
 the right of search and capture amounts 
 to. 
 
 This is only the same verbal argument 
 as the last and has to be met in the same 
 way. I claim no dominion over the sea, 
 I only claim to prevent the neutral from 
 '^ aiding and succouring" my enemy; — and, 
 if the reason alleged (absence of dominion 
 over the sea) is good for anything, it is 
 good to prevent the search for contraband 
 — which is an undisputed belligerent right. 
 
 These arguments are in fact nothing but 
 ingenious verbal quibbles, showing the 
 straits to which our neutral friends are 
 reduced.
 
 46 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Treaty exceptions to the Law of 
 Nations. 
 
 With the exception of tlie famous 
 Prussian Remonstrance of 1753, which I 
 shall refer to in the next chapter, the prin- 
 ciple that enemies* goods were seizable in 
 neutral vessels was never challenged as a 
 recognized maxim of international law, and 
 even the armed neutralities, which we shall 
 have to consider at the same time, were 
 rather attempts to change the law by force, 
 in the interest of neutral commerce, than to 
 deny the principle of the law of nations, 
 which was undisputed and indisputable. 
 
 This, however, did not prevent contracts 
 being entered into between nations, by
 
 TREATY EXCEPTIONS. 47 
 
 wliicli this principle was relaxed, as 
 between the contracting parties. This 
 very exception proves the general rule: 
 we conceded a part of the advantage which 
 the law of nations gave us for certain 
 treaty benefits for which we stipulated in 
 return. As Pitt said in 1800, ''with 
 " respect to the law of nations, the principle 
 " on which we are now acting has been 
 " universally admitted and acted upon, 
 *' except in cases where it has been re- 
 " strained and modified by particular 
 " treaties between different states. The 
 ••' very circumstance of making an excep- 
 " tion by treaty proves what the generai 
 " law of nations would be, if no particular 
 " treaties were made to modify or alter it. 
 " The question was whether we were to 
 " suffer neutral nations, by hoisting a flag 
 " in a sloop or a fishing-boat, to convey 
 " the treasures of South America to Spain 
 " or the naval stores of the Baltic to Brest 
 '' and Toulon."
 
 48 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 I will now proceed to describe tlie man- 
 ner in wliich it came about that tbis par- 
 ticular stipulation (tbat tbe neutral flag 
 sbould cover enemies' mercbandize) became 
 incorporated in a great number of inter- 
 national treaties. But before doing so, I 
 bave four or five preliminary observations 
 to offer on tbe subject. 
 
 I. No number of treaties can make a law 
 of nations in tbe sense in wbicb I bave 
 already defined a law of nations. At most 
 it can only establisb a " conventional law," 
 and tben only wben all nations agree to it. 
 If tbe Declaration of Paris were signed by 
 all European nations it would tben become 
 a " conventional law of nations," but could 
 never rise to tbe dignity of a '' law of na- 
 tions" in tbe bigbest sense. But tbese 
 treaty stipulations by no means even 
 amounted to a " conventional law of 
 nations/' for tbey only obtained between 
 tbe contracting parties, and did not affect 
 tbeir relations witb otber powers. Tbe
 
 TREATY EXCEPTIONS. 4^ 
 
 very same nations wliicli made these 
 contracts with one nation made others 
 with precisely contrary stipulations with 
 other nations. Thus France whilst stipu- 
 lating in the Treaty of Utrecht (1714) 
 with England and Holland for " free ships, 
 free goods/' made an exactly contrary 
 stipulation with the Hanse Towns in 1716, 
 with Hamburg in 1769, and with Mecklen- 
 burg in 1779, and left the matter untouched 
 in her treaty with Portugal at the Peace of 
 Utrecht, 1714. Again, Denmark stipulated 
 for the new rule with France in 1662, and 
 the old rule with England in 1670 ; and the 
 United States stipulated for the new rule 
 with France in 1778 and the old rule with 
 England in 1794, as we have already seen. 
 11. If a law of nations were to be 
 gathered from a consensus of stipulations in 
 treaties, and if such a consensus as to the 
 new rule could be (as I have just shown it 
 cannot be) gathered from the treaties on the 
 subject, then would the converse principle, 
 
 4
 
 50 ^MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 " enemies' ships make enemies' goods," 2*.e., 
 that neutral goods should be seizable on 
 board enemies' ships, require to be equally 
 erected into a maxim of international law, 
 for it is remarkable that there is not a single 
 treaty in which the former rule is stipulated 
 for, in which (as a sort of practical compensa- 
 tion for the cession of undoubted belligerent 
 rights) the latter is not equally agreed upon. 
 
 III. We shall find that although there 
 were a o-reat many treaties in which ^' free 
 ships, free goods" and " enemies' ships, 
 enemies' goods" were stipulated, there were 
 a great many at the same time in which the 
 opposite provisions, (/.c, the old rule of the 
 Consolato del ]\Iare) were stipulated, and 
 still more in which, nothing being stipulated, 
 the old rule was acknowledged in default 
 of express stipulation 3 and that the cases in 
 which the new rules were agreed to were, 
 generally speaking, divisible into — 
 
 (a.) Treaties with small nations, which 
 we had a peculiar interest in attaching to
 
 TREATY EXCEPTIONS. 51 
 
 US, such as Portugal and tlie small Barbaiy 
 States. 
 
 (h.) Nations wliicli we particularly desired 
 to detach from some hostile alliance by 
 means of important concessions, like Hol- 
 land, and who would be usually not neutral 
 but either in alliance with or hostile to us, 
 in both of which cases the concession would 
 not injure us. 
 
 (c.) Nations usually at war with us — like 
 France, when the concession would be, ipso 
 facto^ revoked on the first declaration of war; 
 whereas we studiously avoided making this 
 stipulation with those nations who habi- 
 tually held to a neutral policy — like Swedeil 
 and Denmark in the Northern Seas, and 
 Spain, Naples, &c. in the Southern Seas. 
 
 IV. As very few nations (none one may 
 say) had a larger commercial inarine — 
 except England and Holland — than the 
 necessities of their own commerce demanded, 
 the stipulation! was practically harmless 
 and unmeaning, except in the cases of 
 
 4 *
 
 52 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 England and Holland whom alone it 
 affected. 
 
 V. The stipulation in question occurs far 
 less frequently in treaties than is often 
 stated and supposed, and this on account of 
 a confusion which I wish to point out. 
 
 In the 16 th century (as we have seen was 
 the case in Francis I.'s marine Ordinance, 
 and in those which succeeded it) the mari- 
 time nations often went beyond the equitable 
 provisions of the Consolato del Mare, and 
 not only forbade the neutral to undertake 
 that part of the trade of the other belli- 
 gerent which he did not possess in peace, 
 but prohibited all trade with him. When 
 subsequently in the two following centuries, 
 17th and 18th, commerce became more 
 generally understood and of greater signi- 
 ficance and importance, and commercial 
 treaties began to be made between nations, 
 it became customary to insert a clause 
 mutually allowing " liberty to navigate 
 freely without interruption," in time of war
 
 TREATY EXCEPTIONS. 53 
 
 as in time of peace ; and this clause, which 
 was a renunciation of the right previously 
 claimed and exercised to interdict all 
 neutral commerce with one's enemies, has 
 been confounded with a permission to cany 
 •enemies' goods. The distinction is manifest. 
 Under the more sweeping prohibition a 
 neutral could not buy for his own use a 
 belligerent's goods, nor sell to him in return 
 his own wares. Under the more restricted 
 prohibition he could carry on this habitual 
 trade, but he might not acquire the carrying 
 trade of the belligerent for merchandize the 
 property of the belligerent. And what 
 clearly proves that it was this generaf 
 trade alone which was allowed by the 
 clause concerning " free navigation" in- 
 serted in these treaties, is that in some 
 treaties a clause is found permitting " free 
 navigation in time of war as in time 
 of peace," side by side with another 
 clause expressly prohibiting the carrying 
 •trade of the enemy. In the Treaty of
 
 54 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 Upsal, for instance, between England and 
 Sweden (Cromwell and Christina — White- 
 lock and Oxenstiern) it is expressly stated, 
 " Lest such free navigation should be pre- 
 judicial to the confederate that is at war, 
 and lest hostile goods and icares sliould he 
 concealed under the disguise of friendship ^ 
 and for removing all suspicion and fraud, 
 passports and certificates shall be pro- 
 vided." 
 
 In the treaty, too, between Denmark and 
 France, 1645, it is expressly stated that 
 freedom of commerce is to consist in 
 " leaving things exactly as they are" in both 
 Western and Noi'thern Seas. 
 
 Having made these preliminary observa- 
 tions on the subject, I will proceed to give 
 an account of how this principle of '^ free 
 ships, free goods" came into vcgue. 
 
 It was Holland that became its champion 
 and its sponsor. After the war ended by 
 the Treaty of Munster, which secured 
 their independence to the ISletherlands, the
 
 TREATY EXCEPTIONS. 55 
 
 Diitcli began to turn their minds exclu- 
 sivelj to commerce and the acquisition of 
 wealth. There were especially two points 
 in their policy, to the attainment of which 
 they bent all their energies. 
 
 I. That in peace no nation should grant 
 to its own inhabitants any privilege in 
 relation to freightage which Holland should 
 not equally enjoy. 
 
 II. When any other nation was engaged 
 in war, that they should enjoy ^ as neutrals, 
 the right of protecting the commerce of its 
 enemies. 
 
 If they could only attain these two objects 
 they might hope to acquire the carrying 
 trade of the world ; — a trade which was the 
 basis of their prosperity and the natural 
 direction of their energies. No other nation 
 (except England) had more shipping than 
 was equal to the carriage of their own 
 produce and manufactures, and the peculiar 
 position and characteristics of the Dutch 
 gave them particular advantages in the
 
 56 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 competition for this trade of freightage. 
 They had succeeded to the Hanseatic 
 traders of the middle ao;es in the un- 
 common parsimony and industry of their 
 race, which made them contented with 
 smaller profits than other nations, and able 
 therefore to outbid them in the cheapness of 
 freights. As they had acquired all that they 
 strove for by arms, and had little more which 
 they could hope to acquire by war, and the 
 size of their country excluded them from 
 playing a great part in Europe, the acquisi- 
 tion of wealth, and the enjoyment of the 
 profit arising from the dissensions of their 
 larger neighbours, seemed to be the part 
 which they were henceforth destined and 
 fitted to play in Europe. The Eegency 
 therefore of Holland, under its great minister 
 De Witt, laboured with all its might for 
 the attainment of the two objects which I 
 have described. Now the first object (viz., 
 to secure the same advantages of freightage 
 for Dutch subjects as for the natives of
 
 TREATY EXCEPTIONS. 
 
 57 
 
 other states) Colbert granted to Holland, 
 and for tlie simple reason that under his 
 regulations French manufactures throve 
 better than French navigation, and it was 
 for the interest of France herself to increase 
 the facilities for her commerce by the 
 lowering of freights. 
 
 And the second point (securing the 
 carrying trade in time of war) the Dutch 
 obtained from France by the 35th article of 
 the treaty of 1662, between France and Hol- 
 land. This was an immense triumph for 
 Dutch policy and Dutch perseverance. It 
 was not the first treaty recognition of the 
 maxim wliich they obtained (for they ha*d 
 obtained it in 1650 from Spain, and in 1661 
 from Portugal)^ but it was the most impor- 
 tant instance of their success. There re- 
 mained England ; and if only they could 
 obtain the same success with her, their 
 national fortune was secured. They strove 
 hard to obtain it. As early as 1654, in a 
 proposal for a maritime treaty between
 
 58 MAEITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 England and Holland, Nieuport, the Dutch 
 ambassador, pressed hard for this conces- 
 sion from Cromwell's Government^ but, as 
 might be expected, signally failed. 
 
 The way they eventually succeeded with 
 England was this : — Louis XI Y. had 
 entered on his career of ambition, which 
 it became the great object of policy on 
 the part of England to curb. With this^ 
 object it was important to detach Hol- 
 land from the alliance ^^'ith France, and Sir 
 William Temple was commissioned in 1668 
 to effect this. He could scarcely succeed 
 without making the same concessions to 
 Holland which France had already made ; 
 indeed; from the importance that the Dutch 
 statesmen attached to this particular con- 
 cession, it was his chief weapon to employ, 
 and accordingly in the treaty of commerce 
 of the HaguC; 1668, renewed in the treaty 
 of commerce 1674, the 10th article con- 
 ceded the principle of the neutral flag. 
 Four years after the latter treaty, viz._, in
 
 TEEATY EXCEPTIONS. 59 
 
 1678, an offensive and defensive alliance 
 was entered into between England and 
 Holland, the first 12 articles in which were 
 identical with the first 12 in the Franco- 
 Dutch treaty of 1662 — mutually guarantee- 
 ing their European possessions. And in 
 1716, at the Peace of Utrecht, both these 
 treaties, 1674 and 1678, were renewed in so 
 far as not contrary to each other. 
 
 But I must observe here that the offen- 
 sive and defensive alliance of 1678 deprived 
 the clause about the neutral flag in the 
 commercial treaty of 1674 of all significance; 
 because, as it stipulated that England and 
 Holland should have the same enemies, Hol- 
 land could not profit by it as a neutral ; and 
 this state of things, in fact, continued for 80 
 years, and when in the middle of the sub- 
 sequent century, during the war of 1756, 
 Holland, on a technical interpretation of 
 the treaty of 1678, declined to aid England 
 when attacked by France, and wished to 
 remain neutral and profit by this clause 
 about the neutral flag, England declared
 
 60 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 tlie treaty of 1678 violated, and absolutely 
 refused her the privilege accorded to the 
 neutral flag in the treaty of 1674. 
 
 So that those who trumpet Sir Wm. 
 Temple's great name as an abettor of this 
 principle forget both the political object he 
 had in view in making the concession, and 
 the further treaty by which lie hedged it 
 round. 
 
 Just in the same way some people are 
 audacious enough to use Cromwell's name 
 for the same purpose, because he con- 
 ceded this principle to Portugal, a little 
 state with scarcely any marine, and one, 
 such as it was, barely sufficient for her own 
 commerce, forgetting that the sole object of 
 Cromwell was political, making the conces- 
 sion of certain undoubted acknowledged 
 rights in order to detach a maritime nation 
 like Portugal from the alliance of her two 
 neighbours, and in order to make a break 
 in a long line of coasts belonging to nations 
 habitually hostile to England. 
 
 This is the way the principle got ushered
 
 TREATY EXCEPTIONS. 61 
 
 into Europe — The Dutch obtaming it suc- 
 cessively from Spain, Portugal, France, and 
 England. Its introduction therefore was not 
 as a natural right, nor a free grant made 
 from a sense of justice, but established by 
 way of bargain by countries stipulating for 
 mutual advantages. It will not now surprise 
 us that in a great number of treaties, from 
 the middle of the 17th century to the time of 
 the American revolution, this new rule was 
 conceded. The matter, as investigated by 
 Ward,* stands thus. Between 1642 and 
 1715, 12 treaties introduced the new rule, 
 7 expressly stipulated for the old rule, and 
 in 31 no mention whatever is made of it, and 
 therefore the old rule continued in force ; and 
 between 1715 (Peace of Utrecht) and 1780 
 (first armed neutrality), 20 treaties either con- 
 ceded the new rule or renewed the 12 previous 
 ones that did so, and 34 make no men- 
 tion of it, thus maintaining the old rule. 
 
 * "Ward's Maritime Law, edited bj Lord Stanley 
 of Alderley.
 
 62 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 Thus we have 32 treaties acknowledgmg 
 the new rule as against 72 maintaining the 
 old one. And, as I have already observed, 
 in every treaty in which the new rule is 
 conceded, its converse, viz., that " enemies' 
 ships should make enemies' goods" (i.e, 
 that neutral goods should be seizable in 
 enemies' ships) was likewise stipulated; 
 and it was never so much as urged that a 
 particular treaty, or any number of par- 
 ticular treaties, with particular nations, 
 making a particular concession, could create 
 a new law of nations, or change the old law 
 of nations, as a law of nations, whatever 
 exceptions to it they conventionally intro- 
 duced. 
 
 I must observe that England never con- 
 ceded the principle in any treaty with the 
 Northern States, Russia, Denmark or Swe- 
 den. She maintained her maritime rights 
 intact in the waters bordering on her 
 coasts.
 
 CHArTER Vll. 
 
 The Prussian Remonstrance of 1753. 
 
 In tlie last chapter we reviewed the ex- 
 ceptions to the common law of the sea 
 introduced by special treaties between dif- 
 ferent nations. So far from being a chal- 
 lenge of the principle of the common law, 
 these special exceptions were the best of 
 all possible acknowledgments of the force 
 of that common law where no treaties 
 intervened. The only direct challenge to 
 the principle itself took place in the 
 middle of the 18th centmy, in a nego- 
 tiation known in history as the Prussian 
 Remonstrance, which ended in the signal 
 defeat of the Remonstrants and the conclu- 
 sive establishment of the English or rather
 
 64 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 international rule. The following is the 
 history of that famous Remonstrance. 
 
 Frederick II. had seized Silesia from 
 Maria Theresa, and, by the Treaties of 
 Breslau and Dresden, had taken over with 
 this province certain debts secm-ed on this 
 province and owing to Englishmen. But on 
 the ground that England had seized Prus- 
 sian vessels engaged in contraband trade 
 and taken enemies' cargoes out of them, 
 the Prussian king refused to pay the Sile- 
 sian indemnity until the counter claims of 
 the Prussian subjects, who had sustained 
 these maritime losses, had been satisfied. 
 Upon this, the Duke of Newcastle, who 
 was the English ]\Iinister, wrote a letter 
 (founded on the report of a Commission 
 issued to examine into these claims, on 
 which Sir George Lee, Judge of the Pre- 
 rogative Court ; Dr. Paul; H.M.'s Advocate- 
 General ; Sir Dudley Ryder, Attorney- 
 General ; and Mr. Murray, Solicitor-Ge- 
 neral, sat) of so conclusive a kind that
 
 THE PRUSSIAN REMONSTRANCE. 65 
 
 Montesquieu called it a '' reponse sans re- 
 jglique^^ and it brought the negotiations to 
 a close bj the immediate payment by 
 Prussia of the Silesian indemnity. 
 
 As the points established in this letter, 
 and by the English Commission, are exactly 
 points germane to our inquiry, I will pro- 
 ceed to state them in detail They answered 
 to the several points raised by the Prussian 
 Eemonstrance. 
 
 I. That affairs of this kind are, and can 
 only be cognizable in the courts belonging 
 to that Power where the seizure is made. 
 
 II. That those Courts (of Admiralty) 
 always decide according to the universal 
 law of nations only. 
 
 III. That the cases complained of have 
 been decided upon the rule prescribed by 
 the law of nations — a rule clearly esta- 
 blished by the constant practice of other 
 nations and by the authority of the greatest 
 men. 
 
 5
 
 66 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 IV. No treaty can be a pretext for alter- 
 ing tliat rule. 
 
 V. As justice was not denied^ and the 
 complainants themselves did not appeal to 
 the Higher Courts, there is no case for 
 reprisals on the part of Prussia. 
 
 VI. The clear words of the Treaties of 
 Breslau and Dresden demand the Silesian 
 indemnity to be paid. 
 
 The first point, that affairs of prize can 
 only be judged in the prize courts of belli- 
 gerents, was long established by the custom 
 of nations. There never was, nor can there 
 be, any other equitable mode of trial. All 
 maritime nations have, when at war, 
 from the earliest times uniformly proceeded 
 in this way, with the approbation of all the 
 powers at peace. If justice is denied by 
 the prize courts of a belligerent nation, or 
 if its decisions are notoriously contrary to 
 justice, then such a pretext is a just cause 
 of remonstrance and even of war,
 
 THE PRUSSIAN REMONSTRANCE. 67 
 
 principle of the locality of prize courts liad 
 never been called in question. 
 
 2nd. As to the uprightness of the deci- 
 sions of the English prize courts, they had 
 always enjoyed the very highest reputation. 
 The Duke of Newcastle points out (1) that 
 the judges, especially the Commissioners 
 of Appeal^ were men of the highest legal 
 reputation ; (2) that they are bound to 
 decide on the principles of the universal 
 law of nations and particular treaties ; (3) 
 that in England the Crown never interferes 
 with the judges, and never issues nor can 
 issue orders to them ; and (4) that they 
 are independent of the Executive^ and caH 
 only be removed by an address from both 
 Houses of Parliament. 
 
 Apropos of the high character of the 
 judges of the English High Admiralty 
 Courts it is not out of place perhaps to quote 
 here Lord Sto well's words pronounced in 
 the case of the famous Swedish convoy, 
 many years after this. '' I trust it has not 
 
 5 *
 
 68 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 " escaped my anxious recollection what it 
 ^' is tliat tlie duty of my station calls for 
 " from me, viz., to consider myself as sta- 
 '' tioned here, not to deliver occasional and 
 " shifting opinions to serve present purposes 
 " of particular national interest^ but to 
 " administer, with indifference, that justice 
 " which the law of nations holds out with- 
 *' out distinction to independent states, some 
 " happening to be neutral and some belli- 
 " gerent. The seat of judicial authority is 
 '^ indeed locally here in the belligerent 
 " country, according to the known law and 
 " practice of nations, but the law itself 
 " has no locality. It is the duty of the 
 " person sitting here to determine this 
 " question exactly as he would determine 
 " the same question if he were sitting at 
 " Stockholm^ to assert no pretension on the 
 " part of Great Britain which he would not 
 " allow to Sweden in the same circum- 
 " stances. If I state the law in this matter, 
 *' I assert that which I consider, and which
 
 THE PRUSSIAN REMONSTRANCE. 69 
 
 {( 
 
 I mean should be considered, the universal 
 ** law on the subject.'* 
 
 These words may be taken as the autho- 
 ritative exposition of the principles which 
 ought to, and do, regulate the decisions of 
 mze courts in England. The Duke of 
 Newcastle goes on to cite a great number 
 of treaties, between most of the European 
 nations, recognizing the principle of the 
 locality of prize courts in the belligerent's 
 country *, between England, France, Spain, 
 Holland, and Denmark; and with respect 
 to witnesses, appeals, reviews, &c. 
 
 The third point raises the whole of the 
 questions which we have been considering 
 in the previous chapters, as to what the law 
 of nations is on the subject of the liability 
 of enemies' goods to be captured in neutral 
 vessels. From the year 1746 the Prussians 
 had been engaged in the gainful practice 
 of covering enemies' goods, and they now 
 asserted their right to do so by the law of 
 nations.
 
 70 MARITIME EIGHTS. 
 
 The Duke of Newcastle's answer is crush- 
 ing on this head. He quotes chapter and 
 verse of all the great writers on Interna- 
 tional Law on the subject, and I cannot do 
 better than transcribe here the authorities 
 he quotes : — 
 
 (1) The "Consolato del Mare/^ Cap. 
 273. 
 
 (2) Gro tins de jure belli ac pacis. Lib. 
 IIL cap. I. sect. 5, note 4 citing the 
 above (1) quotation, and also in his 
 notes, L. III. c. 6. 5, 6. 
 
 (3) Vattel, L. IIL cap. 7. " If any goods 
 ^' belonging to the enemy are found on 
 " board a neutral ship they may be 
 " seized by the right of war, but the 
 ^' freight must naturally be paid to the 
 " master of the ship, who must not 
 ^' himself suffer by such seizure.'* 
 
 (4) Bynkershock, L. L c. 14. ^' We 
 " must rather consider reason itself 
 " than treaties. I cannot see any cause 
 " why it should not be lawful to take
 
 THE PRUSSIAN REMONSTRANCE. 71 
 
 *' enemies' goods, though found in the 
 " ship of a nation not at war ; for I 
 '^ consider it as the property of an 
 " enemy, and belonging by the right of 
 '' war to the conqueror." 
 
 (5) Loccenius, de jure maritimo. L. IL 
 c. 4, s. 12. 
 
 (6) Voet, de jure militari. C. 5, n. 21. 
 
 (7) Heineccius (a Prussian) de navibus 
 ob vecturam vetilarum mercium com- 
 missis. C. 2, s. 9. (Perfectly clear 
 and explicit on this head). 
 
 (8) Zouch, de judicio inter gentes. Pars 
 IL s. 8, n. 6. 
 
 As to the fourth point the Duke of New^- 
 castle goes on to say : " What I have laid 
 ^' stress upon, on more than one opportunity, 
 ''" is, that the general rule cannot be more 
 " strongly proved than by the exceptions 
 " which particular treaties have made to it." 
 
 The fifth point is an argument by itself. 
 With reference to reprisals, the law of 
 nations, founded on justice, equity, conve-
 
 72 MARITBIE RIGHTS. 
 
 liience, and the " reason of the thing/' and 
 confirmed by long usage, only allows of 
 reprisals in cases of violent injuries directed 
 and supported by the State, and when justice 
 is absolutely denied " in re minimi dubia," 
 by all the tribunals and afterwards by the 
 Prince. Cf. Grotius de jure belli ac pacis, 
 L. III. c. 2, s. 4, 5 ; also the treaty between 
 England and Holland, 31 July, 1667, Art. 
 XXXI. '' Reprisals shall not be granted 
 " until justice is demanded according to the 
 " ordinary course of law.'' Also the treaty 
 of commerce of Ryswick, 20th Sept. 1697, 
 between France and Holland, Art. IV. 
 *' Repnsals shall not be granted except on 
 " manifest denial of justice." 
 
 The sixth point is the mere statement of a 
 matter of fact. 
 
 I have already stated that this answer of 
 the Duke of Newcastle was considered so 
 conclusive that the Prussian counter-claims 
 were withdrawn, and the Silesian indemnity 
 paid.
 
 73 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Armed Neutralities. 
 
 The Prussian Remonstrance was a bold 
 and audacious attempt to challenge the law 
 of nations on the subject of the neutral flag. 
 The armed neutralities of 1780 and 1800 
 must rather be considered as forcible at- 
 tempts to change that law, by taking advan- 
 tage of a concuiTcnce of events which 
 seemed to place England at the mercy of 
 the armed confederates. 
 
 In the first armed neutrality of 1780, 
 England had hardly emerged from a death 
 grapple with her great revolted colony, in 
 which, by the aid of Prance, assisted by 
 the forces of Spain and Holland, that colony 
 had all but achieved its independence.
 
 74 MARITIME EIGHTS. 
 
 This was the moment chosen by the northern 
 confederates for putting forth pretensions 
 in favour of the immunity of the neutral 
 flag and of enemies' goods conveyed under 
 its cover. Considering how completely 
 Russia's commerce was at the mercy of 
 English cruisers in case of a war with Eng- 
 land, this could only be regarded as a bold 
 and natural stroke of policy on the part of 
 the ambitious Catherine, and so opportune 
 that there was every prospect of its success. 
 But the English statesmen of those days, in 
 spite of the accumulation of foes, and of 
 perils menacing England's very existence, 
 never for a moment hesitated as to the line 
 of conduct which English interests dictated 
 to them. They defied the armed confede- 
 rates, and issued letters of marque to prey 
 upon their commerce, and when the Peace 
 of Versailles closed the war and secured the 
 independence of the United States, not one 
 word was said about the neutral flag, nor 
 a single concession made by England to
 
 THE ARMED NEUTRALITIES. 75 
 
 the pretensions of the armed neutrals. Tt 
 is true that England was not in a position 
 to resist the first armed neutrality very 
 successfully by arms, but she absolutely 
 refused to abate one single jot or tittle of 
 her maritime rights. 
 
 It is very easy to show how the nations 
 who composed this armed neutrality were 
 urged solely by motives of policy and not 
 in the slightest degree by principle, in the 
 course they pursued, for Denmark, only four 
 days before joining it, {i.e. on the 4th July), 
 agreed with England on certain extensive 
 additions (hemp and timber) to the list of 
 contraband articles, — an agreement whi(5h 
 four days afterwards she repudiated. Spain, 
 one month before joining it, issued an order 
 to her cruisers, distinctly ordering them to 
 seize enemies' goods in neutral bottoms. 
 And France; the year before (1779), seven 
 months before joining, made a treaty with 
 Mecklenburg (identical with one signed ten 
 years before, 1769, with Hamburg), in
 
 76 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 whicli it was stipulated that enemies' goods 
 should be seizable in neutral bottoms. 
 Moreover, within ten years of this first 
 armed neutrality, there was not one nation 
 which had joined it which did not turn 
 round and adopt the exactly opposite 
 maxims. Sweden, Spain. Eussia herself! 
 Portugal, Kaples, Austria, and Prussia ! 
 And Russia actually (1794) quarrelled with 
 Denmark — threatening war and ordering 
 her cruisers to employ force, — because Den- 
 mark raised pretensions of not allowing her 
 merchantmen, that were sailing under con- 
 voy, to be searched. But what perhaps 
 best reveals the true motives of policy of 
 the authors of the armed neutrality was that 
 the Empress Catherine, who was at the 
 head of it and the moving spirit in it, 
 actually had no mercantile navy and no 
 neutral navigation to protect, and conse- 
 quently was least of all the Rulers in 
 Europe entitled to promulgate a new law 
 on the subject, in opposition to the senti-
 
 THE ARMED NEUTRALITIES. 77 
 
 merits and practice of the maritime States. 
 But her policy was well grounded. By 
 weakening the British navy, she hoped to 
 remove a powerful obstacle to her own am- 
 bitious projects, and by committing the 
 two Baltic provinces, Sweden and Den- 
 mark, to a quarrel with England, she was 
 sure to place them in a state of absolute 
 dependence on herself. 
 
 The second armed neutrality took place 
 at a conjimction of affairs apparently 
 equally favourable to such a combination. 
 The success of France against Austria, 
 and the desertion by Eussia of the allies, 
 the Emperor Paul becoming fascinated bj 
 Napoleon's genius, were events likely to 
 check the public spirit of England, and to 
 incline it to compromise its own rights. 
 But such was by no means the actual result. 
 Never did the spirit of the country rise 
 higher than in 1800. Pitt, Grenville, and 
 all the statesmen of the day, repudiated the 
 principles of the coalition and defied its
 
 78 MAEITIME EIGHTS. 
 
 authors, and issued letters of marque 
 against the commerce of the armed neutrals, 
 which soon was utterly ruined. So great a 
 pressure did this exercise over the Russian 
 proprietors, that it was the chief cause of the 
 revolution, in which the Emperor Paul was 
 strangled, and his successor Alexander 
 obliged to sue for peace with England in 
 the following year. On this occasion. Lord 
 Nelson made a speech in which he stig- 
 matised the maxim that the neutral flag 
 should cover enemies' merchandize, and 
 that ships under convoy should not be 
 searched : ''A principle so monstrous in 
 " itself, so contrary to the law of nations, 
 " and so injurious to the maritime interests 
 '' of the country, that if it had been per- 
 " sisted in, we ought not to have concluded 
 " the war with those powers whilst a single 
 " man, a single shilling, or a single drop of 
 '^ blood remained in the country." Pitt 
 made use of stronger language still: '' sooner 
 " than yield the principle he would wind
 
 THE ARMED NEUTRALITIES. 79 
 
 '' tlie flag round liis body and seek his 
 " glory in the grave." 
 
 At the Treaty of Amiens in the following 
 year it was sought to make this matter a 
 subject of treaty arrangement, but Lord 
 Hawkesbury, writing to the English pleni- 
 potentiary at Amiens, said: — "His Majesty 
 will never consent in a treaty of peace to 
 place out of his hands those means which 
 may be necessary to the security of his 
 dominions in time of war." 
 
 In 1807 there was an attempt at a third 
 armed neutrality, again under the hegemony 
 of Russia. The battle of Friedland and the 
 Peace of Tilsit had detached Russia from* 
 the coalition against Napoleon, and the 
 Emperor Alexander proclaimed anew the 
 principles of the armed neutrality of 1801. 
 In the English counter-declaration against 
 Russia the following words occurred : — 
 " Those principles of maritime law it is the 
 '' right and duty of His Majesty to main- 
 " tain against every coalition, and, under 
 '^ the blessing of Providence, His Majesty
 
 80 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 " is determined to maintain tliem ; they 
 " have at all times contributed essentially 
 *^ to the maritime power of Great Britain/' 
 No hostilities actually ensued, and in May, 
 1809 J the coalition was dissolved, its de- 
 feat being owing to the same causes 
 which dissolved the second armed neu- 
 trality. 
 
 It is well worthy of remark that the 
 moment this coalition was dissolved^ Alex- 
 ander turned round, as Catherine had done 
 in 1793, and exceeded the measure of Great 
 Britain's maritime pretensions, in confiscat- 
 ing not only enemies' (French) goods, but 
 also the neutral vessels in which they were 
 found, in all cases where more than half 
 the cargo consisted of enemies' goods. 
 
 To carry on the history of the attitude 
 assumed by the English Government in 
 this important matter, — in 1812, in the Eng- 
 lish declaration in answer to the French 
 demands — as to the terms of peace — it was 
 said : — '' By these demands (the neutral 
 " flag covering the enemies' cargo), the
 
 THE ARMED NEUTRALITIES. 81 
 
 ^^ enemy requires that Great Britain and all 
 *' maritime nations shall at his pleasm-e 
 *' renounce the natural and incontestable 
 '' rights of war, and that Great Britain in 
 '^ particular shall surrender all the advan- 
 '' tages of her naval superiority." 
 
 And at the Congress of Chatillon^ 1814, 
 the English Plenipotentiary, Lord Castle - 
 reagh, had orders from his government not 
 even to discuss the question of maritime 
 rights. 
 
 Contrast the uniform conduct and deter- 
 mination of English statesmen between 
 1780 and 1815 (thirty-five years of warlike 
 effort and dangers) with the conduct of the* 
 English Government in 1856. The short 
 statement I have made, of the successive 
 assertions and abandonments of the prin- 
 ciples of the armed neutrality by their 
 champions, will clearly show that no con- 
 stant or uniform system has ever been 
 founded on them even by their authors, 
 much less by the Powers of Europe in 
 
 6
 
 82 MAEITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 general ; and instead of furnisliing a per- 
 manent code of neutral laws, they have 
 furnished nothing but fruitless indications 
 of hostility to England^ manifested at those 
 periods only when it was supposed that 
 such hostility might be exhibited with im- 
 punity.
 
 83 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Crimean War and the Declaration 
 OF Paris. 
 
 Between 1815 and 1854 the only his- 
 torical fact connected with maritime rights 
 was Mr. Canning's refusal to ratify a 
 treaty which Sir Charles Stuart had nego- 
 tiated with Brazil, on the ground that a 
 clause in it had stipulated that the neutral 
 flag should cover the merchandize, which 
 Mr. Canning, agreeing with all past Eng- 
 lish statesmen, considered prejudicial to 
 British interests. 
 
 In 1854, when England and France 
 declared war against Russia, it became 
 necessary to issue instructions to the French 
 
 6*
 
 84 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 and English Admirals commanding joint 
 squadrons in the Baltic and Black Seas, 
 and negotiations between the two govern- 
 ments were opened with a view, if possible, 
 that those instructions should be identical. 
 M. Drouhyn de Luys, who was at that time 
 Foreign Minister of France, gave, some 
 years afterwards, in a paper read at the 
 French Institute, an account of these nego- 
 tiations. It seems that up to the last 
 moment the English Government held out 
 for the adoption of the British view of 
 maritime rights, and would not yield to the 
 utmost pressure of the French Government; 
 and as late as the 25th March, Lord Claren- 
 don made a declaration to a deputation of 
 merchants engaged in the Eussian trade, to 
 the effect that England intended to adhere 
 to the ancient rules of maritime law. But, 
 at the last moment, three days after this, 
 i.e, on the 28th March, a Cabinet Council 
 was held, and it was decided to adopt the 
 French view of the matter, and accordingly
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 85 
 
 an Order in Council appeared the next 
 morning in which the following words 
 occurred : "In order to preserve the com- 
 " merce of neutrals from all unnecessary 
 " obstruction, Her Majesty is willing, for the 
 '•''present, to waive a part of the belligerent 
 " rights appertaining to her by the law of 
 "nations;" and a similar declaration was 
 issued by the French Emperor. 
 
 Granting that it was desirable that iden- 
 tical instructions should be issued to the 
 English and French Admirals, it is by no 
 means so clear that the English Govern- 
 ment, representing an essentially maritime 
 Power, should have yielded in a maritime 
 matter to its military ally; and it could 
 have been shown that, however true it was 
 that France had joined in the armed Neu- 
 tralities, and that the first Napoleon had 
 always considered the greatest blow that 
 could be struck at England would be to 
 deprive her of her maritime rights, yet that 
 the French law on the subject, if one went
 
 86 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 back to any period anterior to tlie great 
 revolutionary period, was by no means 
 different from the English law in the sense 
 M. Droiihyn de Lnys supposes ; and that, 
 if it differed from it at all, it differed in the 
 sense of being more stringent; for, up to 
 1 744, as we have seen, the French not only 
 confiscated the enemy's goods but the 
 neutral ship also which carried them, and 
 they likewise confiscated the neutral goods 
 found on board an enemy's ship; and it 
 was plain that no law could be gathered 
 from the French practice during the revo- 
 lutionary period, nor from the Berlin and 
 Milan Decrees, as these ordinances were 
 notoriously directed solely against the mari- 
 time power of England, and were the result 
 of caprice and violence, and not deductions 
 from any principle at all. But as the 
 maritime traditions of modern France were 
 chiefly if not exclusively framed in connec- 
 tion with ideas of wars against England^ it 
 became a tradition with them that it was
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 87 
 
 for the interest of France to champion 
 neutral pretensions and to deny the prin- 
 ciple that enemies' goods were seizable in 
 neutral bottoms. The French Government 
 maintained therefore that the French law 
 was that enemies' goods were safe in 
 neutral bottoms, but that friends' goods 
 were seizable in enemies' vessels ; and they 
 offered to give up the latter principle, if 
 the English Government would yield the 
 former. I must here remark that this was 
 not a compromise at all, but a mutual 
 surrender for the benefit of the common 
 enemy. However, it appears that the 
 English Government yielded to pressure, 
 and accepted the French proposal for the 
 duration of the war, it being well under- 
 stood that they only waived tlieir rights 
 and did not abandon them. 
 
 The experience of the Crimean War was 
 not favourable to the maritime policy which 
 had thus been adopted. It was found that 
 in spite of a pretty strict blockade of the
 
 88 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 Russian ports in the Baltic, the Russians 
 found little difficulty in bringing their pro- 
 duce, tallow, hemp, and flax, to Memel 
 and Konigsberg, Prussian ports near the 
 Russian frontier (by means of the rivers 
 Vistula and Niemen), and there embark- 
 ing it on board Swedish and Prussian 
 vessels, where, under the Order in Council, 
 it was perfectly safe from capture. Tn this 
 way the Russian producer was scarcely 
 inconvenienced at all ; he sold £10,000,000 
 a year to England instead of £11,000,000, 
 and he was recouped by the additional 
 price which the English consumer paid 
 him for his slio-htlv enhanced cost of trans- 
 port ; and the Russian rouble (the index 
 of the rate of exchange between the two 
 countries), remained during the whole 
 period of the war at par, 38c?. On Lord 
 Clarendon^ s declaration to the merchants, 
 on March 25th, it fell to 32rZ., but, on 
 the Order in Council appearing, three 
 days later^ it immediately rose again to par.
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 89 
 
 The exports from the Prussian ports quad- 
 rupled and qumtupled the amount at which 
 they stood previously to the wnr, and this 
 gainful trade to the Prussian merchants put 
 all idea of a political and military alliance 
 with the Western Powers out oF the heads of 
 the Prussian people. The business of neu- 
 trality was far too lucrative. These facts 
 made a considerable impression at the time 
 on the country, and Lord Albemarle in one 
 house and Mr. Collier (now Sir Eobert 
 Collier) in the other moved resolutions 
 recommending various measures for stop- 
 ping this illicit neutral trade, by means of 
 differential duties on Russian produce, cer- 
 tificates of origin, and retracting the policy 
 of the Order in Council of March 28th, 
 1854. Nothing however in this direction 
 was done, and the war was brought to an 
 end, after two years' duration, not certainly 
 by any pressure exercised on Russian com- 
 merce, but solely by the force of the allied 
 arms at Sevastopol.
 
 90 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 At the Conference of Paris in March, 
 1856, Lord Clarendon finally, at Count 
 Walewski's invitation, surrendered the 
 rights which had only been waived at the 
 commencement of the war. 
 
 I will not stop here to inquire into the 
 authority on which Lord Clarendon acted. 
 The mystery which surrounds this point 
 has never yet been cleared up. Certain it 
 is that he said himself in the House of 
 Lords, on TiOrd Colchester's motion on the 
 subject, that he and his brother plenipoten- 
 tiaries " had not confined themselves to the 
 " strict limits of their attributions.'^ 
 
 But I will say a few words on the legality 
 of his act. True it undoubtedly is that the 
 Crown can make treaties withForeignPowers 
 without the previous consent of Parliament. 
 It is one of its undoubted prerogatives. But 
 there is a constitutional limit to this power, 
 and that is that it may not make a treaty 
 in violation of a municipal law of the 
 country. Li exemplification of this I may
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 91 
 
 cite a case which arose in connection witli 
 the treaty of commerce with Austria in 1883. 
 An Austrian vessel from some port on the 
 Danube arrived in the Thames with a 
 freight sanctioned by that treaty, and it 
 was immediately seized by the Custom 
 House officers for violation of the Naviga- 
 tion Laws ; and the particular clause of 
 these laws which had been infringed had to 
 be repealed before the treaty was allowed 
 to operate. Now, it has been frequently 
 decided that the law of nations is part of 
 the common law of England, and maritime 
 law a part of the law of nations, therefore 
 maritime law is a part of the law of lEng- 
 land,* and therefore cannot be altered with- 
 out the consent of Parliament. Treaties 
 which involve supply or taxes, or an 
 alteration of the municipal law of the land 
 require the consent of Parliament. These 
 are preliminaries which are necessary to 
 
 * Blackstone distinctly states that maritime law is 
 part and parcel of the law of England.
 
 92 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 make even a formal treaty binding; liow 
 much more an informal declaration ! 
 
 Now if we compare all the safeguards 
 which our Constitution provides against 
 hasty and improvident changes in our 
 smallest municipal law, with the hastiness 
 and improvidence which marked this funda- 
 mental change in a vital matter governing 
 our external relations, we shall see the 
 more reason for a careful review of 
 the whole subject. For this declaration 
 affected to reverse the law and practice of 
 the land without the consent of Parliament^ 
 and to turn its back on the traditions of the 
 country without the country ever having 
 been consulted in the matter. Never was 
 an act of such stupendous import committed 
 with such secrecy and precipitancy. 
 
 The reasons given for it were as trumpery 
 as the step itself was grave. In the pro- 
 tocols two reasons were assigned ; I. That 
 uncertainty on the law of nations existed ; 
 11. That it was desirable that uniformity
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 93 
 
 should be established. As to I., it was un- 
 true ; no uncertainty at all, as I hope I 
 have clearly shown, existed as to the law of 
 nations on the subject, although many 
 nations, in their practice, went beyond, 
 and so violated — deliberately — the law of 
 nations. And as for IL, however desirable 
 it might be to establish uniformity, uni- 
 formity has not been established, as Spain 
 and the United States both decline to sio-n 
 the declaration and give up the right of 
 using privateers. 
 
 In the debates in Parliament, other 
 reasons were assigned, viz., that we could 
 not maintain these maritime rights against 
 the '^ intense anxiety of the neutral nations 
 " that we should not," and especially against 
 the attitude of the United States in the 
 matter. The purely military nations may, I 
 think, be dismissed from consideration ; as 
 they are powerless on the sea, this argu- 
 ment, founded as it is on an implied menace 
 of power, cannot apply to them. With
 
 94 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 respect to the United States, tliey are 
 really out of court in imposing" obligations 
 on us which they have refused to accept 
 themselves, and, whatever complaints we 
 may have had to urge in our dealings 
 with the United States Government, it 
 has never shown a tendency to disregard 
 well-established legal principles. On the 
 contrary, in their conduct in 1798, in spite of 
 their well-known sympathies with France, 
 they declined to refuse to England riglits 
 which were secured to her by the law of 
 nations, or to allow to France rights which 
 she had deliberately surrendered by treaty. 
 '' The desire of establishing universally the 
 "principle that neutral bottoms make 
 '' neutral goods is perhaps felt by no nation 
 " on earth more strongly than by the United 
 ^' States. Perhaps no nation on earth is 
 "more deeply interested in its establish- 
 "ment. But the wish to establish a 
 "principle is essentially different from a 
 " determination that it is already established.
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 95 
 
 '' TPie interests of tlie United States could 
 ^' not fail to produce the wish ; their duty 
 '^ forbids them to indulge it when decided 
 " on mere right." Such were the memo- 
 rable words of Jefferson in 1798. The war 
 of 1812 had nothing whatever to do, as I 
 have shown, with this matter; and it is 
 contrary to the whole tenour of the conduct 
 of the United States Government to sup- 
 pose that they would go to war with this 
 country for the possible establishment of a 
 maxim contrary to the recognized law of 
 nations. 
 
 But it is a new maxim of English 
 policy for English statesmen to give iip 
 essential principles of British interest, 
 founded on the recognized law of nations, 
 in obedience to a nervous dread of offend- 
 ing neutral nations. The history of a 
 people with whom such motives are allowed 
 to operate is already ended. 
 
 I ought to state, before concluding this 
 chapter, that the reason assigned by the
 
 96 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 United States for declining to adhere to the 
 Declaration of Paris is not any objection to 
 the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Eules^ but to the 1st 
 Rule, viz., that which abolishes privateering; 
 and England's adhesion to the other points 
 was conditional on this first point being- 
 accepted ; it being decided at the Con- 
 ference that the rules must be accepted "en 
 bloc" or not at all. The United States 
 offered to agree to them all, if an addition 
 were made to them, to the effect that all 
 private property (ships and cargoes) at sea 
 should enjoy the same immunity in time of 
 war as in peace.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Consequences of the Declaration 
 OF Paris. 
 
 I THINK it can be demonstrated that a 
 final adoption by this country of the De- 
 claration of Paris would not only be fatal 
 to its maritime supremacy, but destructive 
 of its very existence. 
 
 I will not confine myself to quoting 
 authorities on this matter, but I will fortify 
 those authorities by arguments drawn from 
 the reason of the thing. 
 
 As for authorities, I claim the whole 
 muster-roll of English statesmen from the 
 time England became a maritime nation 
 until Lord Clarendon put his signature to 
 the Declaration of Paris. 
 
 Lord Eldon said — ^' The right of search- 
 ing neutral vessels originated in the rights 
 
 7
 
 ^8 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 of nature, and no convention nor treaty 
 can permanently destroy that right." 
 
 Lord Nelson — " A proposition (that the 
 neutral flag covers enemies' goods) so mon- 
 strous in itself, so contrary to the law of 
 nations, and so injurious to the maritime 
 interests of this country^ that if it had been 
 persisted in we ought not to have concluded 
 the war with these Powers whilst a single 
 man, a single shilling, or a single drop of 
 blood remained in the country/' 
 
 Pitt said — " Kather than concede this 
 principle he would wind the flag round his 
 body and seek his glory in the grave." 
 
 Lord Heytesbury — ''His majesty will 
 never consent to place out of his hands in 
 a treaty of peace those means which may 
 be necessary for the security of his do- 
 minions in time of war." 
 
 Lord Liverpool — " The enemy requires 
 that Great Britain should renounce all the 
 advantages of his naval superiority.'' 
 
 Sir John Mc'Neil — " The right of search
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 99 
 
 and capture, which, constitute the maritime 
 power of England." 
 
 The same— '^ The right of search is a 
 providential weapon placed in the hands of 
 England for the protection of the weaker 
 States." 
 
 Lord Stratford de Eedcliflfe— '' Did not 
 believe that Eussia would have engaged in 
 the Crimean war if she had not been assured 
 beforehand that we should not use our 
 maritime rights. '^ 
 
 Lord Derby — " The day will come when 
 you will wring your hands for having 
 allowed yourselves to be bound by this fatal 
 Declaration." 
 
 Lord John Russell — " Li all books upon 
 the subject it is stated that the rule that 
 free bottoms make free goods has always 
 been regarded as injurious to the supremacy 
 of maritime nations, and especially to the 
 maritime power of England." 
 
 Mr. Disraeli — '' You have given up the 
 cardinal principle of your maritime power." 
 
 7*
 
 100 MAEITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 Mr. Mill — '' We have given up our main 
 defence. Unless by resuming our natural 
 and indispensable weapon we shall be bur- 
 dened with these enormous establishments 
 and onerous budgets for a permanency ; 
 and in spite of it all we shall be for ever in 
 danger, for ever in alarm, cowed before any 
 Power capable of invading any part of our 
 widely spread possessions." 
 
 And now for the reason of the thing In 
 the first place it is evident, and acknow- 
 ledged on all sides, that the very first con- 
 sequence to this country of a war in which 
 it shall be engaged will be the absolute 
 destruction of its carrying trade, and that 
 the mere rumour of war will tend in the same 
 direction. Mr. Beazley, a large shipowner^ 
 pointed out to a committee of the House of 
 Commons^ charged with examining into 
 questions concerning the merchant service, 
 that on the mere apprehension of war 
 between England and France in 1859, 
 second class American vessels were char-
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 101 
 
 tered in the Chinese seas at 50 per cent, 
 higher freights than first class English ves- 
 sels, which could not obtain cargoes at all. 
 Nor is any testimony required to prove a 
 matter so obvious. Cargoes being seizable 
 in English vessels and safe in neutral 
 vessels, no shipper would be so insane as 
 to ship in the former when he could get the 
 latter to carry his merchandize. 
 
 Now, what is the meaning of our carry- 
 ing trade departing from us ? Our mer- 
 cantile marine consists of 37,000 vessels, 
 representing an aggregate of between 
 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 tons. These 
 vessels would necessarily be laid up in* 
 dock, or sold to neutrals if the war 
 lasted long enough ; and the carrying trade 
 having left us in war, it by no means 
 follows that it would return to us in peace. 
 It is very difficult to coax trade back from 
 channels to which it has become accus- 
 tomed. The carrying trade has never 
 returned to the United States since the
 
 102 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 depredations of the "Alabama" took it out 
 of their hands. But if our merchant ships 
 could be laid up in dock, our merchant sea- 
 men could not afford to starve, and they 
 would nafurally transfer their labour to the 
 carrying neutral ; and thus the services of 
 our merchant seamen, the backbone and 
 reserve of our military marine, would be 
 permanently lost to this country, and our 
 maritime power dried up at its source. 
 
 This destruction, therefore, of our carry- 
 ing trade is not a mere commercial loss : 
 not the mere destruction of one very im- 
 portant branch of British industry ; but a 
 blow struck at the very root of our national 
 greatness. 
 
 Do the people of this country realize to 
 the full what the destruction of England's 
 maritime power really means ? We have, 
 practically speaking, no standing army ; 
 our volunteers, brave and devoted as they 
 are, could not stand up half an hour against 
 a regular army ; we have no chains of im-
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 103 
 
 pregnable fortresses, no mountain passes, 
 no natural fastnesses. Our whole reliance 
 has hitherto been on the sea ; but from the 
 moment that we lose the command of the 
 sea, and yield up our supremacy there, that 
 which formerly was our surest defence 
 becomes the chief source of our danger, 
 and we become exposed to invasion, and 
 consequently destruction, along the whole 
 periphery of our coasts. To defend Eng- 
 land (to say nothing of India) territorially, 
 without the command of the sea, is a sim- 
 ple strategical and military impossibility. 
 A continental army, constituted as conti- 
 nental armies now are, would cut through 
 this defenceless island as a knife cuts 
 through a pat of butter. 
 
 This consideration seems to me conclu- 
 sive. It is a mere bathos to point out other 
 consequences which must follow from ad- 
 hering to the Declaration of Paris. But it 
 may nevertheless be interesting to trace out 
 some of the secondary consequences which 
 must ensue. It used formerly to be well
 
 104 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 understood what war with England meant. 
 It meant the absolute ruin of our enemies' 
 commerce. " A month after war is declared 
 our commerce is absolutely at your mercy," 
 said Talleyrand to the English plenipo- 
 tentiary at the Congress of Chatillon. 
 
 This was the secret of l^ngland's influence 
 on the Continent — an influence out of all 
 proportion to her military strength or the 
 numbers of her population. By this she 
 reached the secret springs of action of every 
 Cabinet in Europe. '^ Nobody cares what 
 England wishes since she gave up her mari- 
 time power/' said Prince Bismarck during 
 the Schleswig-Holstein negotiations; and 
 the influence of England in all the diflerent 
 political events since that time proves the 
 accuracy of Prince Bismarck's estimate. 
 How could it be otherwise ? Not only is 
 compulsion applied to her enemies' com- 
 merce England's main resource in war, 
 but it is the sole sanction of her power. 
 But for it not a victory at sea would 
 she ever have won. It was not from gait6
 
 DECLARATION OF PARIS. 105 
 
 de coeuvy or for the fear of being sunk, but 
 to defend his commerce that the enemy 
 left his ports and gave battle to our 
 Nelsons, St. Vincents, Camperdowns, and 
 Howes. Once this is no longer neces- 
 sary, once his commerce is safe and snug 
 under the neutral flag, he remains like the 
 Russian behind his granite walls, or like 
 the Prussian entrenched behind his lines of 
 torpedoes. Give up the power of distraining 
 your enemies' goods at sea, and renounce at 
 the same time the hope of adding another 
 name to the list of your naval victories. 
 When there is nothing to be gained by 
 fighting, your enemy is not likely to mn 
 his head against your iron walls. It comes 
 to this : The Declaration of Paris abolishes 
 war at sea, and leaves the arbitrament of 
 war to the decision of big battalions — a 
 comfortable prospect for the great military 
 empires, but a doleful outlook for maritime 
 Powers, and especially for England.
 
 106 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Sparing all Private Property at Sea. 
 
 We have seen that the United States 
 offered to adhere to the Declaration of 
 Paris " en bloc '* provided the immunity of 
 all private property at sea was added as a 
 fifth rule. This proposal has met with many 
 advocates in England. Their argument is 
 this : the principles of the Declaration of 
 Paris, as it stands, are demonstrably fatal 
 to the naval superiority, to the carrying 
 trade, and the mercantile marine of this 
 country ; England is the great carrier of 
 the world, and it is in her capacity as a 
 carrying nation that she would be utterly 
 stricken in a war. Exempt mercantile
 
 IMMUNITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 107 
 
 ships from capture and she will be able to 
 carry on her vast trade, the carrying trade 
 included, as securely in war as in peace, 
 her commercial resources will remain in- 
 tact, and she will consequently be able to 
 bear the strain of a war uncrippled by 
 financial distress. As matters stand at 
 present, you have either gone too far or not 
 far enough. Your enemy's commerce will 
 sail under the neutral flag. His only sacri- 
 fice will be the carrying trade, and, as yours 
 is the only large carrying trade in the 
 w^orld, his loss in this respect will be borne 
 with a light heart. It will even profit him 
 for warlike purposes^ inasmuch as the sailt)rs 
 who manned his mercantile marine will be 
 set "at liberty to man his military marine, so 
 that for military purposes he will actually 
 be in a better position than if the neutral 
 flag did not procure immunity to his 
 cargoes. You on the contrary have an 
 enormous mercantile marine, 37,000 vessels 
 representing 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 tonnage,
 
 108 MAEITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 and this will be the measure of your sacrifice 
 during the war^ not to speak of your chance 
 of losing it altogether ; for it by no means 
 follows that once lost your carrying trade 
 will return to you after the peace. Com- 
 merce has a tendency, once it has taken 
 certain lines and channels^ to adhere to 
 them, as witness the permanent loss to the 
 Americans of their carrying trade, caused 
 by the depredations of the ^'Alabama," the 
 "Florida" and the "Shenandoah." As you 
 have taken a fatal step in signing the Declara- 
 tion of Paris, take another step which will 
 land you in comparative safety. 
 
 I think I have stated fairly the arguments 
 of the exponents of this theory. I will 
 begin by granting all they contend for, and 
 I will ask, does it not amount to this : 
 " There shall be no more war upon the sea, 
 where we have always been strong, but 
 only on land where we must be necessarily 
 weak ; " for the moment such a principle 
 is granted there can be no more such a
 
 IMMUNITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 109 
 
 tiling as naval warfare. In fact, during 
 the last two wars naval warfare was 
 suspended. The Russian fleets remained 
 behind Cronstadt or were sunk in the 
 Sevastopol roadsteads, and their crews 
 fought on land in the entrenchments. In 
 the Franco-German war, the marine parti- 
 cularly distinguished itself for its discipline 
 and courage, not in the element which 
 was theirs, but in the villages of Beaumont 
 and Bazeilles, and in the armies of Chanzy 
 and Faidherbe. Now to put an end to 
 naval warfare is to deprive England of her 
 appropriate arm ; that arm in which she has 
 hitherto been supreme, and by the use of 
 which a small island in the German Ocean 
 acquired colonies, riches and power out 
 of all proportion to its size or the number 
 of its population. If England yields up 
 the instrument by which she acquired 
 this position, is it possible that she will 
 be able long to maintain the position? It 
 is as if a nation were deliberately to tear
 
 110 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 up its own title-deeds. From that of a first- 
 rate maritime, it descends at once to the 
 position of a fourth-rate military Power, 
 with the capacity of putting in the field an 
 army of about the size of that of Servia, 
 and with all the obligations of Empire still 
 incumbent upon it. It is a fact, which the 
 English War Office will scarcely venture to 
 contradict, that, at the crisis of the Franco- 
 German War, when it was a matter of im- 
 portance to ascertain the exact amount of 
 our available military force, the English 
 Government ascertained that there were no 
 means of putting 20,000 men into the field. 
 Next^ let us look at the principle on 
 which this theory rests. War, being the 
 '' ultima ratio " of nations, must be prose- 
 cuted until one or the other of the comba- 
 tants gives in; this means, the principle of 
 war on commerce being surrendered, until 
 a sufficient number of men are killed^ 
 maimed, and wounded, so as to render 
 resistance on one side or the other hopeless.
 
 IMMUNITY OF PKIVATE PROPERTY. Ill 
 
 And whilst this game of slaughter is going 
 on, whilst thousands and thousands of our 
 coimtrymen are being killed off, the mer- 
 chants and shipowners of England are to be 
 driving a roaring trade and coining money 
 out of the blood of their countrymen. Is 
 it very likely that the common sense and 
 common feeling of the people of any coun- 
 try would submit to this ? The principle 
 that the neutral flag covers the merchandize 
 enables the neutral to make a profit by the 
 blood of the belligerents, and so divides the 
 interests of the community of nations, which 
 is not the least of the objections against it. 
 But this proposal divides the nation itself 
 into two sections, and enables one-half of it 
 to fatten on the blood of the other half. 
 
 This "free-trade in war,'' this commercial 
 peace and military war, has been denounced 
 and repudiated by every statesman who has 
 expressed an opinion upon it. " There is 
 " no such thing as war for armies and peace 
 " for commerce '' said Lord Kenyon. In
 
 112 IMARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 almost the same Avords, Sir Wm. Scott 
 (afterwards Lord Stowell), said: '' A mili- 
 " tary war and a commercial peace is a thing 
 " not yet seen in the world." Mr. Disraeli 
 remarked that '' he could see great cala- 
 *' mities following the admission of such a 
 " principle. It might make rich communi- 
 '' ties but it could not fail to make weak 
 ^' nations ; and a country that adopted it 
 " might disappear in a way that it might be 
 " difficult for some people to conceive/' 
 Lord Palmerston, who went down to Liver- 
 pool in 1856 and made a speech, in w^hich 
 he seemed to lend countenance to the 
 advocates of this principle, by saying that 
 he hoped to see the principle of the Declara- 
 tion of Paris still further extended, frankly 
 avowed, in the debate in the House of 
 Commons, that ^' he had changed his mind 
 on the subject." This was six years later, 
 on the occasion of Mr. HorsfalFs motion. 
 " With reference to the assimilation of the 
 '' principle of war at sea to the practice of
 
 IMMUNITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 113 
 
 ^'war on land, I am perfectly ready to 
 " admit that I have entirely altered my 
 "mind on that point. Fm^ther reflection 
 " and deeper thinking have satisfied me, 
 " that what was at first sight plausible — and 
 " I admit that it was plausible on the sur- 
 " face — is a most dangerous doctrine, and I 
 "hope honourable Members Avill give 
 "weight to my thoughts. A maritime 
 " nation ought not to give up any means of 
 " injuring its enemy on the sea." 
 
 I may here be allowed to remark that, 
 if Lord Palmerston (on a subject of such 
 primary interest to his country, and one so 
 closely akin to the subject of the Declara- 
 tion of Paris, that, with it, it can only be 
 considered as part of a great whole), changed 
 his mind between 1856 and 1862, his 
 authority, as the person chiefly responsible 
 for the Declaration of Paris, is very much 
 diminished. The change of opinion and 
 the avowal of it were highly creditable to 
 his candour^ but the necessity for it is a 
 
 8
 
 114 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 reflection on liis judgment in tlie first in- 
 stance. And it is scarcely too much to 
 argue that vet further reflection and deeper 
 thinking might have induced him to revise 
 his opinions on the whole subject, and 
 retract his '' hasty and improvident " assent 
 to the Declaration of Paris. 
 
 To conclude my authorities on this ques- 
 tion. The Solicitor- General said in the 
 same debate (1862), '4f there be any prin- 
 ^' ciple of the law of nations more cardinal 
 '^tlian another it is that the people are 
 "identified with their Governments, and 
 ^' that you cannot have peace with the one 
 *' and war with the other, that in fact the 
 *' people are bound up with their Govem- 
 ^' ment and the public interest of the nation 
 '^ for better or for worse." The Lord Advo- 
 cate said : — '' The principle of all war was 
 *' the denial of the rights of property to a 
 ** belligerent enemy. That was one of its 
 " essential ingredients." 
 
 War, in fact, is a declaration of dis-
 
 IMMUNITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 115 
 
 traint and death against your adversary, 
 and you distrain his goods before you take 
 his life. To give up the right of distraint 
 is to necessitate the greater use of the right 
 of killing, and, as John Stuart Mill said : 
 "Pie was at a loss to conceive how 
 ^'humanity was advanced by sparing 
 '^people's property and shooting at their 
 " bodies.'^ And yet this principle of the 
 immunity of private property at sea is con- 
 stantly supported on the very grounds of 
 humanity and civilization. Other abstrac- 
 tions are also pressed into the service, and 
 the interests of commerce are invoked, as if 
 commerce could have interests apart from 
 commercial people ! 
 
 Before concluding, there are two argu- 
 ments used in support of this thesis which 
 I feel bound to consider. One is, that it is 
 the interest of England to support the 
 principle, because, our commerce and our 
 carrying trade being the largest in the 
 world, we present ''the largest area of 
 
 8 *
 
 116 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 vulnerability." Now this argument is equi- 
 valent to saying that a big man ought not 
 to fight a little man because his " area of 
 vulnerability " is greater than that of the 
 little man. True^ his '• area of vulne- 
 rability '' is greater, but his striking power 
 is proportionately greater too. So, in a 
 commercial war, English commerce would 
 no doubt suffer, but the enemy's commerce 
 would be annihilated. 
 
 England is like a big company compet- 
 ing with and beating down a little trades- 
 man ; it can afford to lose two sovereigns 
 to the other's one, and notwithstanding, to 
 ruin him and force him to shut up shop ; 
 and, as the case in question supposes legiti- 
 mate reasons of war between them, England 
 would be justified as well as wise in ac- 
 cepting the conflict. To think that we can 
 make war and suffer no loss is to suppose 
 that one can make omelettes without 
 breaking eggs. 
 
 The other argument is founded on a false
 
 IMMUNITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 117 
 
 analogy. It is said that private property is 
 spared on land in war, and therefore it 
 ouglit to be spared at sea. I will not stop 
 to dispute the fact, although it would 
 scarcely be beside the question to ask 
 whether the villas and gardens around 
 Paris were spared by the Prussian army, or 
 the private property of the Southern States 
 by Sherman's troops in his famous march, 
 any more than in Westphalia in the time 
 of Turenne, or in the campaigns of the great 
 Napoleon. But, even if the fact was as the 
 argument audaciously assumes^ I answer, 
 the reason would be that there is on land a 
 means of legalized plunder, viz., the local 
 government of the country, of which the 
 invader immediately possesses himself, and 
 thus grasps the taxes and contributions of 
 the people in a way which is impossible at 
 sea ; and, if he abstains (which it is quite an 
 assumption to say he does) from indis- 
 criminate plunder, the abstention is in his 
 own interest and for his own benefit as no
 
 118 MAKITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 consideration can be of such paramount 
 importance to him as victualling and 
 supplying his troops, which the wholesale 
 destruction of private propert}^ would 
 render impossible. Moreover the whole 
 argument is founded on a false analogy. 
 War on land means the invasion of enemy's 
 land, followed often by the permanent con- 
 quest of his provinces; — this is the essence 
 of war on land, it can mean nothing else. 
 But this, from the nature of the case, is im- 
 possible at sea. There is nothing there to 
 invade and nothing to conquer. If there- 
 fore warfare at sea is to follow the exact 
 analogy of warfare on land, there is 
 absolutely nothing whatever for it to do. 
 But if invasion is of the essence of military 
 war, banishing enemies' commerce from 
 the sea, or seizing it " in transitu^ '^ has 
 always been of the essence of naval war- 
 fare|; and if you wish for a true analogy, and 
 are bent on abolishing naval warfare, put 
 ^n end at the same time to military warfare,
 
 IMMUNITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 11^ 
 
 and make invasion and conquest illegal. 
 Only, to do this, you will have to deal with 
 people who are not carried away by ab- 
 stractions and who do not found their 
 State policy on plausible analogies.
 
 120 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 I HAVE now gone through the principal 
 points connected with Maritime Eights. I 
 will conclude by enumerating some of the 
 current fallacies that we constantly hear 
 propounded on the subject. They may be 
 termed eidola maritima^ and are divisible 
 into : — 
 
 1. The eidolon vuhierahile, viz., that 
 ^'our area of vulnerability" is so great that 
 we must necessarily suffer more than our 
 enemy by maritime captures. I have, I 
 think, dealt fullv with this idol in the last 
 chapter.
 
 CONCLUSION. 121 
 
 2. The eidolon invuhierahile, viz., that 
 after all our maritime power is so over- 
 whelming that we could at any rate block- 
 ade all our enemy^s coasts, and seal up his 
 ports, which would make maritime captures 
 unnecessary. It is superfluous to remark 
 that this idol is in flagrant contradiction with 
 the last, and I would leave them to fight it 
 out between them if I had not particularly 
 examined the subject of blockade in 
 Chapter I. 
 
 3. The eidolon timidum^ or the coward's 
 plea, viz., that, however advantageous to 
 us maritime rights might be, neutral 
 nations would never allow us to exercise 
 them, and therefore it is better to give 
 up with a good grace in peace what 
 we should not be allowed to profit by 
 in war. 
 
 I will answer this objection both gene- 
 rally and particularly. Speaking generally, 
 it is a gross reflection on the courage and 
 manliness of our country to insinuate that
 
 122 MARITIME EIGHTS. 
 
 England^ that knew how to vindicate trium- 
 phantly her maritime rights against coa- 
 lesced Europe at epochs of extreme national 
 difficulty and peril, has no longer the spirit 
 to maintain them in this the heyday of her 
 prosperity, and in the fulness of her 
 strength. If such were the case, caclit 
 gucestio^ maritime rights are indeed gone^ 
 and with them all that is great and glorious 
 in English story. 
 
 Examining the matter particularly^ the 
 assumption is gratuitous. The game of 
 maritime coalition a^-ainst Eno-hmd has 
 been played out. Twice, nay three times, 
 it has been tried, and once at any rate 
 under singularly favourable auspices, and 
 each time it came to lamentable grief. 
 The coalesced Neutrals went to war, or 
 threatened to go to war, to secure the 
 carrying trade of the weaker belligerent. 
 Instead of getting it they lost their own. 
 European interests too have changed. 
 Formerly it was considered that England' &
 
 CONCLUSION. 123 
 
 maritime interests were in one scale, and in 
 the other the general interests of all Con- 
 tinental nations. The first Napoleon'a 
 Continental system was the outcome and 
 the evidence of this belief. It is now seen 
 that it is not at all a question of England's 
 interests on the one side and those of Con- 
 tinental nations on the other, but of man- 
 time power as such against all other forms, 
 of power, and that Continental nations, in 
 so far as and just in jproportion as they are 
 maritime powers too, have precisely similar 
 interests to those of England in the matter. 
 It now begins to be pretty clearly seen that 
 France could never have been crushed in 
 the last war by the simple dead weight of 
 Germany's military power, if she had not, 
 some fourteen years before, recklessly 
 signed away her maritime power. The 
 ZoUverein has annually some £40,000,000 
 of produce afloat. Had France sequestrated 
 this property on the first shot fired against 
 her, and put a veto on German commerce
 
 124 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 on the ocean, Germany could not have 
 supported the burden of war for six months. 
 Nay, war would never have been declared 
 against her, for Southern Germany, on 
 whom the loss would principally have 
 fallen, would not at such a price have 
 accepted the military hegemony of Prussia. 
 By adhering to the Declaration of Paris 
 France fought Germany with one hand tied 
 behind her back. Her adversary's iron 
 hand was heavier than her remaining hand, 
 but it would have been no match for her if 
 she had been able to put forth her strength 
 in both directions. Providence made her, 
 by geographical configuration and the 
 character of her populations, a maritime as 
 well as a military nation, but she delibe- 
 rately threw away one half of her natural 
 advantages, and the Capitulation of Paris 
 of 1871 was the first fruits and natural 
 consequence of the Declaration of Paris of 
 1856. It is perfectly obvious that the 
 interests of all maritime nations (England,
 
 CONCLUSION. 125 
 
 France, Denmark, Spain, Italy, and the 
 United States) are identical in this matter, 
 although opposed to those of the purely 
 military Powers, Germany, fiussia, and 
 Austria. 
 
 4. A new idol has lately sprung up of 
 too modern date to boast of a Latin denomi- 
 nation. It may be called the sea-laioyers^ 
 idol. It is of the amphibious tribe : it does 
 not belong to the sea because the sea 
 repudiates it ; it does not belong to the law 
 because its subject-matter is purely naval. 
 It maintains that modern changes in naval 
 warfare, especially the invention of shells, 
 render convoy no longer possible ; that tlie 
 enemy (no more able, it is true, to capture 
 English convoys than formerly) can, in 
 spite of convoy, sink and destroy our 
 merchantmen on the high seas; and it 
 challenges the opinions of naval officers on 
 the subject. 
 
 In spite of the well-known aversion of 
 sailors to newspaper controversies, no less
 
 126 MAEITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 than four admirals* (an unprecedented fact 
 I believe in the history of journalism) 
 respond to the challenge of the sea-lawyer, 
 and pledge their professional reputation to 
 the opinion that the sea-lawyer is entirely 
 mistaken, and that convoy, although the 
 conditions of it are altered, is as feasible 
 now as ever in the history of naval warfare. 
 T have heard naval officers affirm that they 
 would rather fight a frigate than a sea- 
 lawyer; but it must be confessed that, on 
 this occasion at any rate, our admirals 
 have given a very good account of the sea- 
 lawyer in question. Bequiescat in pace. 
 Powder and shot must be cheap now-a- 
 days ! 
 
 5. Lastly, we have the eidolon fraudulo- 
 sum^ which pretends that, however advan- 
 tageous to England and maritime nations 
 
 * Eear-Admiral Sir F. Leopold McClintock, 
 E.E.S. ; Vice- Admiral Sir George Nathaniel Broke 
 Middleton, Bart, j Vice-Admiral W. King Hall ; 
 and Admiral Sir Henry Keppel, K.C.B.— Cf. Fall 
 Mall Gazette, August 19, 1876.
 
 CONCLUSION. 127 
 
 generally may be the exercise of maritime 
 rights, the weaker belligerent, with the aid 
 of interested neutrals, is always able, by 
 means of "neutralizing" contrivances of 
 various kinds, false papers, bills of sale, 
 clearances, invoices, muster-rolls, &c., to 
 defeat the processes of prize courts and 
 secm-e immunity to enemies' goods. It is 
 useless therefore, it is said, to maintain in 
 theory a right which in practice cannot be 
 enforced. 
 
 This argument is pretty much the same 
 as if one were to maintain that because 
 pickpockets, coiners, burglars, and forgers 
 often escape detection and punishment, 
 therefore police courts, judges, and prisons 
 had better be abolished and their expenses 
 saved. Frauds on a stupendous scale, 
 especially in the war of 1792, no doubt 
 took place. Regular '' neutralizing" estab- 
 lishments were founded— no less than fifty 
 of them in the town of Emden alone — and 
 a whole machinery of " neutralizing" con-
 
 128 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 trivances was set in action^ wliicli reduced 
 fraud to a system and rendered naught the 
 vigilance of our cruisers. But, in the first 
 place^ these frauds were rendered possible 
 not by what I may call the Common Law 
 on the subject of maritime capture, but by 
 our complicated and ill- devised Orders in 
 Council, suspending, luniting and qualifying 
 that Common Law, and ought to ha\e 
 been met by a return to the Common Law 
 and the suspension of the Orders in Council. 
 In the next place, they were rendered 
 possible by the want of elasticity in the 
 rules of evidence adopted in our prize 
 courts, and were to be met by a change in 
 that procedure. For instance, the question 
 raised in our courts was not whether a 
 ship's papers were hond fide^ but whether 
 they were in order^ and the point orally 
 investiorated was to ascertain whether the 
 master and crew of the captured vessels 
 swore in conformity with the ship^s papers^ 
 and if that turned out to be the case the
 
 CONCLUSION. 129 
 
 ship was released, however probable it 
 might appear that papers, swearings, and all 
 were false, and the neutrality of the vessel 
 only colourable. It was not difficult to 
 drive a three-decker through such a mode 
 of procedure. Every kind of device was 
 had recourse to in order to bring belligerent 
 property to what was called a "safe-foot- 
 ing." The Standing Interrogatories of the 
 English prize courts became a subject of 
 careful study. A book called Vraagen en 
 Antwoorden was published in Holland, 
 suggesting the proper answers to be given 
 to these Standing Interrogatories by masters 
 of captured vessels so as to escape con- 
 demnation ; and in the ship's papers of a 
 prize taken into Harwich the specific 
 answers which would suit the case of the 
 vessel in question were found jotted down 
 in pencil on the margin of the pages of 
 Vraagen en Antwoorden^ opposite to the 
 " Standing Interrogatories of the English 
 
 Prize Courts." These frauds all flourished 
 
 9
 
 130 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 conspicuously during the Kevolutionaiy 
 War of 1792^ and were, as I have said, 
 called, in a great measure, into existence 
 by the Orders in Council of 1793, 1794, and 
 1798. In the war of 1803 our prize 
 courts began to see their way to check 
 them, and some of the Orders in Council I 
 have just mentioned were not renewed. 
 Finally, there is a weapon stored in the 
 arsenal of Maritime Rights which can 
 checkmate these frauds, and neutralize even 
 neutralizing ingenuity, \dz., prohibiting the 
 importation of enemies' jproduce^ and, if 
 necessary, sequestrating it on the high 
 seas. 
 
 The fact is, and this the secret of the 
 whole business, it is not an intellectual 
 difficulty which opposes itself to the re- 
 sumption of Maritime Rights. The diffi- 
 culty is purely moral. The Rights were 
 not abandoned in consequence of the force 
 of the arguments urged for their abandon- 
 ment. They were first surrendered, and
 
 CONCLUSION. 131 
 
 then arguments were invented to justify the 
 surrender. The fallacies which I have 
 been examining in this chapter are the net 
 produce of this ex jpost facto process. They 
 are a sorry lot after all, and the first mari- 
 time people that has the courage to say 
 " We will resume our maritime rights," 
 will see these phantom idols, like " gibber- 
 ing ghosts," disappear in the mists of the 
 ocean. 
 
 THE END.
 
 133 
 
 THE MAKITIME LEAGUE FOR THE 
 
 RESUMPTION OF NAVAL RIGHTS 
 
 IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 Council of the League. — Chairman, 
 Stewart E. Holland, Esq. Treasurer, 
 Thomas Gibson Bowles, Esq. 
 
 The importance to the Britisli Empire of 
 the retention and the exercise to their fuU 
 extent of those naval rights founded on the 
 Law of Nature and sanctioned by the Law 
 of Nations, by which alone a maritime 
 country can maintain its power on the seas, 
 must commend itself to all who attach any 
 importance to the existence of their country. 
 The unauthoritative Declaration of Paris of 
 1856 assumes to abolish those rights^ and
 
 134 MARITIME EIGHTS. 
 
 Parliament, often appealed to to resume 
 them by an authoritative declaration, has 
 as repeatedly failed to do so. 
 
 It is manifest that Great Britain, being 
 essentially a maritime country, must depend 
 mainly for her defence upon the power of 
 waging war effectually at sea. It is equally 
 manifest that war can only be waged effec- 
 tually at sea by the capture of enemy's 
 property, whether in enemy's or in neutral 
 vessels, and that the full strength of the 
 country can only be put forth by arming 
 and commissioning private volunteer vessels 
 as an auxiliary to the State Navy. The 
 right of any nation to do this is not con- 
 tested, but by the two articles in the Decla- 
 ration of Paris which declared that the 
 neutral flag should cover enemy's goods 
 not being contraband of war, and that 
 privateering is abolished. Great Britain is 
 held to be bound to deprive herself of these 
 two weapons of defence, and must remain
 
 APPENDIX. 135 
 
 deprived of tliem until that Declaration is 
 authoritatively denounced and the rights 
 resumed, which can only be done in time 
 of peace. 
 
 It is apparent, therefore, that a more 
 thoroughly combined and organized action 
 is necessary to obtain the desired result — 
 that of freeing this country from the fetters 
 of the Declaration of Paris — and it is felt 
 that the time has come for uniting in one 
 association all persons of every class w^ho 
 desire that the British Empire should 
 remain a first-class naval Power, and who 
 feel it their duty to work to this end. 
 
 The following propositions are laid dowti, 
 as showing summarily the necessity for 
 action in this matter : — 
 
 1. That England, being a maritime 
 country, must depend for her defence 
 upon the power of waging war effec- 
 tually at sea. 
 
 2. That war can only be waged eflfec-
 
 136 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 tually at sea by the capture of the 
 enemy's property. 
 
 3. That by the Law of Nations every 
 State when at war has the right to 
 capture its enemy's property at sea, of 
 whatever nature it be and in whatever 
 vessels it is found. 
 
 4. That every State has also a right by 
 the Law of Nations to arm and com- 
 mission private vessels as an auxiliary 
 to its naval force. 
 
 5. That the use of this auxiliary for^e is 
 esential to the effectual capture of 
 enemies' goods, as well as a necessary 
 element in the development of the 
 whole fighting power of the country. 
 
 6. That the exercise of the right of 
 seizure and confiscation, whether by 
 State vessels or commissioned private 
 vessels, while it is the most effective, 
 is the mildest and least cruel of all 
 methods of making war.
 
 APPENDIX. 137 
 
 7. That a document, known as the Decla- 
 ration of Paris of 1856^ nevertheless 
 assumed to abolish this right, and to 
 prohibit its exercise by Great Britain. 
 
 8. That an adherence to the rules laid 
 down hj the Declaration of Paris 
 would in the event of war immediately 
 deprive Great Britain of the whole of 
 the carrying trade, and drive it into 
 neutral vessels ; would deprive her of 
 the power of acting against the enemy's 
 commerce, by enabling it to be carried 
 on in security under the neutral flag, 
 thus rendering naval warfare unneces- 
 sary to the enemy, and therefore 
 impossible to Great Britain; and, 
 finally, would deprive her of the power 
 of issuing commissions to volunteer 
 vessels as an auxiliary force to the 
 Navy. 
 
 9. That by this Declaration the authority 
 and the position of Great Britain are
 
 138 MARITIME RIGHTS. 
 
 weakened in peace, wliile she Is ren- 
 dered powerless at sea in war ; and 
 that unless she withdraws from it in 
 time of peace she will be held bound 
 by it in time of war, not by her enemy 
 alone, but also by the neutral nations 
 who will profit by it. 
 10. That it is therefore necessary that 
 Great Britain should without delay 
 withdraw from the Declaration of 
 Paris, and declare it not to be bind- 
 ing. 
 
 The sole object of this League is to 
 
 PROCURE the withdrawal OF GrEAT 
 
 Britain from the Declaration of 
 Paris of 1856. 
 
 The action of the League will be to 
 spread the knowledge of the subject in 
 every possible way — whether by dissemi- 
 nating that which has been already written
 
 APPENDIX. 139 
 
 and spoken on it by tlie most eminent 
 statesmen and publicists; by private and 
 public discussion; by lectures and public 
 meetings ; by addresses to Her Majesty^ to 
 Her Ministers, and to both Houses of 
 Parliament ; or by deputations to influential 
 men. 
 
 The subscription to the League is One 
 Shilling per annum, which entitles the 
 subscriber to a card of membersiiip. 
 
 A subscription of £1 per annum entitles 
 the subscriber to one copy of all publica- 
 tions issued by the League^ and to attend 
 and vote in its meetings. 
 
 Subscriptions from two or more persons, 
 amounting to £1, entitles any one of the 
 subscribers, duly delegated by the rest of 
 them for that purpose, to receive one copy 
 of all publications issued by the League, 
 and to attend and vote in its meetings. 
 
 Members of the two Houses of Parlia- 
 ment on joining the League are immediately
 
 140 MARITIME EIGHTS. 
 
 placed on the list of Honorary Members 
 without payment of any fees. 
 
 Those who desire to join the League 
 are requested to communicate with the 
 Secretary at the Office^ 31, Essex Street, 
 Strand. 
 
 A. H. ATTEEIDGE, 
 
 Secretary, 
 
 Office of the Maeitime League, 
 31, Essex Street, Steand, 
 
 LONDON^.
 
 141 
 
 EULES FOE LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS 
 
 IN CONNECTION WITH 
 
 THE MAEITIME LEAGUE. 
 
 1. Wherever the Council can find a compe- 
 
 tent person, it will appoint him Local 
 Secretary, and, whenever a Local 
 Association is formed spontaneously, 
 its Secretary is requested to communi- 
 cate with the Central Maritime League 
 in London. 
 
 2. His duty will be to enrol members, 
 
 diffuse information, hold meetings*, 
 lectures and discussions, correspond 
 with the local representatives in Par- 
 liament, and promote petitions on the 
 subject of Maritime Eights. 
 
 3. Every assistance will be given by the 
 
 Council in London for the formation of 
 Branch Associations. 
 
 4. Each branch is expected to be self-
 
 142 APPENDIX. 
 
 supporting. Should it have any 
 surplus fands wherewith to promote 
 the general objects of the League, a 
 communication to that effect can be 
 made to the Secretary in London. 
 
 5. Any Local Secretary appointed by the 
 
 London Council will be responsible to 
 that body for all subscriptions he may 
 receive. 
 
 6. In order to preserve unity of action it is 
 
 desirable that each branch should 
 communicate through its Secretary 
 with the Council in London before 
 presenting any address to Her Majesty 
 or Her Ministers, or any petition to 
 either House of Parliament.
 
 ^