forfeiture under the laws of customs or excise, is authorized to seize such ships.

- 1434. The vessel is to be prosecuted and condemned according to the customs, excise, and navigation laws.

1435. The only prosecution which has occurred since the passing of this Act was instituted in this present month of June, and the owners of the Alexandra were acquitted. The Chief Baron Pollock, who tried the case, expressed his opinion, that if she was built for sale, or on contract to be sent from England unarmed, though to be armed elsewhere, the law was not infringed; that it would not be violated unless she was to be furnished, fitted, and equipped and armed in England.-Times, 25th June, 1863.

1436. It is the duty of neutral governments, and their general practice at the breaking out of a war, to admonish their subjects and others of the restraints which are imposed upon their conduct by the municipal law, and also of the dangers they will incur by transgressing the law of nations, or entering upon contraband trade.

1437. In some cases, and to some extent, the belligerent may, directly or indirectly, appeal to the municipal law, as by prosecuting, or procuring the prosecution of indictments in the ordinary courts. When, or to the extent in which such remedy is not open to him, he must invoke the interposition of the neutral state; and on sufficient information, require it, in conformity with its neutral duty, to put its powers over refractory subjects in force.

SECTION 3. RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE SUBJECT.

1438. The subjects of a neutral state are not directly responsible to a belligerent for anything done within the limits of their own country, whether on land or on the neutral margin of the sea. Within these limits the subjects are mere molecules of the mass constituting the nation, which cannot be injured without injury to the whole. The sovereign is responsible for their conduct, and they are re

sponsible to the municipal law. This rule extends to all foreigners resident within the neutral nation, except such as are amenable, on their allegiance, to the belligerent state. If the belligerent deem himself aggrieved by the equipment of vessels or the enlistment of troops within neutral territories, he must require the sovereign to observe the law of nations; it is for the sovereign to maintain the neutrality and honour of the state.

1439. But beyond the limits of the presidial line, unless the neutral sovereign undertake and efficiently perform the office of restraining his subjects from carrying contraband, or attempting the breach of blockade, the belligerent is entitled to employ his own powers of repression, and to assert his belligerent rights.

1440. PRIVATE ARMAMENTS.- As soon as a private ship, armed and manned, has left the national waters of a neutral state, to aid and take part in the war with one of the belligerents, under his commission or without, whether manned entirely or partially with subjects of the neutral country, the adverse belligerent may attack, take, or destroy her as a foe; and in some cases, without affront to the neutral, execute the crew as pirates. Such is their character; but the horror of unnecessary bloodshed, and the fear of retaliation, causes them in general to be treated as prisoners of war.

1441. MERCENARIES.-As soon as war breaks out between two wealthy nations, swarms of adventurers of every description are ready to leave the neutral shores to participate in plunder and pay. The armies of both belligerents in general teem with fighting men of this stamp. Not unfrequently their best commanders and soldiers, both on land and at sea, are foreign mercenaries, whose trade, sentiment, and education are war, plunder, and pay, with occasionally a spice of romance, or a real or pretended sympathy in the cause in which they are engaged.

When such adventurers set forth to sell their swords and

services, they may be intercepted and treated as contraband of war, and, peradventure, hired into the captor's hosts. When they set forth already commissioned and enlisted, they are leniently dealt with as prisoners of war, and not unfrequently tempted to earn their guerdon in the captor's cause; at least they are free, as Sir Dugald Dalgetty, to do so, when the term of their original service has expired.

The subjects of a neutral state carry contraband and violate blockades at their peril; they are not under a duty to abstain from the one or to respect the other.

SECTION 4. CONTRABAND.

1442. Although a ship which sails forth armed and manned for the service of the enemy is an enemy's ship, the neutral subjects are not by reason of war to be disturbed in their trades and vocations. Except so far as they are restrained by municipal laws, shipbuilders may build vessels of every description, without stint in quality or number; they may build line-of-battle ships by the dozen, iron-clads, and steamers, for whoever will buy them. They may equip them in readiness for battle, in the perfection of machinery and the panoply of war. The builder is exemplarily impartial. If one belligerent grudge the acquisition to the other, he has only to offer a higher price and he will surely obtain the menacing frigate, or, if she be already sold, a similar or a better vessel. War-ships may be in progress of building for the hostile belligerents in the same yard. The enemies may supply themselves with artillery and rifles from the same assortment and stock.

1443. After the ship is built, we may inquire into her character and pursuits. She may have been purchased by a neutral; if so, the neutral may put his war-crew on board her, and she may sail to her destined port. She may have been purchased by or for or given to a belligerent; if so, she is the belligerent's vessel, and as such, as soon as she has left the neutral waters, whatever her destination, the adversary may in

tercept, capture, and condemn her, if he can. She may be unsold, the property of the builder, or she may have been purchased by neutrals on speculation, to be offered for sale in another market. As soon as she has left the protected region, her character depends on her destination;-if that be to a neutral port, however near the coasts of a belligerent, to be sold there, although the agents of one belligerent only are waiting to bid for her, she constitutes the unassailable, the unquestionable, even, according to the strictest notions of belligerent rights, the innocent goods and chattels of the owner. If the adverse belligerent want her, unless he can bargain for her on the sea, he must go to the market and offer a tempting price. But when her destination is to the belligerent, there arises a conflict between the neutral and belligerent rights; the neutral is entitled to sell his vessel, and to send her where he thinks it most to his advantage, for sale; but the belligerent, on the natural right of defence, is entitled to intercept the weapons with which he will otherwise be assailed. The right of self-defence against destruction is a higher right than that of the trader to sell his ship, and when two rights come in conflict, that which is paramount must prevail. The war-ship destined to a belligerent port for sale is subject to this right; she is contraband of war.

1444. But this, which is the foundation and, with its incidents, the limit of the rights of war in respect of contraband, does not affect the trader with guilt; although the expression guilty is a convenient mode of distinction in speaking of capture and search.

1445. Nor is the sending of an armed ship fully equipped, even to a belligerent port, for sale, an offence against either the American (Santissima Trinidad) or English municipal law. It is merely an impartial commercial speculation, of which, as in many other adventures, the speculator runs the risk. He does not trouble himself with any intention or order, that she should be employed in the service of any

nation or person against any other; his intention is to sel her to the best customer, be he one of his own or any other neutral nation, or of either of the parties to the war; after the purchase is completed, it is indifferent to him whether she founder or not. Undoubtedly, when he sends her to a belligerent port, he hopes to sell her there; but he may be disappointed of his customer, or if she is sold, his intention is accomplished as soon as he has received the price.

1446. The ship which has been sold to a belligerent, whether armed or unarmed, is then to be considered by the adversary, whatever her destination, an enemy's ship. The ship of war sent by the neutral owner to an enemy's port. for sale is simply contraband of war.

1447. We have now to consider what contraband is, using that expression for contraband of war.

1448. We have already spoken of the armed ship, which is the perfection of contraband, as it contains all essentials of an armament, with one great exception, the military commander and his crew.

1449. As the shipbuilder is at liberty to pursue his vocation to so formidable an extent, it is obvious that the founders, the powder manufacturers, and all the artisans of the machinery and implements of war, may pursue their craft, and that they will pursue it vigorously, when their productions are most in request. As the ships may be built in the neutral dockyards, so the mortars, the cannon, the rockets, the shell, the rifles, the bayonets and the swords, the gunpowder, and all the other materials of destruction, may occupy the quays and fill the warehouses of the neutral ports. The neutral sovereign may behold all these menacing materials on his wharves, and loading on board his merchant ships. He is not bound to interfere with their export; he is not bound to inquire as to their destination. Though he

may deem it proper for his own safety, he is not bound to

refuse the clearance for belligerent ports. The cruisers of the belligerents are on the sea; he has not protected this