neutral is not to be interdicted from his commerce, or the employment of his shipping, merely because either belligerent derives social advantage from dealing with him, or because the adversary deems that advantage excessive. It is further said that by affording this advantage to a belligerent, that belligerent is enabled to employ, for hostile purposes, ships of war, with which he must otherwise convoy and protect his traders; and that the belligerent is moreover thereby empowered to employ the crews of the vessels, previously occupied in such commerce, on board his men-of-war. It may be true that no ships of war are occupied in convoying such traders, and that the crews of some, or many of the traders, may have been drafted into the ships of war; but all that proves is, that the enemy has relinquished wholly or partially the trade which has been assumed by the neutral, not that he would otherwise have carried it on, not that the crews would have remained on board the traders, not that the ships of war would have been employed as convoys. The neutral is not responsible for the contingent advantages which a belligerent friend of his may derive from the peaceful assistance he affords him; and the adverse belligerent, also his friend, has no right to interfere with such assistance. Should a neutral sovereign undertake any specific commerce for a belligerent, for the purpose of releasing and enabling him to employ his military forces more efficiently against the adverse belligerent, he would be guilty of a breach of neutrality; but the accidental occupations of one merchant or shipowner, or of many, must be considered with regard to their immediate purposes and direct results, and not with regard to conjectural, possible, or even probable consequences.

1490. NEUTRAL GOODS IN ENEMY'S SHIP.-Some prizecourts held that the cargo of a neutral on board the ship of the enemy was liable to confiscation. It is difficult to ascertain upon what principle. Reduced to its simple condition, it is that the military officer of one Power has

found the property of another, with which it is on friendly terms, on board a certain ship; unless the character of that ship alter the question, it is simply piracy to take it. That ship however belongs to an enemy, therefore the officer has a right to take the ship. The owner of the goods has exposed himself to the danger of his goods being destroyed or damaged in conflict, and to the inconvenience arising from the necessity of separating the goods from the vessel; and as a belligerent can only send his prize to his own country, or temporarily to some convenient friendly port, and as the distinction between the characters of the ship and the cargo are not apparent, that inconvenience may be considerable, and attended with great expense and delay. This inevitable inconvenience the owner, who has so embarked his commodities, must endure. But the neutral and the enemy of the captor were friends of each other, and the same right of chartering or employing the vessel as between them, continued to exist, as if all the world had continued in peace; the goods were lawfully, though subject to inconveniences, on board of the vessel; they were therefore the goods of a friend of the captive in a proper place. The English prizecourt did not proceed so far, on the absurd principle that mixing with the enemy warranted confiscation, as to condemn the neutral cargo, but it manifested great reluctance in recognizing the neutral ownership in commodities so embarked.

1491. The declaration of Paris runs thus:-"Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag."

1492. The neutral is still subject to the danger and inconveniences to which we have referred, and must make out his title in the prize court; but, subject to these hazards, he may embark his cargo in a belligerent vessel.

1493. If the captor can distinguish the cargo, and can, consistently with his duties, convey it conveniently to its destination, it is proper that he should do so, and thereby

earn for himself the freight which the enemy would have received had he not been intercepted.

1494. ENEMY'S GOODS IN NEUTRAL SHIP.-The English and others asserted a right to confiscate the goods of an enemy in a neutral ship. There was some plausibility in their argument; indeed, it is the most rational of those of the asserters of extravagant, miscalled by some extreme, belligerent rights. They assert that the belligerent has a right to take the property of the enemy. The neutral denies at least the universality of the proposition, and adds, you have no right for such purpose to invade the dominions or injure the commerce of your friend; you have no right to arrest and divert your friend's ship from her voyage because there is on board her that, as to which you assert a right of appropriation, but, which she was entitled to carry. She is entitled to traffic with that enemy of yours, and you have no right to molest such traffic; she is entitled to retain and carry to its destination, according to her contract, the cargo she has taken on board, without your interference; you have no right on board her, except to see that she bears nothing to the enemy which can be made use of against you as an engine or munition of war.

1495. The declaration of Paris is, "The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war."

1496. This relieves the neutral vessel from all question as to her innocent cargo; but the prize court demands very strict proof of the neutrality of every vessel which the captor has thought proper to suspect and examine.

1497. They who maintained a belligerent right to take the cargo of an enemy on board a neutral vessel, on the ground that the belligerent had a right to take his enemy's property, asserted as a consequence a belligerent right to take the persons of his enemies found on board; for, according to them, it is the first principle of war that a belligerent had a right to take his enemy's person.

1498. This notion was unsustainable, for the same reasons

that the claim to take the enemy's cargo could not be sustained, and is denounced in effect by that declaration of Paris to which we have last referred. Had it been sustainable the Trent was liable to arrest, and the Confederate emissaries on board her were properly prisoners of war. The unfortunate precedents of England induced her to rely on a technicality, instead of protesting against an outrageous insult to her sovereignty, and a glaring violation of neutral rights.

1499. All neutral commerce is innocent, except in contraband of war.

SECTION 7. BLOCKADE.

1500. The neutral is entitled to carry on with each belligerent without interruption all commerce, except in contraband of war; and is entitled to enter every port of each belligerent, who will admit him, without the interference of the adversary.

1501. This right, like the dealing in contraband, is subject only to one restriction, its conflict with the belligerent's right of self-defence. The right of self-defence does not rest in mere resistance, it extends to the disabling of the antagonist, even by destruction, and, among nations, to the subduing of all the forces and fortresses of the foe. While the belligerent's army is employed in besieging a city, he is entitled to prohibit all access by land; while his fleet is employed in reducing a port, he is entitled to prohibit all access by the water; while besieging the port by land, and blockading it by sea, he is entitled to prohibit access in either direction: but these are the limits of his belligerent rights. He has no right to prohibit the entrance of neutral commerce into any port which he is not endeavouring to master by a sea-siege. A lawful blockade is not for the purpose of shutting out commerce, but of capturing the town; when directed to its legitimate object, it may incidentally exclude every ship, from the pleasure-boat and fishing

craft to the neutral man-of-war. The exclusion of shipping and their cargoes is the incident, and not the lawful purpose of blockade. As well might he cover the sea with his cruisers, or stop all the narrow inlets of trade. He cannot challenge the innocent cargo on the ocean, he cannot seize it in the strait; can he entitle himself to seize it by gathering his cruisers in the offing, and proclaiming a blockade? They are still only cruisers; they are not engaged in the military operation of a siege; they are entitled only to intercept, in that as in any other station, contraband of war. Before a blockade is effective to exclude commerce, we must inquire whether it is directed against, and effective to endanger, the port. See Westlake. And see Macqueen.

1502. The evil example set by the English Orders in Council, and the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon (1805-1807), and the extravagant pretensions of belligerents asserted in the war of desperation during which they were issued (Spes and Irene), have left erroneous impressions as to the legitimate objects and purposes of blockade. The blockade of the Confederate ports, to which the European Powers, bound, as they imagine, by their own bad precedents, have so ignominiously submitted, was founded not on the siege of the forts or fortresses, but on the incapacity of the Washington Government to collect the customs there.

1503. It is at least established by the declaration of Paris that "blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective."

1504. Assuming that this does not require that the blockade be efficient to endanger the place, it must nevertheless be constantly efficient to exclude ingress and egress of ships. It cannot be constituted except by the continued presence of a naval force, sufficient to prevent communication without evident danger of capture. (Frederick Molke. Arthur.) It is a matter of fact (Betsy); unless it exist in sufficient vigour, it is not instituted by proclamation.

1505. The first requisite is that the force should be suf