ried beyond the refusal of freight and expenses, and is extended to the confiscation of the ship, and the innocent parts of the cargo. (a) This is now the established doctrine; but it is sometimes varied by treaty, in like manner as all the settled principles and usages of nations are subject to conventional modification. (b) 1 2. Blockades. * A neutral may also forfeit the immunities of his national character by violations of blockade; and among the rights of belligerents there is none more clear and incontrovertible, or more just and necessary in the application, than that which gives rise to the law of blockade. Bynker* 144 shoek (c) says, it is founded on the principles of natural reason, as well as on the usage of nations; and Grotius (a) considers the carrying of supplies to a besieged town, or a blockaded port, as an offence exceedingly aggravated and injurious. They both agree that a neutral may be dealt with severely; and Vattel says he may be treated as an enemy. (b) The law of blockade is, however, so harsh and severe in its operation, that, in order to apply it, the fact of the actual blockade must be established by clear and unequivocal evidence; and the neutral must have had due previous notice of its existence; and the squadron allotted for the purposes of its execution must be competent to cut off all communication with the interdicted place or port; and the neutral must have been guilty of some act of violation, either by going in, or attempting to enter, or by coming out with a (a) Bynk. Q. J. Pub. b. 1, c. 12 and 14; Heinec. de Nav. ob Vect. Merc. Vetit. Com. c. 2, sec. 6; Opera, ii. 348; The Staadt Embden, 1 C. Rob. 26; The Jonge Tobias, 1 C. Rob. 329; The Franklin, 3 C. Rob. 217; The Neutralitet, 3 C. Rob. 295; The Edward, 4 C. Rob. 68; The Ranger, 6 Rob. 125. Vide infra, 151, note. (b) In the treaty between the United States and the Republic of Colombia, and in that with the republics of Chili, of Venezuela, and of the Peru-Bolivian Confedera tion and Ecuador, it is provided, that contraband articles shall not affect the rest of the cargo, or the vessel, for it is declared that they shall be left free to the owner. In these treaties, the articles of contraband are enumerated, and they consist of munitions of war, and other things made up in a military form and for a military use, and cavalry horses, with their furniture, and all materials, manufactured, prepared, and formed expressly for the purposes of war, either by sea or land. All other mechandises and things are declared to be subjects of lawful commerce. (c) Q. J. Pub. b. 1, c. 4, sec. 11. [See Hall, Int. Law, pt. 4, c. 8.] (a) B. 3, c. 1, sec. 5. 1 Ante, 142, n. 1. On the next passage in the text, compare Historicus's letters (b) B. 3, c. 7, sec. 117. on the law of blockade, International Law, 87, 97. The fail cargo laden after the commencement of the blockade. ure of either of the points requisite to establish the existence of a legal blockade amounts to an entire defeasance of the measure, even though the notification of the blockade had issued from the authority of the government itself. (c) A blockade must be existing in point of fact; and, in order to constitute that existence, there must be a power present to enforce it. (x) All decrees and orders, declaring extensive coasts and whole countries in a state of blockade, without the presence (c) The Betsey, 1 C. Rob. 93; 1 Chitty on Commercial Law, 450; Letter from Mr. Clay, the Secretary of State, to Mr. Tudor, dated October 23, 1827. (x) The maritime blockage of a fort requires the actual presence of a force sufficiently strong to prevent, or render dangerous, attempts to pass it. 2 Hal leck's Int. Law, c. 25, p. 186. So when a port is blockaded, it is the duty of the blockaders to maintain a force sufficient of itself to enforce the blockade, and a vessel which innocently enters and departs is not liable to seizure later in its voyage. The Nancy, 1 Acton, 57. War vessels which have been commissioned by, and thrown off their allegiance to, their country, the government of which is still in possession on the land, as happened recently in the Republic of Chili, are, it seems, simply pirates, if they have not been commissioned afresh by any State or recognized belligerent, and foreign powers cannot allow to a blockade by such vessels any validity in International Law. See 16 Law Mag. & Rev. (4th Series) 164, 174; infra, p. 184, n. Unrecognized insurgents are clearly pirates so far as they commit depredations upon the citizens or ships of neutral states. The Magellan Pirates, 1 Spinks, 81; The Huascar, 3 Wharton's Digest, 474; Snow's Int. Law, 205-208. At Rio Janeiro, in 1894, the United States, with the assent of the French and Austrian naval commanders, refused to recognize belligerent rights over neutral commerce in favor of the purely naval insurgents, and its war vessels in tervened, by a show of force, to prevent the insurgent ships from firing on neutral vessels seeking to enter the port. See 19 Law Mag. & Rev. (4th Series), 32; 10 Law Quarterly Rev. 256. Forfeitures for violating the government's interdict of commercial intercourse may be enforced after hostilities have ceased. Duvall v. United States, 154 U. S. 548; see United States v. Hallock, id. 537. Besides the right of blockade in time of war, a blockade in time of peace, known as the pacific blockade," first used as a mode of international coercion in 1827, has been since often employed by the European powers. It is not, however, recognized as a legitimate form of constraint according to the rules of International Law. The Ambrose Light, 25 Fed. Rep. 408, 446. In every recorded case, while detrimental to neutrals, such proceedings have amounted to no more than an armed coercion of a feeble State into some course demanded by a much stronger one, and the object has been, either to obtain satisfaction by means falling short of war for some damage caused by the other State, or to influence its conduct by direct intervention in its affairs. See Mr. J. M. Grover's article in 14 Law Mag. & Rev. (4th Series), 127; 18 id. 313; Cob. bett's Int. Law Cases (2d ed.), 150. * of an adequate naval force to support it, are manifestly illegal and void, and have no sanction in public law. The ancient authorities all referred to a strict and actual siege or blockade. The language of Grotius (d) is oppidum obsessum vel portus clausus, and the investing power must be able to apply its force * 145 to every point of the blockaded place, so as to render it dangerous to attempt to enter, and there is no blockade of that part where its power cannot be brought to bear. (a) The definition of a blockade given by the convention of the Baltic powers, in 1780, and again in 1801, and by the ordinance of Congress, in 1781, required that there should be actually a number of vessels stationed near enough to the port to make the entry apparently dangerous. The government of the United States has uniformly insisted that the blockade should be effective by the presence of a competent force, stationed and present at or near the entrance of the port; and they have protested with great energy against the application of the right of seizure and confiscation to ineffectual or fictitious blockades. (b)1 (d) B. 3, c. 1, sec. 5. (a) The Mercurius, 1 C. Rob. 80; The Betsey, 1 C. Rob. 93; The Stert, 4 C. Rob. 65; Letter of the Secretary of the Navy to Commodore Preble, February 4, 1804. (b) Mr. King's Letter to Lord Grenville, May 23, 1799; Mr. Marshall's Letter to Mr. King, Sept. 20, 1799; Mr. Madison's Letter to Mr. Pinckney, October 25, 1801; Letter of the Secretary of the Navy to Commodore Preble, February 4, 1804; Mr. Pinckney's Letter to Lord Wellesley, January 14, 1811. In the convention between Great Britain and Russia, on the 17th of June, 1801, a blockaded port was declared to be, "that where there is, by the disposition of the power which attacks it with ships stationary, or sufficiently near, an evident danger in entering." The definition in the treaty of commerce between the United States and Chili, in May, 1832, art. 15, and the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, in May, 1838, art. 14, of a besieged or blockaded place is, "one actually attacked by a belligerent force, capable of preventing the entry of the neutral." 1 Post, 147, n. 1; The Peterhoff, 5 Wall. 28 s. c. Blatchf. Pr. 463; The Sarah Starr, Blatchf. Pr. 69; The Douro, ib. 362; Historicus, Int. Law, 89. A public blockade once established and duly notified, must be presumed to continue until notice of discontinuance, in the absence of positive proof of discontinuance by other evidence; and it is not enough that the master and mate of the captured vessel swear that they saw no blockading ships off the port. The Baigorry, 2 Wall. 474; The Circassian, ib. 135. The occupation of New Orleans by the Northern forces in 1862 did not immediately put an end to the blockade of the port. The Circassian, 2 Wall. 135; The Baigorry, ib. 474. See The Venice, ib. 258; The Josephine, 3 Wall. 83. * The occasional absence of the blockading squadron, produced by accident, as in the case of a storm, and when the station is resumed with due diligence, does not suspend the blockade, provided the suspension, and the reason of it, be known; and the law considers an attempt to take advantage of such an accidental removal as an attempt to break the blockade, and as a mere fraud. (c) The American government seemed disposed to admit the continuance of the blockade in such a case; (d) and the language of the judicial authorities in New York has been in favor of the solidity and justness of the English doctrine of blockade on this point. (a) But if the blockade * 146 be raised by the enemy, or by applying the naval force, or part of it, though only for a time, to other objects, or by the mere remissness of the cruisers, the commerce of neutrals to the place ought to be free. The presence of a sufficient force is the natural criterion by which the neutral is enabled to ascertain the existence of the blockade. He looks only to the matter of fact; and if the blockading squadron is removed when he arrives before the port, and he is ignorant of the cause of the removal, or if he be not ignorant, and the cause be not an accidental one, but voluntary, or produced by an enemy, he may enter, without being answerable for a breach of the blockade. When a blockade is raised voluntarily, or by a superior force, it puts an end to it absolutely; and if it be resumed, neutrals must be charged with notice de novo, and without reference to the former state of things, before they can be involved in the guilt of a violation of the blockade. (b) The object of a blockade is not merely to prevent the importation of supplies, but to prevent export as well as import, and to cut off all communication of commerce with the blockaded port. The act of egress is as culpable as the act of ingress, if it be done fraudulently; and a ship coming out of a blockaded port is, in the first instance, liable to seizure, and, to obtain a release, the party must give satisfactory proof of the innocence of his (c) The Frederick Molke, 1 C. Rob. 66; The Columbia, 1 C. Rob. 154; The Juffrow Maria Schroeder, 3 C. Rob. 155; The Hoffnung, 6 C. Rob. 116, 117. (d) Mr. Marshall's Letter to Mr. King, September 20, 1799. (a) Radcliff, J., 2 Johns. Cas. 187; Radcliff v. U. Ins. Co., 7 Johns. 38. (b) Williams v. Smith, 2 Caines, 1; Letter of the Secretary of State to Mr. King, September 20, 1799; The Hoffnung, 6 C. Rob. 112. VOL. I.-12 [177] intention. (c) But according to modern usage, a blockade does not rightfully extend to a neutral vessel found in port when the blockade was instituted, nor prevent her coming out with the cargo bona fide purchased, and laden on board before *147 the * commencement of the blockade. (a) The modern practice does not require that the place should be invested by land, as well as by sea, in order to constitute a legal blockade; and if a place be blockaded by sea only, it is no violation of belligerent rights for the neutral to carry on commerce with it by inland communications. (b) It is absolutely necessary that the neutral should have had due notice of the blockade, in order to affect him with the penal consequences of a violation of it. This information may be communicated to him in two ways: either actually, by a formal notice from the blockading power; or constructively, by notice to his government, or by the notoriety of the fact. It is immaterial in what way the neutral comes to the knowledge of the blockade. If the blockade actually exists, and he has knowledge of it, he is bound not to violate it. A notice to a foreign government is a notice to all the individuals of that nation; and they are not permitted to aver ignorance of it, because it is a duty of the neutral government to communicate the notice to their people. (c) In the case of a blockade without regular notice, notice in fact is generally requisite; and there is this difference between a blockade regularly notified and one without such notice; that, in a former case, the act of sailing for the blockaded place, with an intent to evade it, or to enter contingently, amounts, from the very commencement of the voyage, to a breach of the blockade; for the port is to be considered as closed up, (c) Bynk. Q. J. Pub. b. 1, c. 4; The Frederick Molke, 1 C. Rob. 86; The Neptunus, 1 C. Rob. 170; The Vrouw Judith, 1 C. Rob. 150. (a) The Betsey, 1 C. Rob. 93; The Vrouw Judith, 1 C. Rob. 150; The Comet, Edw. Adm. 32; Olivera r. Union Ins. Co., 3 Wheaton, 183. (b) The Ocean, 3 C. Rob. 297; The Stert, ib. 299, note; Letter of the Secretary of State to Mr. King, September 20, 1799. (c) The Neptunus, 2 C. Rob. 110; The Adelaide, 2 C. Rob. 111, note. 1 The Hiawatha, Blatchf. Pr. 1; s. c. Prize Cases, 2 Black, 635; The Gerasimo, 11 Moore, P. C. 88, 116. During the late war the mouth of the Rio Grande, between Texas and the neutral territory of Mexico, was not blockaded, and, it seems, it could not have been. The Peterhoff, 5 Wall. 28; s. c. Blatchf. Pr. 463. 2 The Hiawatha, Blatchf. Pr. 1. See the treaties referred to, ante, 142, n. 1. |