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

tuat tue emin to take the enemy's cargo could not be sustained. auc e denounced in effect by that declaration of Farie to winer we have just referred. Had it beer sustainave the Trent was liable to arrest, and the Confederate emissaries on board her were property prisoners of war. Tue unfortunate precedents of England induced her to re ou a technicality, instead of protest ng against an outrageous insuit to her sovereignty, and a glaring violation of neutrai rigute.

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 subjeet 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 sen, 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 sen-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

ficient. This does not imply sufficiency to capture in hostile encounter any number of ships which might attempt to break the blockade, far less sufficiency to repel a relieving force of the beleagured belligerent or his allies; but it must be a military force capable of reducing ordinary armed merchant vessels to submission.

1506. When a blockade has been recognized by his government the neutral must regard it as sufficient, so long as it is maintained by a force equal, or nearly equal, to that by which it was instituted.

1507. The blockading force must be sufficient of itself, its adequacy must not depend upon the occasional presence of ancillary vessels; but it is not essential that it should at all times consist of the same ships.

1503. Its sufficiency involves its being so near, and so disposed, as to exclude from access except by accident or stealth. Its disposition has been spoken of as an are about the entrance of the port, but that is quite immaterial; it must be stationed or hovering so near, and so disposed, as to make the danger of entering the blockaded place manifest.

1509. Cruisers on the coast, or shallops lying in ambush, do not constitute a blockade.

1510. In one case, the prize court declared the opinion of the Admiral to be of " great, perhaps predominating, weight," on the question of sufficiency of the blockading force. (Francisca.) On a subsequent occasion it seemed to hesitate, as well it might, in this estimate of evidence.

1511. Accidental absence of a blockading force, as during a storm, is not a discontinuance of a blockade; but it ceases unless the squadron return as soon as the storm has subsided.

1512. We have asserted that the proper criterion of the efficiency of a blockade is danger to the place invested; were that rule admitted, a somewhat more accurate notion might be formed as to the force requisite, and the position it should occupy, to constitute a lawful blockade; unless dan

ger to the place be an essential, it is difficult to find any measure for either the force or the vicinity of its station. As the neutral must not resist, an armed boat is sufficient to capture her; as she must not approach the blockaded harbour, how is she to discover the occasional relaxation of the siege ?

1513. CESSATION.-The blockade ceases on the withdrawal of the whole, or so many of the blockading vessels as to render it inefficient. This proposition does not include the accidental absence to which we have already referred.

1514. It ceases if the blockading force is beaten off by its enemy, or if so many of the blockading squadron have disappeared, though in pursuit of the enemy, or in chasing vessels which have attempted to break it so far, as to remove for a reasonable time the manifestation of danger.

1515. But it does not cease merely on the appearance of the enemy (Neptune), or during a conflict with the enemy's forces, within such a distance as not to remove the manifestation of danger. The conflict is an endeavour to maintain it, and the neutral must await the result. Nor does it cease because the force is diminished by the chasing of ships, which have endeavoured to break it, within a reasonable distance from the harbour; nor by such an absence as merely affords a lurking or hovering vessel the opportunity of slipping by the squadron.

1516. MODIFIED.-As a general proposition, the blockade must be for the exclusion of all vessels. It cannot show partiality or favour either to ships of a particular nation, or to particular vessels: if it admit any vessels, it must admit all; if it permit egress to any, all have the like right of egress. It cannot permit the ships of the enemy to go in or out, and refuse such permission to a neutral. It cannot even under treaty permit the ships of one neutral nation to pass, and prohibit those of another. It is no blockade. A treaty conferring that right is inconsistent with the law of blockade. Francisca.