1562. EGRESS.-Coming out with a cargo loaded after the notice of blockade, although she had entered in ballast, is breach of blockade. Betsy. Francisca.

1563. A blockading squadron ought to allow ships found in a blockaded port a reasonable time after notice to unload, and even to load and sail out. This is sometimes done. Elize.

1564. Coming out even in ballast, after having broken through the same blockade, has been held a breach of blockade. A vessel purchased from the enemy after notice of the blockade is guilty of a breach of it, although coming out in ballast. Whea. 584.

1565. A vessel licensed to enter a blockaded port is inferentially licensed to come out again with a new cargo.

1566. A ship which came out in ballast, but took on board, outside the blockaded harbour, a cargo from boats sent along the coast to meet her, was held guilty of breach of blockade. Neutralität. Stert.

1567. Blockade is a sea-siege, and consequently cannot be violated by ingress or egress by land or by inland waters. Therefore, notwithstanding a blockade, a merchant is entitled to import or export his goods, or to send his vessels by inland navigation, river, or canal, to or from a blockaded port, from or to one which is open, as freely as he may convey them by carriages or a caravan. Comet.

SECTION 8. VISITATION AND SEARCH.

A sail! a sail! a promised prize to hope

Her nation-flag-how speaks the telescope?-Corsair. 1568. Visitation and search are to be performed by an officer who is interested in the extravagant exercise of his office, who is interested in being suspicious, and who has been generally indemnified by the prize court in even unwarranted suspicion.

1569. We have spoken of it in its limited character in connection with the national revenue, and as conceded, to

some extent, with reference to piracy and the slave-trade. As an international right, or rather as a concession of neutrals to belligerents, it is confined to contraband of war, the detection of attempts to interfere with blockade, and the ascertaining that the vessel is not an enemy.

1570. It is an act of sovereignty, and therefore can be exercised only by the officers of public ships of the state. Until lately, the neutral nations were insulted by the institution of search by the licensed plunderers called privateers. If the sovereign is so destitute of war-ships as to be under the necessity, as in times of yore, of summoning the merchant service to his assistance, and thus improvising a navy, let him at least convert them into public ships, and make their commanders, however ill-disciplined, responsible for their conduct to him, and thus, for the honour of his nation, towards foreign states.

1571. The execution of the office consists in ascertaining, by her flag and papers, to what nation a ship belongs, to what port she is really bound, and by these papers and examination of her cargo, so far as it is practicable on the open sea, whether she carries contraband of war.

1572. NOT OF PUBLIC SHIPS.-As the act is one to be exercised only by the armed ships representing the sovereignty of the state, so they cannot violate the sovereign rights of any other state by visiting or searching the ships which bear its commission. No government will permit its sovereignty to be insulted, or its ships of war to be suspected of piracy, of enmity, or rendering service to a hostile. state. The neutral war-ships enjoy entire immunity from search, even within the national waters of the belligerents. If they offend, complaint of their conduct must be addressed to the sovereign of whose power they constitute a part. We have spoken of visitation and search as connected with convoy.

1573. PRIVATE VESSELS.-In time of war all private ships not under convoy are liable to the visitation and search of the ships of war of either belligerent.

1574. In time of peace, according to the law of nations, the armed ships of one nation have no right of visitation or search of the private ships of another, except when, and to the extent in which, it has been conceded by the nation to which the private ship belongs.

1575. PURPOSE.-The only purposes for which search is justified, as between a belligerent and a neutral, are to ascertain the character of a vessel, whether pirate, enemy or neutral, and to ascertain whether, if neutral, she is bound to a blockaded port or carries contraband of war.

Distinctions have been attempted between the right of visitation and search; but it is vain to attempt to define the limitation between them, for, except to the extent before mentioned, in the case of convoy, where visitation is admitted, the right of reasonable search must be admitted as a consequence. If the flag is false, the papers are probably false, and if so, the cargo may be expected to be contraband; the falsity of the flag and of the papers may be capable of detection only by a more or less rigorous examination of the cargo. But the admission of the right is conditional on its being exercised with care and moderation.

1576. England claimed a right of search for a purpose different from that of contraband; a right to search for deserters from her service, and to impress her own seamen found in neutral merchantmen. This claim was resisted by the United States, and is destitute of foundation. It was an attempt to pursue fugitives from its own into a friendly dominion, and to exercise a municipal authority within the province of another state. It was founded on the pretence of necessity; a pretence which, if a justification, would justify every crime. It is not probable that such a claim will be reasserted.

1577. The pirate is not entitled to use the flag of any nation; he is at war with all, and when he is unmistakably known, he may not only be searched, but captured by any public ship, whatever flag he may have assumed. But in

strictness, the ship of one nation has no right to search that bearing the flag of another, on suspicion of piracy. If the result of such a search is the ascertainment of the piratical character, the searcher has not committed any offence; but should the searched vessel prove innocent, and belong to a different nation, not only is compensation due to those interested in her and her cargo for any loss, inconvenience, or delay, but apology and reparation are also due to her sovereign, who should the more or less leniently regard the act according to the reasonableness of the suspicion that the ship was piratical, or if not, that she belonged to the nation whose vessel made the search.

1578. The right of search is a great concession to another state. America most properly refused to permit it in time of peace, on account of the total inadequacy, as well as uncertainty, of the compensation in cases of mistake.

1579. It is a concession only to belligerents, a concession to war. It springs out of the congress and conflict of rights. The neutral merchants have a right to traverse the sea, and to carry their commerce to every friendly port, to all the ports of those who are enemies of each other, and to sell their merchandise of every kind and description, from a silk shawl to a ship armed and provisioned; the belligerent has a right to intercept contraband, and to prevent the interruption of his maritime siege, and, as incidental to those rights, the right of visitation and search. But this power is conceded to the belligerent only on condition that if by mistake he capture innocent vessels, he make full compensation and amends. English prize courts recognized the concession, but the condition was rarely observed.

1580. WHERE.-A belligerent may search the neutral in any part of the open sea, or in the belligerent's own national waters, or in those of her allies, or in the national waters of his enemy and his allies. But a belligerent cannot search any vessel, enemy or neutral, in the national waters of a neutral state.

1581. CONDUCT.-Search, though a belligerent, is not a hostile right; it is to be exercised upon a ship which appears to be a friend, and when she is found to be neutral, upon the subject of a friendly state, although suspicion may arise as to the cargo she bears. If that contain military stores the penalty is measured, and the punishment is not to be unnecessarily increased. While it was deemed a right to seize the goods of an enemy in the neutral ship, the captor was under a peculiar duty to alleviate, by all possible means, the loss and inconvenience which the owner or master at peace with him might sustain from the detention of his unoffending vessel, for the purpose of taking out the cargo of his friend. Search must be conducted as an act of amity, in such a manner that if he detect no offence, the officer who has instituted it may feel that he and those on whom it has been inflicted part as friends.

1582. The cruiser's signal requiring submission to search should be as inoffensive as practicable,-the exhibition of her own national flag, and firing a gun at first without shot; there should be the least possible show of hostility. The vessel which institutes the search should, when convenient, remain a mile distant, and send an officer with an ordinary boat's crew. Whatever force is necessary, but no more, may be employed in the exercise of the duty. The officer who conducts it, so long as he acts in a lawful manner, is not responsible for damage which may occur to the ship or crew by her resistance.

1583. On the other hand, the neutral is bound to observe the like courtesy and friendly conduct towards the ships of war and of commerce of each belligerent, whatever sympathy he may entertain for the one, or whatever towards the other may be his sentiments of distrust or dislike. He must exhibit towards each all acts of friendship, and submit complacently to such inconveniences, however distressing, as are indispensable to the rights and conditions of war, and, as one of them, to the due exercise of the right of search.

1584. On the signal from the belligerent, the neutral