imposed by an Order in Council, issued under 2 and 3 Will: IV. c. 51; and that no sentence for penalties could be pronounced against individuals on a general monition. Newport. Barton v. The Queen.

1106. If a ship equipped for the slave-trade come within British waters, she is subject to punishment, although the owner is the subject of, and resident in, another country. Del Campo v. The Queen.

1107. No goods on board, except those belonging to the shipowner, are liable for his or the master's offence. Del Campo v. The Queen.

1108. The penalties are joint; the owner and master are subject to one penalty, and not two, for receiving prohibited goods on board. Del Campo v. The Queen.

1109. If a ship is fitted out with articles for the slavetrade, she is within the prohibition of the statute, although it does not appear that she is to carry back slaves in return. Regina v. Zulueta.

1110. According to the law of nations, the armament of one Sovereign has no more right to board and search the merchant ship of another, for the purpose of finding or liberating slaves, or of punishing the people of the ship for carrying them, than it has to land on his coasts to search his village for the purpose of finding and taking away stolen sheep, and hanging the inhabitants for having such animals in their possession. Buron v. Denman.

1111. By treaty such rights may, on grounds already explained, be acquired with or without qualification or restraint; concession may even extend to the power of punishment within the limits imposed by the laws of the respective countries to which the captor and the guilty vessel belong. The punishment must not exceed the narrowest of those limits, for the offender is not legally criminal beyond his offence against his own law, and the tribunal of the captor's country cannot visit the offence with a greater punishment than his law has prescribed. The investigation and sentence ought

U

to rest with the tribunals of the country to which the offender belongs. It is sometimes committed to mixed tribunals constituted by the contracting nations. In England, the subject is in some minds affected with a sentimentality bordering upon the insane, which has led to aggressions on the rights of other countries even in the language of her laws. That of 2 & 3 Vict. c. 73, s. 3, exceeds the normal bounds.

1112. The limits of this Work will permit us only to mention that the slave-trade was generally condemned by the Treaty of Paris and by the Congress of Vienna.

1113. England has been the concoctor of treaties for its suppression. Those made by the Crown have been confirmed by Act of Parliament, and, among others, the 7 & 8 Vict. c. 26, has given a limited authority to the Crown to complete such treaties and to carry them into immediate

execution.

The statute 5 Geo. IV. c. 113, confirms treaties and conventions previously made with Portugal (22 January 1815; 28 July, 1817; 15 March, 1823) and with Spain (23 September, 1817; 10 December, 1822) and with the Netherlands (4 May, 1818; 31 December, 1822), and prescribes the instructions to be given to the officers of British, Portuguese, Spanish, and Netherland ships, and the constitution of the mixed courts for the trial of offences.

In 1831, and 1833, and 1845 conventions were entered into between France and England as to mutual limited rights of search, and the instructions to be given to the officers of the French and English ships.

In 1826 and in 1835 conventions were made with Brazil, which were directed to be carried into execution by 8 & 9 Vict. c. 122. The Brazilians thought that the English, by this statute, exceeded the just limits of legislation as between independent nations. The Portuguese thought that the English exceeded those limits by the Act of the 2 & 3 Vict., to which we have already referred..

In 1841 England made treaties on the subject with Austria, Prussia, and Russia, confirmed by statute 6 & 7 Vict. c. 50.

In 1849 the English made a treaty for the suppression of slavery with Syed Syf ben Hamood, chief of Sohar, in Arabia, confirmed by 16 Vict. c. 16.

In 1851 the English made a treaty with the republic of New Granada, confirmed by statute 16 Vict. c. 17.

In 1853 the English made a treaty with certain chiefs of the Sherbro country, near Sierra Leone, confirmed by statute 18 & 19 Vict. c. 85.

On the 7th of April, 1862, the English made a treaty with the United States of America, confirmed by statute 25 & 26 Vict. c. 40.

In fact, England has made treaties on this subject with almost every emperor, king, republic, prince, emir, sheik, and other petty potentate in the world. See 1 Phil. 318–334; Whea. 186, 192; and the almost annual volumes of Hertslet, in which these conventions are contained.

1114. By some of those treaties modified co-operation of the contracting parties in the suppression of the slavetrade is stipulated, and joint modes of action are prescribed; the English have endeavoured to obtain, but other nations have been unwilling to concede, the unlimited right of search. The countries against which it was formerly exercised by the English and French remember, that one of the greatest perils of the mariner was this right of search, and deem even protection against the pirate too dearly purchased by the concession of that right.

1115. Although a country has prohibited the slave-trade, and granted to another country the right of search, it is not competent for the tribunal of the country to which that right is conceded to condemn a slave-ship as prize, at least, unless both her own law and the treaty subjects her to confiscation. Antelope.

CHAPTER VI.

SMUGGLING.

THE unlawful dealing in goods prohibited or subjected to duties by the revenue laws.

1116. According to the general laws of commerce, every man of every nation has a right to buy and sell his goods from and to whom and where he will, and to convey them to or from the port of his own or any other nation. But every nation has the right of levying for its exigencies on its own subjects, and all persons who come within its dominions, such taxes and other duties as it may deem necessary, and in such manner as it may deem meet. Foreigners therefore within the nation are liable to its revenue laws. But no country concerns itself about the revenue of any other, or its mode of collecting or enforcing its customs or taxes, except so far as may be expedient for its own commerce, and as may be stipulated by mutual conventions.

1117. In the absence of such convention, no foreign country aids another in enforcing its revenue law.

1118. The violation of revenue law is not a breach of the law of nations, nor is it the breach of the law of nature; it. is immoral only inasmuch as it is an offence against the law of one's country, which every man ought to obey, but it is liable to no punishment, except that which the law prescribes. It is, then, in every nation the subject of its own municipal, and of no other law.

1119. Although the mariners of each of the opposite countries are entitled to the convenient use, for navigation, of the whole breadth of the channel of narrow straits and seas, the vessels of the one navigating within that portion which constitutes the marine territory of the other, are sub-; ject to its revenue laws, as indeed are the ships of any country within the waters of a foreign state.

1120. As a general proposition, no vessel on the open sea is liable to search, by the ship of any nation except her own, on the suspicion of offence against the revenue laws.

The

1121. Nations however claim, and to some extent concede, to each other a degree of jurisdiction on the sea beyond the presidial line, for the protection of their revenue. United States asserted such a jurisdiction by the Act of Congress of 2 March, 1799, the English by the hovering Act, 9 Geo. II. c. 25; and by the 16 & 17 Vict. c. 107, the English assumed to deal with vessels on the open sea, in a mode which, except so far as it is warranted by treaty or acquiescence, is, with respect to foreigners and their property, hardly reconcilable with international rights.

1122. This Act is, with the 23 Vict. c. 22, and 25 & 26 Vict. c. 63, a consolidation of the law relative to the customs, and contains numerous provisions, in no less than sixty-four sections, for the prevention of smuggling. We have space only to refer very briefly to the more material of those which particularly affect the conduct of the ship.

1123. Vessels and boats not exceeding 100 tons are placed under the regulation of the Commissioners of Customs, as to their tonnage, build, and description, the limits within which they may be employed, their mode of navigation, the arms they may carry, and various other particulars (s. 199207). Such vessels, if used in the importation, removal, or conveyance of uncustomed or prohibited goods, are liable to forfeiture (s. 203), as are all vessels, belonging wholly or partly to British subjects, having false bulkheads, false bows, or other places in which goods can be secreted, or devices for running goods (s. 208).

1124. This Act declares liable to forfeiture any ship or boat, wholly or in part belonging to a British subject, or of which half the persons on board are British subjects, found to have been within four leagues of the coast, between the North Foreland and Beachy Head, or eight leagues of any other part of the United Kingdom, and any foreign ship or