culty of formulating international law is called to mind, it is impossible not to regret that the treaty of Washington was not more carefully drawn so as to effectuate some of its ostensible purposes. That it has to some extent made clearer the position of Great Britain and the United States as neutrals may be admitted; but while it has done something to establish a principle, it has left its application as doubtful as ever. As regards the main portion of the first rule in reference to the prevention of the fitting out, arming, or equipping, and of the departure of a vessel adapted in whole or in part to warlike use, it was uncertain at the time of the promulgation of the doctrine to what extent it was the existing principle of international law. Mr. Hall, in his work on the Rights and Duties of Neutrals,' thus touches on the question:

'The direct logical conclusions to be obtained from the ground principles of neutrality go no further than to prohibit the issue from neutral waters of a vessel provided with a belligerent commission, or belonging to a belligerent, and able to inflict damage on his enemy. A commission is conclusive evidence as to the fact of hostile intent, and in order to satisfy the alternative condition it is not necessary that the ship shall be fully armed or fully manned. A vessel intended to mount four guns, and to carry a crew of two hundred men, would be to an unarmed vessel sufficiently formidable with a single gun and half its complement of seamen. But to possess any force at all, it must possess a modicum of armament, and it must have a crew sufficient at the same time to use that armament and to handle the ship. If, then, the vessel seems, at the moment of leaving the neutral port, to fulfil these conditions, the neutral must, judging from the facts, infer a hostile intent, and prevent the departure of the expedition.

On the other hand, it is fully recognised that a vessel completely armed, and in every respect fitted the moment it receives its crew to act as a man of war, is a proper subject of commerce. There is nothing to prevent its neutral possessor from selling it, and undertaking to deliver it to a belligerent either in the neutral port or in that of the purchaser, subject to the right of the other belligerent to seize it as a contraband if he meets it on the high seas or within his enemy's waters. "There is nothing," says Mr. Justice Story," in the law of "nations that forbids our citizens from sending armed vessels as well "as munitions of war to foreign ports for sale. It is a commercial "adventure which no nation is bound to prohibit." If the neutral may sell his vessel when built, he may build it to order; and it must be permissible, as between the belligerent and the neutral state, to give the order which it is permissible to execute. It would appear, therefore, arguing from general principles alone, that a vessel of war may be built, armed, and furnished with a minimum navigating crew, and.

VOL. CLXVI. NO. CCCXXXIX.

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that in this state, provided it has not received a commission, it may clear from a neutral harbour on a confessed voyage to a belligerent port, without any infraction of neutrality having been committed.' (P. 63.)

But these theoretical views and those of other jurists on this point are now, both as regards the United States and Great Britain, rather of academical than of practical importance, because the Governments of these countries have given in their adhesion in substance to the principle contained in the first rule. The Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870, more especially the eighth section of that statute, conclusively settled the principle of law in this country. Here again is an undoubted instance of the influence of the principles of American international law on that of this country, which, in its turn, will be certain sooner or later to affect the practice of other European nations. For that this principle had its rise in the United States is quite certain. An act containing it passed through Congress in 1792, and was re-enacted in 1818, and from the very beginning of their existence as a separate power the United States have followed out this doctrine. The earliest expression of it in international intercourse is found in a communication of Mr. Jefferson in 1793, when, in a despatch to the Government of Great Britain, he wrote that the practice of commissioning, ' equipping, and manning vessels in our ports to cruise on any of the belligerent parties, is equally and entirely disap'proved, and the Government will take effectual measures to prevent a repetition of it.' But whilst this principle has been consistently acted upon by those in charge of the Government of the United States, there is no question that the first of the Washington rules went far beyond the previously accepted law of the Republic. We have stated the principle in Mr. Jefferson's words: its practical extent seems to be shown by a single sentence of Mr. Clayton's in a communication by that gentleman to Baron von Roënne in 1849. "The Government of the United States,' he writes, will under its own Neutrality Act prevent war cruisers issuing 'from its ports to aid a belligerent in contest with a friendly 'state.' The result, therefore, of the three rules has been indirectly to sanction the American principle. Beyond this it has not carried the law. The extent of the obligation of this country is bounded by the proper enforcement of the Foreign Enlistment Act by its police and its officials. This is as much as any government can require from this country,

and in its turn Great Britain can require no greater vigilance from the United States.

The importance of the three rules of the treaty of Washington is in the influence of the principles which underlie them on the position of neutrals in time of war. That position is also vitally affected by the principles of international law in regard to the blockade of one belligerent port by the ships of war of another. It may be regarded as an almost universally accepted principle at the present time. that a blockade in order to be binding on neutral powers must be effective, that a paper blockade is unfair to neutrals and harmless to a belligerent. This principle has-as is clearly shown in these volumes-always been consistently adhered to by the Government of the United States, which has never been slow to point out the propriety of its views. By the Declaration of Paris this principle became binding on the persons who were parties to this instrument; and it may be regarded as singular that whilst Great Britain, who at one time did not adhere to the doctrine, gave her assent to the Declaration of Paris, the United States were not bound by it. Yet so long ago as the year 1800 Mr. Marshall had emphatically expressed the views of the United States on the subject:

'Ports not effectually blockaded by a force capable of completely investing them have not yet been declared (by the law of nations) in a state of blockade. If the effectiveness of the blockade is dispensed with, then every port of all the belligerent powers may at all times be declared in that state, and the commerce of neutrals is thereby subjected to universal capture.' (Digest, vol. iii. p. 369.)

This was repeated in very similar words by Mr. Monroe in 1816, and, as Mr. Madison pointed out several years before, the United States were among the greatest sufferers by the practice of Great Britain in the French wars. But though the United States did not become a party to the public declaration on this point in 1856, the Government of the Republic has never swerved from its ancient faith, and from a principle which its influence largely helped to make an axiom of modern international law. Thus so recently as 1885 the existing views of the United States were expressed at length and with great clearness in a despatch from Mr. Bayard relative to the affairs of the United States of Columbia, which is valuable not only as an expression of opinion, but for its historical sketch of this subject:

'The Government of the United States,' he writes, ' must regard as

utterly nugatory proclamations closing ports which the United States of Columbia do not possess under cover of a naval force which is not even pretended to be competent to constitute a blockade;'

and Mr. Bayard concludes by pointing out how his Government was forced, at the beginning of the century—

'then young in the family of sovereignties, and naturally desirous of peace with all-most reluctantly, and at great cost of blood and treasure, to undertake, as at last the sole maritime contestant, wars against Great Britain and France, to maintain the freedom of the seasand the invalidity of paper blockades.' (Digest, vol. iii. p. 379.)

Thus, whilst it is just to admit the great value of American influence on the proper settlement of this international doctrine, it is equally satisfactory to observe this continued endeavour to cause its acceptance among the Central and South. American republics. To Great Britain, as a great commercial nation, it is of the highest importance that these states should adhere to fair and well-recognised rules of international conduct. By the Monroe doctrine, the United States have assumed for themselves a paramount influence among the states of the American continent. Hence the desire of the Government of the Republic to bring these smaller governments into harmony upon questions of international law with the views now held by the United States and the European powers is one which it is to the interest of the civilised world that it should be successful. And in this sphere we may certainly look forward to the influence of the United States being increasingly felt.

For this reason also their attitude in regard to privateering is of great importance. The Government refused to be a party to the abolition of privateering by the Declaration of Paris, not from an objection to the principle but from the plainest self-interest. For the United States were willing to go further than the European powers, and altogether to exempt the private property of citizens of a belligerent state from capture at sea. 'In answer to Lord Clarendon,' writes Mr. Buchanan, then the United States Minister in London, to Mr. Marcy on March 24, 1854

'I admitted that the practice of privateering was subject to great abuses; but it did not seem to me possible under existing circumstances for the United States to agree to its suppression unless the naval powers would go one step further and consent that war against private property should be abolished altogether upon the ocean as it had been upon the land. There was nothing really different in principleor morality between the act of a regular cruiser and that of a privateer in robbing a merchant vessel upon the ocean, and confiscating the pro

perty of private individuals on board for the benefit of the captor. But how would the suppression of privateering without going further operate upon the United States? Suppose, for example, we should again, unfortunately, be engaged in a war with Great Britain, which I earnestly hope might never be the case, to what a situation must we be reduced if we should consent to abolish privateering? . . . The only means which we would possess to counterbalance in some degree their (Great Britain's) far greater numerical strength, would be to convert our merchant vessels, cast out of employment by the war, into privateers, and endeavour by their assistance to inflict as much injury on British as they would be able to inflict on American commerce.' (Digest, vol. iii. p. 484.)

Very much to the same effect was President Pierce's message in the same year, and it cannot be doubted that the policy of the American statesmen who were in power in 1854 has obtained the approval of the American people and of American jurists. But it is also certain that the abolition of privateering is a recognised step towards the abolition of the right of a belligerent to capture private property at sea. The United States would have been in a better position to obtain a general adhesion to their larger principle had they consented to agree to the abolition of privateering. That in thus urging the acceptance of the broad principle they were pressing for a just and reasonable rule of international conduct is certain. The seizure of private property on the high seas during the progress of a war may enrich the captors of one nation and may ruin the merchants of another, but scores of privateers would make no difference now in the result of a war, just as numerous captures of merchant ships by properly commissioned ships of war would be equally without effect on the issue of the struggle between two belligerents. It should be the aim of civilised nations, while making on the one hand the most effective preparations for effectual warfare, to endeavour on the other to minimise as much as possible the disasters of war to private citizens. A step in this direction would be to exempt private property at sea from capture.

Yet it is clear that the abolition of privateering may be after all but a very nominal improvement. For fast cruisers taken from the merchant service, manned by regular or volunteer seamen, and properly commissioned, are to all intents and purposes privateers in a respectable form, and under official control. And the tendency of the time is to make these auxiliary vessels an important factor in naval warfare. What Great Britain has therefore abolished in principle, she will in the next war that takes place be seen