tion was made of a vessel called the Sumter, as one of those in respect of which the Government of the United States conceived itself to have claims against Great Britain. But no claims in respect to the Sumter were in fact included in the detailed list which was inclosed in that dis patch and then presented to Her Britannic Majesty's government, nor have any such claims been presented before or since. Nor is Her Britannic Majesty's government aware of any grounds on which such claims could be made with any show of reason. Her Britannic Majesty's government is, therefore, entitled to assume that the claims referred to the tribunal are claims "growing out of the acts" of the four vessels above named, or of some or one of them.

The circumstances under which these four vessels respectively sailed from British ports, and came into the possession of the government of the Confederate States, and the considerations which the tribunal will be called upon to apply to them respectively, are, as will hereafter be seen, dissimilar in very material respects. Her Britannic Majesty's government, however, maintains that in respect of none of them was there, on its part, any failure in the discharge of international obligations rendering Great Britain justly liable to make reparation to the United States for acts committed by them, or by the persons in whose possession they respectively were, out of the jurisdiction of the British Crown.

For the guidance of the tribunal in adjudicating on the questions submitted to it, three "rules" have been laid down, which, by agreement between the two governments, are to be taken as applicable to the case, and to be reciprocally observed in future by Great Britain and the United States. These rules purport to lay down certain specific obligations incumbent in time of war on neutral powers. By them, and by such principles of international law not inconsistent with them as the tribunal shall determine to have been applicable to the case, the tribunal is to be governed. Her Britannic Majesty's government has declined to give its assent to these rules as a statement of principles of international law which were actually in force at the time when the claims now submitted to arbitration arose. But by Her Britannic Majesty's government, as well as that of the United States, they are believed and intended to be not at variance, but in substantial accord with the general principles of that system by which both powers alike hold themselves bound, which they alike desire to preserve sacred and inviolate, and from the dominion of which neither of them proposes to withdraw the questions that have unhappily arisen between them. Accepting the rules sincerely and without reserve, in the manner expressed in the sixth article of the treaty, Her Britannic Majesty's government will assume (as is, indeed, clearly implied in the terms of that article) that they are to be construed with reference to, and in connection with, that longestablished body of international rules and usages which was, and still is, common to Great Britain and the United States with other civilized peoples.

STATEMENT OF EVENTS WHICH ATTENDED AND FOLLOWED THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR AND OF THE COURSE PURSUED IN RELATION TO IT BY GREAT BRITAIN AND OTHER MARITIME POWERS.

PART II-Intro

Before approaching the cases of the vessels to which the claims in question are understood to relate, it is necessary to state concisely the previous course of events, and to place clearly ductory statement. before the tribunal the course of conduct which had been pursued during the earlier period of the war by Her Britannic Majesty's govern

ment.

GENERAL PROPOSITIONS.

The following propositions are believed by Her Majesty's government to be in accordance with the principles of international law and the practice of nations:

1. It is the duty of a neutral government, in all matters relating to the war, to act impartially toward the belligerent powers; to concede to one what it concedes to the other; to refuse to one what it refuses to the other.

2. This duty, inasmuch as it flows directly from the conception of neutrality, attends the relation of neutrality wherever it exists, and is not affected by considerations arising from the political relation which before the war the belligerents may have sustained to one another.

3. Maritime war being carried on by hostilities on the high seas, and through the instrumentality (ordinarily) of vessels commissioned by public authority, a neutral power is bound to recognize, in matters relating to the war, commissions issued by each belligerent, and captures made by each, to the same extent and under the same conditions as it recognizes commissions issued and captures made by the other.

4. Where either belligerent is a community or body of persons not recognized by the neutral power as constituting a sovereign state, commissions issued by such belligerent are recognized as acts emanating, not indeed from a sovereign government, but from a person or persons exercising de facto, in relation to the war, the powers of a sovereign government.

THE CIVIL WAR.

In the year 1861 a civil war broke out in the United States. Seven States-South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas-had one by one formally renounced their allegiance to the Union and declared themselves independent. They had formed themselves into a separate coufederation, under the title of the "Confederate States of North America;" had adopted a federal constitution, instituted a federal legislature, executive, and judiciary; taken measures

to raise an army of 100,000 men, and appropriated sums of money amounting to $2,029,485 (equal to more than 10,000,000 francs) toward the creation of a navy. This series of events commenced in November, 1860, and was completed before the end of March, 1861, at which time the confederate legislature had been for more than a month in session. In April, 1861, hostilities commenced between the Government of the Union and the Confederated States of the South; and shortly afterward four other States-Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas -likewise separated themselves from the Union and joined the confederacy, which thus embraced a vast and compact territory, extending from the river Potomac to the confines of the republic of Mexico.

The war began with the attack and bombardment by the confederates of Fort Sumter, a fort situate at the mouth of Charleston Harbor, and held by a small garrison of United States troops. On the reduction of this place, which was speedily effected, followed within a few days the seizure, by Virginian militia, of Harper's Ferry, an important military arsenal at the confluence of the rivers Shenandoah and Potomac, and of the great naval arsenal and ship-building yards of Norfolk, where the James River discharges itself into Chesapeake Bay. Fort Sumter [5] surrendered on the 13th April. On the 15th the *President of the United States issued a proclamation calling out militia to the number of 75,000 men. On the 17th Mr. Jefferson Davis (who had been elected in February to the office of President of the Confederate States) published a counter-proclamation, inviting applications for letters of marque and reprisal to be granted under the seal of the Confederate States against ships and property of the United States and their citizens." By a further proclamation, dated the 19th April, President Lincoln, after referring to the proposed issue of letters of marque, declared that he had deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the seven States then in revolt, "in pursuance of the laws of the United States and of the law of nations in such case provided."3

For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach, or shall attempt to leave any of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the commander of one of the said blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and date of such warning; and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port for such proceedings against her and her cargo as prize as may be deemed advisable.

By another proclamation, dated the 27th April, the blockade was declared to be extended to the ports of Northern Virginia.

On the publication of these proclamations, Lord Lyons, then Her Britannic Majesty's envoy at Washington, requested of the Government of the United States that he might be furnished, for the guidance of British merchants, with definite information as to the manner in which the blockade was to be enforced. He was assured, in reply, by Mr. Seward, then United States Secretary of State, that it would be conducted as strictly according to the recognized rules of public law, and with as much liberality toward neutrals, as any blockade ever was by a belligerent.5

To the minister of the Queen of Spain, Mr. Seward wrote as follows: SIR: In acknowledging the receipt of your note of the 30th ultimo, on the subject of the blockade of the ports in several of the States, I deem it proper to state for your further information:

1. That the blockade will be strictly enforced upon the principles recognized by the

law of nations.

2. That armed vessels of neutral states will have the right to enter and depart from the interdicted ports.

3. That merchant-vessels in port at the time the blockade took effect will be allowed a reasonable time for departure.

I avail, &c.,

(Signed)

W. H. SEWARD.

The blockade declared by the foregoing proclamations was actually instituted, as to the ports within the State of Virginia, on the 30th April; and was extended to the principal ports on the sea-board of the other Confederate States before the end of May. A considerable number of neutral ships and cargoes were captured for breaches or alleged breaches of blockade, some at or near the mouths of blockaded ports, others on the high seas. Vessels or cargoes so captured were carried before, and condemned by, courts of the United States exercising jurisdiction in matters of prize; and the validity of the sentences thus pronounced was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States, which is the highest court of appeal in such matters. Mr. Justice Grier, in delivering the judgment of the court on this question, said:

To legitimate the capture of a neutral vessel or property on the high seas, a war must exist de facto, and the neutral must have a knowledge or notice of the intention of one of the parties belligerent to use this mode of coercion against a port, city, or territory in possession of the other.

In a subsequent part of the same judgment he added:

Whether the President, in fulfilling his duties as commander-in-chief in suppressing an insurrection, has met with such armed hostile resistance, and a civil war of such alarming proportions as will compel him to accord to them the character of belligerents, is a question to be decided by him; and this court must be governed by the decisions and acts of the political department of the Government to which this power was intrusted. He must determine what degree of force the crisis demands. The proclamation of the blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the court that à state of war existed which demanded and authorized a recourse to such a measure under the circumstances peculiar to the case. The correspondence of Lord Lyons with the Secretary of State admits the fact, and concludes the question.

[6]

*On the 3d May, 1861, President Lincoln directed that the naval force of the United States should be increased by the enlistment of 18,000 additional seamen, and their land forces by fifty additional regiments, partly of regular troops and partly of volunteers, with an aggregate maximum of 64,748 men.

It is needless to refer particularly to the subsequent history of the war waged on the American continent. It is well known that the forces of the United States, attempting to penetrate into Virginia, encountered a severe defeat; that great armies were raised on both sides; that hostilities were carried on over an immense area, with varying fortune, for nearly four years; and that the contest terminated, in 1865, in the complete reconquest of the eleven Confederated States, which, after being held for a considerable time under military control, were finally re-admitted to their original position in the Union.

The events stated above are matters of general notoriety, recorded in the history of the period.

On the 30th April, 1861, Mr. Jefferson Davis, as President of the Confederated States, addressed to the congress of those States a message, which contained the following passage:

The operations of the navy department have been necessarily restricted by the fact that sufficient time has not yet elapsed for the purchase or construction of more than

Appendix, vol. iii, p. 10.

a limited number of vessels adapted for the public service. Two vessels have been prepared and manned, the Sumter and McRae, and are now being prepared for sea at New Orleans with all possible dispatch.

On the 1st May, 1861, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State of the United States, addressed to the British Minister at Washington a dispatch of that date, which contained the following passage:1

The so-called Confederate States have waged an insurrectionary war against this Government. They are buying, and even seizing, vessels in several places for the purpose of furnishing themselves with a naval force, and they are issuing letters of marque to privateers to be employed in preying on the commerce of this country. You are aware that the President has proclaimed a blockade of the ports, included within the insurgent States. All these circumstances are known to the world.

On the 6th May, 1861, the congress of the Confederate States passed an act entitled "An act recognizing the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States, and concerning letters of marque, prizes, and prize-goods." The first section of this act was as follows:

The congress of the Confederate States of America do enact that the president of the Confederate States is hereby authorized to use the whole land and naval force of the Confederate States to meet the war thus commenced, and to issue to private vessels commissions or letters of marque and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, under the seal of the Confederate States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the United States, and of the citizens or inhabitants of the States and Territories thereof; provided, however, that property of the enemy (unless it be contraband of war) laden on board a neutral vessel, shall not be subject to seizure under this act; and provided further, that vessels of the citizens or inhabitants of the United States now in the ports of the Confederate States, except such as have been since the 5th April last, or may hereafter be in the service of the Government of the United States. shall be allowed thirty days after the publication of this act to leave said ports and reach their destination; and such vessels and their cargoes, excepting articles contraband of war, shall not be subject to capture under this act during said period, unless they shall have previously reached the destination for which they were bound on leaving said ports.

The act then proceeded to lay down in detail regulations as to the conditions on which letters of marque should be granted to private vessels, and the conduct and behavior of the officers and crews of such vessels, and the disposal of prizes made by them, similar to the regula tions which have been ordinarily prescribed and enforced with respect to privateers in the United States and by the maritime powers of Eu rope.

The fourth and seventh sections were as follows:

4. That, before any commission or letters of marque and reprisal shall be issued as aforesaid, the owner or owners of the ship or vessel for which the same shall be requested, and the commander thereof for the time being, shall give bond to the Confederate States, with at least two responsible sureties not interested in such vessel, in the penal sum of $5,000, or, if such vessel be provided with more than 150 men, then in the penal sum of $10,000, with condition that the owners, officers, and crew who shall be employed on board such commissioned vessel shall and will observe the laws of the Confederate States, and the instructions which shall be given them according to law for the regulation of their conduct, and will satisfy all damages and injuries which shall be done or committed contrary to the tenor thereof by such vessel during her commission, and to deliver up the same when revoked by the president of the Confederate States.

7. That before breaking bulk of any vessel which shall be captured as aforesaid, or other disposal or conversion thereof, or of any articles which shall be found on board the same, such captured vessel,* goods, or effects, shall be brought into some port of the [7] Confederate States, or of a nation or State in amity with the Confederate States, and shall be proceeded against before a competent tribunal; and after condemnation and forfeiture thereof shall belong to the owners, officers, and crew of the vessel capturing the same, and be distributed as before provided; and in the case of all captured vesV els, goods, and effects which shall be brought within the jurisdiction of the Confed

Appendix, vol. iii, p. 12.

Ibid., p. 13.