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"make free goods; and that timber and naval stores are not "contraband of war.

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6.

"The necessity, however, for the strong and express stipu"lations of the Armed Neutrality itself by all the various "Powers which joined it, showed" (as the note went on to state) that those maxims were not in themselves law, but merely the stipulations of compact; that, by the real law, "belligerents had a right to seize the property of enemies on "board the ships of friends; that Treaties alone could oblige them to renounce it; and that America, therefore, "could not be accused of partiality to Great Britain, because "she did not compel her to renounce it” (a).

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CCVII. In the year 1795, the United States made a Treaty with Spain, including a stipulation the reverse of that contained in their Treaty with England in the same In the Spanish Treaty it is stipulated, that cargoes in neutral ships shall be free, no distinction being made as to who are the proprietors of the merchandises (b).

year.

In 1799, the United States entered into a Treaty with Prussia, by the 12th article of which they declared, that as experience showed that the maxim, free ships make free goods, had not been respected in any of the wars since 1785, Prussia and the United States should, in a future time of peace, either separately between themselves, or jointly with other Powers, concert measures for the future condition of neutral commerce in time of war; meanwhile these two Powers agree that their ships shall conduct themselves as favourably towards the merchant vessels of the Neutrals as the cause of the war then existing might permit, observing the general rules of International Law (c).

But in the next year, 1800, the old French doctrine of free ships free goods, enemy's ships enemy's goods, was

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incorporated into a Treaty between France and the United States (d).

During the war which commenced between the United States and Great Britain in 1812, the Prize Court of the former uniformly enforced the generally acknowledged rule of International Law, that enemies goods in neutral vessels are liable to capture and confiscation, except as to such Powers with whom the American Government had stipulated, by subsisting Treaties, the contrary rule, that free ships should make free goods (e).

CCVIII. In the Treaty of Commerce of 1797, between Russia and England, the article which relates to neutral commerce (f) is silent on the question, and therefore the old law remained unchanged.

In the next year (1798), Russia entered into a Treaty with Portugal, in which it was stipulated, that free ships shall make free goods, but also that neutral goods in an enemy's ship should be confiscated (g).

CCIX. The first Armed Neutrality (h) took its rise, as we have seen, in the ignoble rivalship of contending courtiers and the vanity of a dissolute Empress of Russia. The second Armed Neutrality had not a more distinguished origin; it was the offspring of a mad Emperor of the same kingdom.

The question of Convoy is connected with the Right of Search, and the discussion of it belongs to a subsequent chapter; but it should be mentioned here, as having excited some irritation in the Danish and Swedish Courts against England; this, however, had been allayed by the mission of Lord Whitworth, the English Ambassador to Copenhagen.

At this juncture the Russian Emperor Paul claimed, without a shadow of reason (i), the island of Malta, which had

(d) De Martens, vii. 103.-Arts. XIV. XV.

(e) Wheaton's Elem. p. 580.-Ed. Lawrence, 1855.

(f) Art. X. ib. 362.

(g) Art. XXIV. ib. 550.

(h) Manning, p. 274.

(i) He alleged the Treaty of 1798, which was a Treaty of subsidy,

been recently ceded to the English. He had become Grand Master of the once celebrated order of the knights in that island, and his attachment to this imaginary distinction was supposed to be one of the subjects on which his continually increasing insanity manifested itself. The refusal of England to surrender this island exasperated Paul, and, with an open contempt of the stipulations of an existing Treaty (k), he laid an embargo on all British property within his dominions, and with a semi-Asiatic notion of justice, ordered one British vessel to be burned because another had escaped from harm (7).

The next step of Russia was characteristic; it was to renew the abandoned Armed Neutrality, as if for the purpose of demonstrating how little the League had ever been concerned with general international justice, and how obviously it had always been intended to injure one particular State. Sweden(m), Denmark (n), and Prussia (0) joined the revived confederacy, which contained the old stipulations, with this important addition :--

"That the declaration of the officers who shall command "the ship of war, or ships of war, of the King or Emperor, "which shall be convoying one or more merchant ships, that "the convoy has no contraband goods on board, shall be "sufficient; and that no search of his ship, or the other ships. "of the convoy, shall be permitted. And the better to insure respect to those principles, and the stipulations founded upon them, which their disinterested wishes to preserve "the imprescriptible rights of neutral nations have suggested,

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in which no clause affords a pretext for the demand.-De Martens, vi.

557.

(k) The 12th Article provided that, in the event of the breaking out of war, the goods and persons of neither country should be detained or confiscated.

(1) De Martens, vii. 155.

(m) Ibid.

(n) lb. 181.

(0) Ib. 188.

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"the High Contracting Parties, to prove their sincerity and justice, will give the strictest orders to their captains, as "well of their ships of war as of their merchant ships, to "load no part of their ships, or secretly to have on board "any articles, which, by virtue of the present Convention, may be considered as contraband; and, for the more com"pletely carrying into execution this command, they will respectively take care to give directions to their Courts of Admiralty to publish it, whenever they shall think it necessary; and to this end, the regulation which shall "contain this prohibition, under the several penalties, shall "be printed at the end of the present Act, that no one may "plead ignorance."

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This attempt to introduce a new positive law upon contraband, happily, like the rest of the Treaty, abortive, does not require further discussion in this place (p).

By other Articles of the Treaty, mutual assistance is promised in case of attack (q).

CCX. The second Russian League was destined to enjoy even a shorter existence than the first. Great Britain began her war upon this new confederacy against her by an attack upon Denmark. Nelson's immortal victory at Copenhagen was followed by another event of great importance at the time, and which demonstrated in what personal feeling the new League had originated. There is no despotism, however unlimited, none, however absolute and unquestionable, according to the positive law or usage of the country over which it is exercised, as not to find, sooner or later, some check in the necessities and feelings of mankind. The tyranny of Tiberius and Robespierre (r) became at last unendurable to the poor as well as the rich, and then ensued, by violent means, their death. The ferocious acts

(p) Vide post.

(4) De Martens, vii. 172.

(1) "Sed periit postquam cerdonibus esse timendus

Ceperat, hoc nocuit Lamiarum cæde recenti."-Juv. Sat.

of the Emperor Paul, and the well-founded belief that they sprang, in a great measure at least, from a disordered brain, brought about at this critical period a similar result; not, however, from the combination of the humble and great, but from the aristocracy alone. Paul suddenly disappeared from the stage on which he was acting so terrible a part. He was assassinated, and, as it is generally, and certainly not without good warrant, believed, in accordance with the deliberate resolution of the notables of his Court. The act has indeed been defended as a necessary measure of selfdefence, no other remedy being supplied for such an emergency by the constitution of Russia. We are only concerned in this work with the result, which was very remarkable. Alexander, the successor to Paul, immediately concluded a Treaty with England, which adjusted the dispute. By this Treaty, in June, 1801, certain concessions were made by England respecting Convoy, and it was stipulated that goods embarked in neutral ships should be free, except contraband and the property of enemies. Thus was the old rule re-established between Russia and England, and to this Treaty both Sweden and Denmark acceded (s).

CCXI. Among the most remarkable works upon International Jurisprudence which the crisis of the second Armed Neutrality produced, were the Letters of Sulpicius, by Lord Grenville, and a Speech, afterwards published by the same distinguished statesman, upon the Treaty between England and Russia in 1801.

In the Letters, Lord Grenville-who had but recently resigned the office of Foreign Secretary, which he had filled for many years--maintained, with perfect knowledge

(s) De Martens, vii. 260-281, contains the three Treaties. Russia had only a few days before made a Treaty with Sweden, embodying the articles of the Armed Neutrality, March, 1801 (De Martens, vii. 329), so that, in one and the same week, Russia embodied the two opposite principles in her Treaties with the same nation; and it has been gravely argued that the Treaties constitute the International Law on this subject-Manning, 278.

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