After went into the service of that Government as a man- Case of the Santisima Trinidad. tisima Trinidad. Case of the San- fine his statement to the case of a vessel of war equipped and dispatched as a commercial venture, without previous arrangement or understanding with the belligerent, and at the sole risk of the owner. "It is apparent," he says, "that she was sent to Buenos Ayres on a commercial venture." The whole of his subsequent remarks turned upon the absence of an intent, in Baltimore, in the mind of the owner, before she sailed, that she should, in any and at all events, whether sold or not, go into the service of the belligerent. The judges who were brought in contact with the witnesses in that case, and had access to all the original papers, and knew personally both the men and the facts, and who, therefore, had opportunities which are denied to us of judging of the merits of the case, seem to have reached the conclusion that this particular transaction was a purely commercial venture; and they placed the decree of restitution of the captured property upon later violations of law. It may, however, be said that the ordinary experiences of human life show that such deeds border upon the debatable ground between good faith and fraud. The court which decided that case evidently did so on the impressions which the judges received from the particular evidence before them; for, on the very next Controlled by day, the most illustrious of American judges, John the case of the Marshall, then Chief Justice of the United States Gran Para. in the parallel case of the Irresistible, a vessel built at Baltimore, sent to Buenos Ayres, and there commissioned as a privateer, pronouncing the opinion of the same court, declared that the facts as to the Irresistible showed a violation of the laws of the United States in the original construction, equipment, and arming of the vessel; and that, should the court decide otherwise, the laws for the preservation of the neutrality of the country would be completely eluded. In justice to the highest court of the United States, these two cases should be read together by all persons wishing to know its views upon the duties of a neutral nation in time of war, since if there be any difference in the principles involved in the two cases, then the true construction of the law is to be found in the carefully considered language of the court in the case of the Gran Para. The cases were both argued in February, 1822: the Gran Para upon the 20th, and the Santisima Trinidad on the 28th. The opinions were delivered in March: that of the Santisima Trinidad on the 12th; that of the Gran Para on the 13th. There can be no doubt that they were considered together in the consultation-room. Therefore any apparently broad or ill The Grand Para, 7 Wheaton's Reports, 471. mission of the of of war. Effect of a com- considered expressions in the opinion rendered on fender as a vessel the 12th of March are to be regarded as limited and corrected by the carefully considered expressions of the Chief Justice on the following day. Having thus demonstrated that the principles for which the United States contend have been recognized by the statesmen, the jurists, the publicists, and the legislators of Great Britain; that they have the approbation of the most eminent authorities upon the continent of Europe; and that they have been regarded by the other Powers of Europe in their dealing with each other, it only remains to show how the liability of the neutral for the acts of cruisers illegally built, or equipped, or fitted out, or armed within its ports, may be terminated. It has been intimated, in the course of the discussions upon these questions between the two Governments, that it may be said, on the part of Great Britain, that its power to interfere with, to arrest, or to detain either of the belligerent cruisers whose acts are complained of ceased when it was commissioned as a man-of-war; and that, consequently, its liability for their actions ceased. The United States might well content themselves with calling the attention of the Tribunal of Arbitration to the utter uselessness of discussing these questions, if the liability to make com Effect of a com mission of the of of war. pensation for the wrong can be escaped in such a frivolous way. It is well known how the several fender as a vessel British-built and British-manned cruisers got into the service of the insurgents. Few of them ever saw the line of the coast of the Southern insurgent States. The Florida, indeed, entered the harbor of Mobile, but she passed the blockading squadron as a British man-of-war. In most cases the commissions went out from England-from a branch office of the insurgent Navy Department, established and maintained in Liverpool at the cost and expense of the insurgent so-called Government. From this office the sailing orders of the vessels were issued; here their commanders received their instructions; and hence they departed to assume their commands and to begin the work of destruction. They played the comedy of completing on the high seas what had been carried to the verge of completion in England. The parallel is complete between these commissions and those issued by Genet in 1793, which were disregarded by the United States at the instance of Great Britain. If a piece of paper, emanating through an English office, from men who had no nationality recognized by Great Britain, and who had no open port into which a vessel could go unmolested, was potent not only to legalize the depredations of British built and manned cruisers |