natural indication furnished by the well-defined path of the Gulf Stream, to expect an immunity from belligerent warfare, for the space between that limit and the American shore. It ought, at least, to be insisted, that the extent of the neutral immunity should correspond with the claims maintained by Great Britain around her own territory, and that no belligerent right should be exercised within "the chambers formed by headlands, or anywhere at sea within the distance of four leagues, or from a right line from one headland to another." (b) In the case *31 of the Little Belt, which was cruising many miles from the shore between Cape Henry and Cape Hatteras, our government laid stress on the circumstance that she was "hovering on our coasts;" and it was contended on the part of the United States, that they had a right to know the national character of armed ships in such a situation, and that it was a right immediately connected with our tranquillity and peace. It was further observed, that all nations exercise the right, and none with more rigor, or at a greater distance from the coast, than Great Britain, and none on more justifiable grounds than the United States. (a) There can be but little doubt, that as the United States advance in commerce and naval strength, our government will be disposed more and more to feel and acknowledge the justice and policy of the British claim to supremacy over the narrow seas adjacent to the British isles, because we shall stand in need of similar accommodation and means of security. (b)

It was declared in the case of Le Louis, (c) that maritime states claim, upon a principle just in itself and temperately applied, a right of visitation and inquiry within those parts of the ocean adjoining to their shores. They were to be considered as

(b) Mr. Madison's Letter to Messrs. Monroe and Pinckney, dated May 17th, 1806.

(a) Mr. Monroe's Letter to Mr. Foster, October 11th, 1811, and President's Message, November 5th, 1811.

(b) In placing the commerce and navigation of states, by treaties of commerce, on the basis of equality, it is sometimes deemed advisable to except in express terms the coasting trade or coastwise navigation, of the respective parties, and to reserve the regu lation of that trade to the separate laws of each nation. See the convention of commerce and navigation between the United States and the Peru-Bolivian Confederation, May 28, 1838, and between them and the Kingdom of Greece, August, 1838, and between them and Portugal, April, 1841, and between them and the Republic of Ecua dor, June 13, 1839.

parts of the territory for various domestic purposes, and the right was admitted by the courtesy of nations. The English hovering laws were founded upon that right. The statute 9 Geo. II. c. 35, prohibited foreign goods to be transshipped within four leagues of the coast without payment of duties; and the act of Congress of March 2d, 1799, c. 128, sec. 25, 26, 27, 99, contained the same prohibition; and the exercise of jurisdiction, to that distance, for the safety and protection of the revenue laws, was declared by the Supreme Court in Church v. Hubbart, (d) to be conformable to the laws and usages of nations.1

3. Rights of Commerce. As the end of the law of na32 tions is the happiness and perfection * of the general society of mankind, it enjoins upon every nation the punctual observance of benevolence and good-will, as well as of justice, towards its neighbors. (a) This is equally the policy and the duty of nations. They ought to cultivate a free intercourse for commercial purposes, in order to supply each other's wants, and promote each other's prosperity. The variety of climates and productions on the surface of the globe, and the facility of communication, by means of rivers, lakes, and the ocean, invite to a liberal commerce, as agreeable to the law of nature, and extremely conducive to national amity, industry, and happiness. (b) The numerous wants of civilized life can only be supplied by mutual exchange between nations of the peculiar productions of each; and who that is familiar with the English classics, has not dwelt with delight on the description of the extent and blessings of English commerce, which Addison has given, with such graceful simplicity and such enchanting elegance, in one of the Spectator's visits to the Royal Exchange? (c) But as every nation has the right, and is disposed to exercise it, of judging for itself, in respect to the policy and extent of its commercial arrangements, the general freedom of trade, however reasonably and strongly it may be inculcated in the modern school of political economy is but an imperfect right, and necessarily subject to (d) 2 Cranch, 187.

(a) Vattel's Prelim. sec. 12, 13, b. 2, c. 1, sec. 2, 3.

(b) Vattel, b. 2, c. 2, sec. 21.

(c) Spectator, i. No. 69.

But see Wheat. pt. 2, ch. 4, Dana's note 108; Twiss, pt. 1, § 181.

such regulations and restrictions as each nation may think proper to prescribe for itself. Every state may monopolize as much as it pleases of its own internal and colonial trade, or grant to other nations, with whom it deals, such distinctions and particular privileges as it may deem conducive to its interests. (d) The celebrated English *navigation act of *33 Charles II. contained nothing, said Martens, contrary to the law of nations, notwithstanding it was very embarrassing to other countries. When the United States put an entire stop to their commerce with the world, in December, 1807, by laying a general embargo on their trade, without distinction as to nation, or limit as to time, no other power complained of it; and the foreign government most affected by it, and against whose interests it was more immediately directed, declared to our government, (a) that as a municipal regulation, foreign states had no concern with it, and that the British government did not conceive that they had the right, or the pretension, to make any complaint of it, and that they had made

none.

No nation has a right, in time of peace, to interfere with, or interrupt, any commerce which is lawful by the law of nations, and carried on between other independent powers, or between different members of the same state. The claim of the Portuguese, in the height of their maritime power in India, to exclude all European people from commerce with Asia, was contrary to national law, and a just cause of war. Vattel called it a pretension no less iniquitous than chimerical. (b) The attempt of Russia to appropriate to herself an exclusive trade in the North Pacific met with a prompt resistance on the part of this country; and the government of the United States claimed for its citizens the right to carry on trade with the aboriginal natives, on the northwest coast of America, without the territorial jurisdiction of other nations, even in arms and munitions of war. (c)

(d) Puff. b. 4, c. 5, sec. 10. Vattel, b. 1, c. 8, sec. 92, 97; Martens, Law of Nations, 146, 148; 1 Chitty on Commercial Law, 76-81; Mr. Canning's Letters to Mr. Gallatin, of September 11th and November 13th, 1826; Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Canning, September 22d and December 28th, 1826, and Mr. Clay to Mr. Gallatin, November 11th, 1826.

(a) Mr. Canning's Letter to Mr. Pinckney, September 23d, 1808. (b) B. 2, c. 2, sec. 24.

(c) Mr. Adams's Letter to the Russian Minister, March 30th, 1822. See, also,

Treaties of commerce, defining and establishing the rights and extent of commercial intercourse, have been found to be of great

utility; and they occupy a very important title in the code *34 of national law. They were considered, *even two centu

ries ago, to be so conducive to the public welfare as to overcome the bigotry of the times; and Lord Coke (a) admitted them to be one of the four kinds of national compacts that might, lawfully, be made with infidels. They have multiplied exceedingly within the last century, for it has been found by experience, that the general liberty of trade, resting solely on principles of common right, benevolence, and sound policy, was too vague and precarious to be consistent with the safety of the extended intercourse and complicated interests of great commercial states. Every nation may enter into such commercial treaties, and grant such special privileges, as they think proper; and no nation, to whom the like privileges are not conceded, has a right to take offence, provided those treaties do not affect their perfect rights. A state may enter into a treaty, by which it grants exclusive privileges to one nation, and deprives itself of the liberty to grant similar privileges to any other. Thus, Portugal, in 1703, by her treaty with England, gave her the monopoly of her wine trade; and the Dutch, formerly, by a treaty with Ceylon, engrossed the cinnamon trade, and, latterly, they have monopolized the trade with Japan. (b)1 These are matters of strict legal right; but it is, nevertheless, in a moral sense, the duty of every nation to deal kindly, liberally, and impartially towards all mankind, and not to bind itself by treaty with one nation, in contravention of those general duties which the law of nature dictates to be due to the rest of the world. (c)

Mr. Forsyth's Letter to the American Minister at St. Petersburgh, November 3d, 1837.

(a) 4 Inst. 155.

(b) Chitty Comm. Law, 40, 41, 42.

(c) It has been the policy of the United States to encourage, in its diplomatic intercourse with other nations, the most perfect freedom and equality in relation to the right and interests of navigation. This is the principle contained in the commercial treaty between the United States and the federation of Central America, of the 5th December, 1825. By that treaty, whatever can be imported into, or exported from,

1 This monopoly has been put an end to by treaties with various countries.

As to the history of the policy mentioned in note (c), inf. see Oldfield v. Mar

riott, 10 How. 146. See further the treaties with Peru, 10 U. S. St. at L. 926; and with the Argentine Confederation, ib 1005.

4. Right of Passage over Land.-Every nation is bound, in time of peace, to grant a passage for lawful purposes, over their lands, rivers, and seas, to the people of other states, whenever it can be permitted without inconvenience; and burdensome conditions ought not to be annexed to the transit of persons and property. If, however, any government deems the introduction of *foreigners, or their merchandise, injurious to the interests *35 of their own people, they are at liberty to withhold the indulgence. The entry of foreigners and their effects is not an absolute right, but only one of imperfect obligation, and it is subject to the discretion of the government which tolerates it. (a) The state may even levy a tax or toll upon the persons and property of strangers in transitu, provided the same be a reasonable charge, by way of recompense for the expense which the ac commodation creates. (b) These things are now generally settled in commercial treaties, by which it is usually stipulated, that there shall be free navigation and commerce between the nations, and a free entry to persons and property, subject to the ordinary revenue and police laws of the country, and the special terms and conditions prescribed by treaty.

5. Right of Navigable Rivers.-A nation possessing only the upper parts of a navigable river, is entitled to descend to the sea without being embarrassed by useless and oppressive duties or regulations. It is doubtless a right of imperfect obligation, but one that cannot be justly withheld without good cause. When Spain, in the year 1792, owned the mouth, and both banks of the lower Mississippi, and the United States the left bank of the upper portion of the same, it was strongly contended on the part of the the ports of the one country, in its own vessels, may, in like manner, and upon the same terms and conditions, be imported or exported in the vessels of the other country. The same rule is contained in the treaties of the United States with Denmark, Sweden, and the Hanseatic cities.

(a) Puff. b. 3, sec. 5, 6, 7; Rutherforth, b. 2, c. 9; Vattel, b. 2, c. 7, sec. 94; c. 8, sec. 100; c. 9, sec. 123, 130; c. 10, sec. 132; 1 Chitty, 84-89; M. Pinheiro-Ferreira (Cours de Droit Public, ii. 19, 20), complains vehemently of the checks created by passports and the preventive police of the continental governments of Europe, upon emigration and the transit and sojourn of foreigners. He calls it legal tyranny, and contrasts such policy with that of the United States, "the classic land of civil liberty." But I am of opinion, notwithstanding, that every government has the right, and is bound in duty, to judge for itself, how far the unlimited power of emigration, and of the admission and residence of strangers and emigrants, may be con sistent with its own local interests, institutions, and safety.

(b) Rutherforth, b. 2, c. 9; Vattel, b. 2, c. 10, sec. 124; 1 Chitty, 103-106.