"Common fame in regard to the breaking up of a blockade will justify a neutral in sailing for the blockaded port, although, as we have seen, it is not sufficient notice to him; he ought to have more evidence of an interference with the normal state of things than he needs to have of a return to it."* Notice of dis- "It is no doubt the duty of a belligerent State which has continuance. formally notified the commencement of a blockade, to give equal and immediate publicity to its discontinuance; but a vessel bound for, or approaching a port at a time between the actual cessation of blockade and the public notification of the fact, is not liable to confiscation. If a ship is captured under such circumstances, the utmost, but also the legitimate, effect of a notification is that the neutral who has probably started with the intention of violating the blockade, and whose adventure has since become innocent from events with which he has had nothing to do, is bound to prove the existence of a state of facts which frees his property from the penalty to which it is prima facie exposed. The presumption of the court will be that a regularly notified blockade continues to exist, until that presumption is displaced by evidence. In the case of a de facto blockade, the burden of proof lies always upon the captor."† As it is the plain duty of neutral governments to render no trals respect assistance to either belligerent, so it is equally the duty of the neutral subject to respect a blockade lawfully established, since, as we have seen, a blockade is an active operation of war. Sec. 10. The duty of neuing blockades. "The object of a blockade being that all foreign connection and correspondence with the blockaded port is to be entirely cut off, a neutral, who by any act attempts to put himself in connection and correspondence with such a port, is guilty of the unneutral act of violating a blockade."‡ The following propositions received the assent of a majority of the Supreme Court of the United States in 1861: "Neutrals have a right to challenge the existence of a blockade de facto and also the authority of the party instituting it. They have a right to enter the ports of a friendly nation for the purposes of commerce, but are bound to recognize the right of a belligerent engaged in actual war, to use this mode of coercion for subduing the enemy. *Woolsey, Sec. 187. + Hall, p. 618. Castle, p. 107. "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 belligerents to use this mode of coercion against a port, city or territory in possession of the other. "War is that state in which a nation prosecutes its right by force; and it is not necessary that both parties should be acknowledged as independent or sovereign States, nor that war should be solemnly declared. "Where the sovereign of a neutral State has acknowledged the existence of a war by his proclamation of neutrality, a citizen of that State is estopped from denying the existence of the war and the belligerent right of blockade."* The neutral governments, on receipt of notification of a regularly established blockade, publish the information for the protection of their subjects, and at the same time warn them that any act in violation of the blockade will be done at their peril. breach of blockade is unlawful. Vattel says: "All commerce with a besieged town is absolutely Sec. 11. Why prohibited. If I lay siege to a place, or even simply blockade it, I have a right to hinder any one from entering, and to treat as an enemy whoever attempts to enter the place or carry anything to the besieged, without my leave; for he opposes my undertaking, and may contribute to the miscarriage of it, and thus involve me in all the misfortunes of an unsuccessful war."† "There is a general agreement that it is unlawful for a neutral vessel knowingly to attempt to break a blockade, whether by issuing from or entering the blockaded place. Such an act, especially of ingress, tends to aid one of the belligerents in the most direct manner against the designs of the other, and is therefore a great departure from the line of neutrality. And a similar act on land would involve the loss of the most innocent articles intended for a besieged town. M. Ortolan places the Ortolan's views, obligation to respect a blockade on the ground that there is an actual substitution of sovereignty, that is, that one belligerent has possession by occupancy of the waters of the other. But this is a formal way of defending the right of blockade, and may be found fault with, perhaps, for the reason that sovereignty * Lawrence's Wheaton, Suppl. p. 13. † Vattel, p. 329. Hautefeuille on the right of blockade. Sec. 12. What is breach of blockade. over water along a coast is merely an incident to sovereignty on the adjoining land, which the blockader has not yet acquired. The true ground of the right is simply this, that the belligerent has a right to carry on a siege, and that his act of commencing such a siege places neutrals under an obligation not to interfere with his plans. If the sea were a common pathway to the very coast, this right would still subsist."* Hautefeuille holds the same views as Ortolan, as to the origin of the right of excluding neutrals from blockaded ports, and, as a consequence, would limit breach of blockade to the actual passage of a vessel over the conquered territorial waters.† Ortolan does not absolutely claim this limit for the operations of a blockade, but admits that France, as well as other nations, has considered sailing for a blockaded port with knowledge of the blockade a sufficient ground for capture and condemnation. Another consequence of the position assumed by these writers is, that any absence of the blockading squadron, however occasioned, causes a cessation of the blockade. This, as has been shown, is not recognized as the law on the subject. "Although the law of nations does not admit of the condemnation of a neutral vessel for the mere intention to enter a blockaded port unconnected with any fact, yet the English and American Courts have decided that the fact of sailing for a blockaded port, knowing it to be blockaded, is an attempt to enter such port, and, therefore, from the very commencement of its voyage, the vessel is in delicto, and liable to be punished."" And General Halleck says: "An actual entrance into a blockaded port is by no means necessary to render a neutral ship guilty of a violation of the blockade. It is the attempt to commit the offence which, in the judgment of the law, constitutes the crime. If the vessel knows of the blockade before she begins her voyage, the offence is complete the moment she quits her port of departure. If that knowledge is communicated to her during the voyage, its continued prosecution involves the crime and justifies the penalty. If it is not given to her till she reaches the blockading squadron, she must immediately retire, or she is made liable to confiscation."§ *Woolsey, Sec. 186. Castle, p. 107. † Hautefeuille, Vol. III, P. 120. Professor Woolsey says, in regard to breach of blockade : "A vessel violates the law of blockade by some positive act of entering or quitting, or by showing a clear and speedy intention to enter a blockaded port. A remote intention entertained at the outset of the voyage, for instance, might be abandoned, and the seizure of such a vessel on the high seas would be unlawful. It must be at or near the harbor to be liable to penalty."* If this were accepted as the law of nations on the subject, the question would arise, at what period of the voyage must the intention to violate the blockade be abandoned, and how must such change of purpose be shown in order that the vessel be held innocent? A belligerent cruiser could hardly be left to decide such questions, and the only safe course for a commanding officer, falling in with a neutral vessel under such suspicious circumstances, would be to send her into one of his own ports, that the facts might be passed upon by a competent court. uous voyages. The doctrine of continued, or continuous, voyages, first laid Sec. 13. Contindown by Sir Wm. Scott, with reference to colonial trade, has been applied by the Courts of the United States to blockades as well. It has been held that, even if a vessel stops at an intermediate neutral port, or transfers her cargo to another vessel to be carried on, or even if the cargo is consigned to a person at the neutral port and duties paid in order to cover the transaction, provided the ultimate destination to a blockaded port, or in the case of contraband goods, to the enemy's country, can be proved, the vessel on any part of her voyage, and the cargo before or after being landed, are held liable to confiscation. † A further extension of this doctrine arose during the War of Secession, the courts of the United States holding that, in the case of vessels and goods bound to the Rio Grande, where the goods were taken by lighters to Matamoras and thence to the American side of the river, there was sufficient ground for condemnation. Neutrals could not be prohibited from sending goods to a Mexican port, but if proof could be adduced of their ultimate destination to any portion of the territory under blockade, they could be seized as if sent directly to a blockaded * Woolsey, Sec. 188. † Blatchford, pp. 387-434. The Stephen Hart and Springbok. Case of the Case of the Peterhoff. port, although to reach their ultimate destination, land carriage through a neutral territory would be required. * The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of the Springbok, on appeal, was as follows: "We have already held in the case of the Bermuda, where goods, destined ultimately for a belligerent port, are being conveyed between two neutral ports by a neutral ship, under a charter made in good faith for that voyage, and without any fraudulent connection on the part of her owners with the ulterior destination of the goods, that the ship, though liable to seizure in order to the confiscation of the goods, is not liable to condemnation as prize. "Upon the whole case we cannot doubt that the cargo was originally shipped with the intent to violate the blockade; and that the owners of the cargo intended that it should be transhipped at Nassau into some vessel more likely to succeed in reaching safely a blockaded port than the Springbok; that the voyage from London to the blockaded port was, as to cargo, both in law and in the intent of the parties, one voyage; and that the liability to condemnation, if captured during any part of that voyage, attached to the cargo from the time of sailing."† The cargo was condemned, and the vessel restored without costs or damages to claimants. In the case of the Peterhoff, the decree of condemnation in the District Court was reversed as to the vessel and innocent portion of the cargo, on the ground that the blockade did not affect the interior communications with the enemy's territory. The Supreme Court held that "Contraband merchandise is subject to a different rule in respect to ulterior destination than that which applies to merchandise not contraband. The latter is liable to capture only when a violation of blockade is intended; the former when destined to the hostile country, or to the actual military or naval use of the enemy, whether blockaded or not. The trade of neutrals with belligerents in articles not contraband is absolutely free, unless interrupted by blockade; the conveyance by neutrals to belligerents of contraband articles is always unlawful, and such articles may always be seized during transit * Blatchford, p. 463. The Peterhoff. |