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." CXCIX. 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 year. 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.2 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 favorably towards the merchant vessels of the neutrals as the course of the war then existing might permit, observing the general rules of international law. But in the next year, 1800, the old French doctrine of free ships free goods, enemy's ships enemy's goods, was incorporated into a treaty between France and the United States.* 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." CC. In the treaty of commerce of 1797, between Russia and England, the article which relates to neutral commerce 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." State Papers, 5, 281, 286. 2 Article XV. De Martens, vol. vi, p. 154. 3Ibid. vi, 676. +Ibid. vii, p. 103.-Articles XIV, XV. "Wheaton's Elem., p. 580.-Ed. Lawrence, 1855. Article X, ibid. 362. Article XXIV, ibid. 550. CCI. The first armed neutrality1 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, the island of Malta, which had 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, 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.* 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, Denmark, and Prussia" 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 con 1Manning, p. 274. 2He alleged the treaty of 1798, which was a treaty of subsidy, in which no clause affords a pretext for the demand.-De Martens, vol. vi, p. 557. 3The 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. 'De Martens, vol. vii, p. 155. $Ibid. Ibid. 181. Ibid. 188. voying 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, 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 completely 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." 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. By other articles of the treaty, mutual assistance is promised in case of attack.1 CCII. 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 Domitian and Robespierre2 became at last unendurable to the poor as well as the rich, and then ensued, by violent means, their death. The ferocious acts 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 assas 1De Martens, vol. vii, p. 172. 2Sed periit postquam cerdonibus esse timendus Coeperat; hoc nocuit Lamiarum caede madenti." Juv. Sat. iv, 153. sinated, 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 self-defense, 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 reestablished between Russia and England, and to this treaty both Sweden and Denmark acceded.' CCIII. 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 of the subject, much erudition, great vigor of logic, and manly eloquence, the ancient doctrines of international law against those of the armed neutrality. In the Speech, he declared that dangerous concessions, with respect to the coasting and colonial trade, to contraband of war and blockade, had been made by Great Britain. These subjects remain to be considered. With respect, however, to enemy's goods on board neutral ships, Lord Grenville admitted that it was fully recognized by the second section of the third article of the Convention, which implied an abandonment of the opposite principle of free ships free goods, on the part of the Northern Powers.3 1De Martens, vol. vii, pp. 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, vol. vii, p. 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. 2The argument was sound; but as subsequent treaties upon the same subject have been contracted between England and Russia, the concessions have no present operation or effect. "Vide, Phillimore's Commentaries upon International Law, 3d edition, vol. i, sec. xlix, where this remarkable speech is referred to upon the important question of permanent alterations of general international law being introduced into a treaty. PRADIER-FODÉRÉ: Traité de Droit International Public Européen et Américain. Paris, 1885-1906 P. Pradier-Fodéré. French publicist; born in 1826; died in 1904; member of the Institute of International Law. His chief work in the domain of international law is his elaborate Traité de Droit International Public, Européen et Américain, 1885-1906, 8 volumes. M. Pradier-Fodéré spent a number of years in South America and became very familiar with Latin-American conditions. His work, as the title shows, considers international law both from the European and American standpoint, and is highly regarded on the continent and in Latin America. He also published an annotated edition of Vattel, 1863, a translation of Grotius' De jure belli ac pacis, 1867, and Cours de Droit Diplomatique, 1880. Volume 8, page 176.--Privateering cast a sinister light upon the maritime rules which preceded the peace of Ryswick (1697) and the Treaty of Utrecht (1713); the vexations to which the English corsairs subjected the navigation of neutral States, especially during the last half of the eighteenth century, along with the violent conduct of the North American ship owners during the independence war of the American colonies, led the most of the European States, upon the appeal of Russia (1780), to unite for the protection of maritime commerce, in time of war, "in order that through the common efforts of all the neutral maritime Powers, there might be established, in behalf of the mercantile navigation of the neutral Nations, a natural system founded upon justice which might serve as a rule to the centuries to come." But this system never took form in a universal maritime 1The arbitrary proceedings, injurious to the neutrals, led Russia in 1780, to establish in behalf of the navigation and of the commerce of the neutrals, a system of principles which has since been termed the system of armed neutrality. The belligerent Powers (at that time they were France, Spain and Great Britain) which should have refused to recognize this system, were to have been constrained by a naval force of the neutral nations. The system of armed neutrality was formally notified by Russia to the Courts of Versailles, of Madrid and of London, and the neutral Powers having been invited to join this system it was immediately adopted by Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Prussia, Austria, Portugal and the Two Sicilies which entered into special conventions with Russia in regard to this matter. The most of these Powers were not satisfied to make their accession to this system known to the belligerent Powers, but they notified the fact to each other, and several of them made answer to that notification by forwarding an act of acceptation, so that a conventional league was established between these States, a real defensive alliance, with the object of insuring the rights of the neutrals. Furthermore, the Powers of the North decided in principle that within the Baltic Sea, as a closed sea, |