and ports, from the Elbe to Brest inclusively, and that these rivers and ports were accordingly to be considered as actually blockaded." On this occasion the British Government maintained that the blockade was not notified to Foreign Governments, until the necessary measures had been adopted by the British Admiralty to make the blockade effective, and that the blockade itself was maintained by a force sufficient to make the entrance into the ports along the line of coast, included within the limits of the blockade, manifestly dangerous. If it be assumed, as a matter of fact, that these conditions were fulfilled, there can be no doubt that the lawfulness of the blockade was not in any way affected by the great extent of coast over which it was maintained. In the war carried on by the United States of America against Mexico in 1846, all the ports, harbours, bays, outlets, and inlets, on the West Coast of Mexico south of San Diego, were declared by Commodore Stockton to be under blockade. The United States Government on this occason, in reply to the suggestions of the British Government that such a proceeding savoured of a paper blockade, did not express any doubts of their Right to maintain so extensive a blockade; but they stated that under Commodore Stockton's general Notification no port on the West Coast was regarded as blockaded, unless there was a sufficient force to maintain it, actually present, or temporally driven from such actual presence by stress of weather, intending to return 88. In the war de 86 Cf. Manning's Law of Nations, p. 332. 87 Note presented by M. Forster, the British Minister, to the United States Government, in 1807. Hautefeuille, Des Nations Neutres, Tom. II. p. 257. 88 Note from Mr. Buchanan, of 29 Dec. 1846, to Sir Richard Pakenham, with its enclosure. Correspondence with the United States Government respecting blockade, presented to Parliament by command of her Majesty, 1861. clared on 28 March 1854, by the three Allied Powers, Great Britain, France, and the Ottoman Porte, against Russia, the combined fleets of Great Britain and France established a blockade of the whole of the Russian Ports in the Baltic and in the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. So likewise in the war which is at present being carried on by the Government of the United States of America against the States which seceded from the Federal Union in 1861, and have formed themselves into a Confederation of States under the name of the Confederate States of America, the Government of the United States has established a blockade of the whole of the ports on the seaboard of the Confederate States, and this blockade has been enforced against neutral vessels with the same rigour, as the blockade of a single port is entitled to be enforced under the Law of Nations. On the other hand the penalties for breach of a blockade can only be applied to vessels engaged in trade with the ports of the blockaded coast. They cannot be extended to vessels carrying cargoes to ports, which are connected by an inland water-communication with the blockaded ports, nor to vessels carrying cargoes to ports, from which the cargoes are to be dispatched over land to the blockaded ports 89. Thus Lord Stowell held that there would be no breach of the blockade of Amsterdam committed by a vessel carrying to Rotterdam or to Embden goods, which had an ulterior destination to Amsterdam by land, or by an interior canal navigation. A blockading squadron can only apply its force to a blockaded port from the side of the sea. The internal communications of a country are out of its reach, and in no way subject to its operation. 89 The Ocean, 3 Ch. Rob. p. 298. The Jonge Pieter, 4 Ch. Rob. p. 83. The Frau Margaretha, 6 Ch. Rob. p. 92. PART II. Limited operation ade. § 118. It is competent for a belligerent Power to of a block- limit the operation of a blockade, provided that the limitation applies to all neutral Nations in an equal manner. Thus the Commanders of the French and British fleets established a blockade of the mouths of the Danube, with the object of preventing supplies being carried to any Russian port on that river. They accordingly forbade the vessels of all neutral Nations from entering the river. Nous sousignés, vice-amiraux, commandant en chef les forces navales combinées de France et d'Angleterre dans la Mer Noire, déclarons par la présente, au nom de nos gouvernements respectifs, et portons à la connoissance de tous ceux que la chose peut intéresser, que nous avons établi le blocus effectif du Danube, afin d'arrêter tout transport d'approvisionnements aux armées Russes. Sont comprises dans ce blocus toutes celles des embouchures du Danube, qui communiquent avec la Mer Noire, et avertissons, par les présentes, tout batiment de toute Nation, qu'ils ne pourront entrer dans ce fleuve jusqu'à nouvel ordre. Le Vice-Amiral, command- Le Vice-Amiral, command ant en chef l'escadre française, HAMELIN. Fait à Baltchik 1 Juin, 1854. ant en chef l'escadre G. W. D. Dundas 9o. Again, on the occasion of Great Britain establishing a blockade of the ports of the continent of Europe from Brest to the river Elbe, that blockade was to be limited in its effect by a division of the line of coast into two parts, of which the part from Ostend to the river Seine was to be considered as under the most rigorous blockade, while the rest of the line was allowed to be open to the navigation of neutral vessels, laden with other goods than contraband of war or enemy's property, as long as those ahrt und Handel in Kriegszeiten. V. p. 13. Hamburg, 1854. 90 Sammlung Officieller Actenstücke in Bezug auf Schiff vessels had not been laden at a port belonging to or occupied by the enemies of Great Britain, or on the other hand were not proceeding to such port from the blockaded line, and provided those vessels had not previously violated the blockade ". This order was further restricted on 15 Sept. 1806 by a Notification, that the blockade was raised on that part of the line, which extended from the Elbe to the Ems inclusively. blockade § 119. It was observed by Lord Stowell in the Effect of a Byfield that a license expressed in general terms, on licenses. which purports to authorise a vessel to carry a cargo into or out of any of the enemy's ports, will not authorise her to enter or come out of an enemy's port, which is under blockade. In order that a blockaded port should be exempted from the restrictions, which are incident to a state of blockade, it must be specially designated with such exemption in the license, otherwise a blockaded port shall be taken to be an exception to the general description in the license 2. This dictum of Lord Stowell seems rather to conflict with the view taken by him at an earlier period in the case of the Hoffnung 3, when he held, that when a license had been granted to certain vessels, pursuant to a Power given to his Majesty in Council under an Act of Parliament, to import Spanish wool from ports of Holland, it operated to protect the parties acting under it from the effects of a blockade, which had been notified on the same day on which the license was granted. "I think," he says on this occasion, "that I am bound to presume that it was intended the parties should 91 Manning's Law of Nations, p. 332. 93 93 The Hoffnung, 2 Ch. Rob. p. 162. 20 Aug. 1799. 92 The Byfield, Edwards, p. Juno, 2 Ch. Rob. p. 116. 188. 9 Dec. 1809. The have the full benefit of importing these articles without molestation from a blockade, which could not be unknown to the great Personage, under whose authority, and in whose name this license issued. I add further, that I think this license bears very materially on some other licenses which had been previously granted; for when I see that the blockade was not considered as a ground for withholding those licenses, I am led to suppose that it was not intended to have the effect of suspending the operation of such as had been already granted." Sir Alexander Croke, the learned Judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court of Halifax, in considering the mutual bearing of these two judgments of Lord Stowell upon each other, concluded that the dictum of Lord Stowell in the Byfield must be construed in connection with the particulars of the case, and that all, which Lord Stowell decided in that case was, that as the Byfield was lying in an open port of the enemy at the time the license was granted to it, the subsequent transaction within a blockaded port, which it was sought to protect by the license, was not in contemplation, when the application for the license was made, and therefore the intention of the Government which issued the license, to protect the transaction could not be presumed. Sir Alexander Grant accordingly held, that the judicial opinion expressed by Lord Stowell in the Hoffnung remains untouched by his decision in the Byfield; and that notwithstanding there is no express provision in a license or a blockading order to that effect, yet whenever it appears to have been the intention of his Majesty or of those who exercise his authority, that the permission given by a license should not |