The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-16 00:00:00

THE AR Y

His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge,
accompanied by Sir Richard Airey, Quartermaster-
General, and Colonei Clifton, Aide-de..Camp, ar-
rived at Portsmouth from London by evening train
on Monday. Yesterday morning his Royal High-
ness, accompanied by the above officers, Sir George
Grey and Sir George Cornewall Lewis (who had
also arrived frum London), Lord William Paule,
C. 8., Commanding the South-West District, and
Rear-Admiral Superintendent the Hon. George
Grey, embarked on board the Fire Queen steam-
tender, Master-Commander Paul, and proceeded
out of harbour to inspect the site of the proposed
forts on the Horse, Noman, and Sturbridge Shoals.
On the return of the Fire Queen to the harbour his
Royal Highness and party landed at the dockyard,
and visited the Royal Sovereign three-decker, con-
verting to a 12-gun shield-ship on Capt. Coles's
principle, several of the ships in dock, the police
station, and the steam basin, where the Psyche new
AdrLqvalty steam yacht is lying. In the afternoon
his Royal Higi7,ess visited the fortifications on the
east side of the harbour.
IA meeting of the sergeants of the ?rtsmou th
Division of the Royal Marine Light Infantry
held in their mess-room, at Foston Barracks, on
Monday evening, for the purpose of having pre-
sented to them a richly chased centre-piece, the gift
of Major-Gen. A. Anderson, late commandant of
the division, as a testimonial for their soldier-like
conduct during his command.

The inspection of the battalions of infantry was
resumed at Chatham garrison yesterday by Major-
Gen. A. J. Lawrence, C. 8., Inspector-General of
Infantry. The companies were marched to the
Lines where the depots composing the battalion,
which includes those of the Ist and 2d Battalions of
the 12th Regiment, Ist and 2d Battalions of the.
20th Regiment, 31st Regiment, 52d Light Infan-
try, and 83d Regiment, were put through a variety
of movements under the command of Colonel
R. N. Phillips. Idsjor-Gen. Lawrence occasion-
ally selected officers from the different companies to
drill the battalion. They performed the different
manceuvres in a very satisfactory manner.
At Halifax arrangements were being made for
the permanent accommodation of 5,000 troops.
The old hospital accommodation at Halifax is very
defective, means were being taken for the erection
of a building in a more suitable position. The pre-
sent garrison hospital was formerly the residence
of his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent. The
regiments at present in Halifax are the 2d bat
talions of the 16th and 17th Regiments. Both are
stated to have become much improved in physique
since they have been stationed in Nova Scotia. The
health of the troops was generally good, although a
good deal of sickness bad resulted from the abund-
ance of cheap liquors,

MR. COBDEN ON MARITIME LAW.

Mr. Cobden has addressed the following letter to
Mr. Henry Ashworth, president of the Manchester
Chamber of Commerce :

London, April 10, 1862.
My dear Sir,—l avail myself of your kind permission to
address you a letter on the present unsatisfactory state of
international maritime law,'as affecting the rights of belli-
gerents and neutrals.
It is not necessary that I should dwell at length on the
particular branch of the subject to which the debate on
Mr. Horsfall's motion was, as I venture to think, too ex-
clusively confined,--whether private property at sea should
be exempted from capture by armed Government ships in
time of war. That question was satisfactorily disposed of,
not less by the practical force of the reasoning with which
the motion was supported, than by the weak and irrelevant
arguments with which it was opposed. A statement of the
simple facts of the case, as they affect the interests of British
capitalists, ought to be decisive of the course we should take
without the necessity of one syllable of discussion. Here is a
country the average value of whose ships and cargoes afloat
exceeds £100,000,000, which is more than double the
amount possessed by any other state. A proposal is made
by the United States, with the concurrence of France, Rus-
sia, and other countries, to exempt this property from
legalised plunder in the case of war. Our merchants and
shipowners are, naturally, eager to close with so advanta-
geous an offer, which is, however, peremptorily rejected by
the British Government.
One of the arguments urged by a member of the Cabinet
to justify this rejection need not alarm us. It is alleged
that such a stipulation would not be respected in time of
war. At the worst, this would only leave us where we
now are. If, however, an engagement were entered into,
by a formal convention of the maritime powers, for insur-
ing the inviolability of private property at sea, it would
become a recognised part of international law; and I do
not believe that a judge, sitting in any prize court in the
civilised world, would afterwards condemn as lawful cap-
ture, ships or cargoes seized in violation of that law. Sure
I am, at least, that it is the duty of those filling high
office in this country to brand with dishonour the viola-
tors of such a solemn engagement, and not to seem, in antici-
pation, to justify, or even palliate, their infamy. I have had
some difficulty in believing those parties to be serious, who,
in order to reconcile us to this unequal game of pillage, put
forth the argument that it is desirable to subject our ship-
owners to the penalty of ruin in the event of war as the best
means of binding the nation over to keep the peace. If a
majority of the Cabinet, and both Houses of Parliament,
were composed of shipowners, there might be some consis-
tency in this proposition. But if power and responsibility
are to be united in the same hands, there is another body of
proprietors whose fortunes might with greater justice be
made liable to confiscation in case of war. The argument
is, however, unworthy df serious refutation.
Had not some of the opponents of Mr. Horsfall's motion
Professed to doubt whether the Paris declaration in favour
of neutrals was irrevocable, they would obviously have
been unable to oppose it. But the Paris Congress of 1856
merely recognised a state of things wh'ch, as Mr. Baring
remarked, had arisen out of the progress of events; it no
more created those events than the adoption of the Grego-
fiats. Calendar in 1752 produced the astronomical laws
which rendered that reform in our style necessary ; and
any attempt of our statesmen now to revert to the treat-
ment of neutrals sanctioned by our prize courts in 1810
would place them on a level with those politicians whom
Hogarth depicts, in his famous election scene, clamouring
to their candidees, " Give us back our eleven days I "
My principal object, however, in writing is to show that
the issue raised by Mr. Horsfall's motion, when taken alone,
is now of little practical value. The question has assumed
larger dimensions in consequence of the later proceedings of
the United States Government. The facts of the case,
which are not sufficiently known to the public, are as follow :
In 1856, as you are aware, Mr. Marcy, Foreign Secretary
to President Pierce, when replying to the invitation from
the Paris Congress to agree to the abolition of privateering,
made the memorable counter proposal to Europe to exempt
the private property of belligerents at sea from capture,
both by privateers and armed government ship. This offer,
as I have stated, was favourably received by France, Rus-
sia, and other maritime powers, but was rejected by the
British Government. The election for the presidency took
place in the autumn of 1856, and Mr. Buchanan was chosen
the successor to Mr. Pierce. The question of international
maritime law now underwent further discussion in Ame-
rica, and it was contended that, in addition to the exemp-
tion of private property from capture, when at sea, it
should be free from molestation when entering or leaving a
commercial port; that, in fine, blockades should be re-
stricted to naval arsenals, and towns which were at the
same time invested by an army on land. * * * In the
course of their discussions President Buchanan addressed a
letter to the Chairman of the New York Chamber of Com-
merce, in which he said :—" We must obtain the consent of
the powerful naval nations that merchant vessels shall net
be blockaded in port, but be suffered to pass the blockading
squadron and go out to sea." The consequence of this
state of opinion was that Mr. Dallas, the United States
Minister at London. was in 1857 instructed to suspend the
negotiations which had been opened upon the basis of Mr.
Marcy's proposition.
Thus the matter remained till the spring of 1859, when,
on the breaking out of the war in Italy, a circular despatch
was transmitted from Mr. Cass, President Buchanan's
foreign secretary, to the representatives of the United
States at the European capitals, suggesting still further
reforms in international maritime law. An unsuccessful
effort was made, by Mr. Lindsay, to induce our Government
to lay on the table of the house a copy of this document ; but
the substance of its most important proposal was explained
by Lord John Russell, when communicating to the House
(February 18, 1861) the particulars of the interview at
which Mr. Dallas had read to him, as Foreign Minis-
ter, this despatch :—Mr. Cats was represented by his Lord-
ship to have declared that "he considered that the right
of blockade, as authorised by the law of nations, was
liable to very great abuse ; and that the only case in which
a blockade ought to be permitted was when a land army
was besieging a fortified place, and a fleet was employed
to blockade it on the other side ; but that any attempt to
intercept trade by blockade, or to blockade places which
were commercial ports, was an abuse of the right that
ought not to be permitted." Lord Russell took this oppor-
tunity of explaining to the house his reasons for opposing
these views of the American Government, and which were
in substance the same as those with which Mr, Marcs 's
proposal had been met—namely, that the system of com-
mercial blockades is essential to the maintenance of our
naval supremacy.
These incidents have a most important significance, if
viewed in connection with present events. We live in an
age of rapid transitions, which warn tie against too obsti-
nate an adherence to ancient precedent or blind routine.
If the proposal of the United States to abolish commercial
I.lockades had been favourably received, by the British
Goverument, there can be no doubt, from the known ten-
dency of other maritime powers, that it might have become
a part of the law of nations, and in that case the commerce
between England and the Southern States of the Amen-
can Union would have been uninterrupted by the present
war,—for the blockade is acknowledged by Europe only as
a belligerent right/ and not as the exercise of municipal
authority. In justice to the American Government, and
to prevent any misapprehension of the following argument,
I am bound to express the opinion that the closing of the
cotton ports is virtually our own act. We have imposed
upon ourselves as neutrals the privations and sufferings in-
cidental to a commercial blockade, bet ause we assume that
we are interested in reserving to ourselves+ the belligerent
right which we now concede to others.

Let us consider, for a moment, whether this policy will
bear the test of reason, fact, and experience. a * It
may be alleged of nearly all articles of food or raw
materials, transported over sea, that more than one-hal,
is destined for these islands. It follows that were we, in
the exercise of the belligerent right of blockade, to pre-
vent the exportation of those commodities, we should
inflict greater injury on ourselves than on all the rest of
the world, not excepting the country with which we were
at war ; for if we could effectually close the ports of one
or more of these countries against both exports and im-
ports, we should be merely intercepting the supply of com-
parative luxuries to them, while we arrested the flow of the
necessaries of life to ourselves; and for every cultivator of
the soi,, engaged in the production of cotton or other raw
material, therel'y doomed to idleness, three or four persons
would be deprived of en,ployment in the distribution and
manufacture of these commodities'.
These facts are an answer to those who maintain that it
is necessary to reserve in our hands the right of blockade,
as an instrument of coercion in case of war. Against such
owingl ol nt
od
the B
extension gium , Sceo.f,
blockadesco untr i countries
haveas France;los
lost
t hei Germany,r
fe
the railway system throughout the continent of Europe.
In eased where a blow may still be struck at the commerce
of a nation—of *hat use, I would ask, is a weapon of offence
which recoils with datible force on ourselves ? It would be
but a poor consolation to our population, who were sub-
jected to the evils of enforced idleness and starvation, to be
told that the food and raw materials destined for their sub-
sistence and employment were rotting in the granaries of
ruined cultivators in Russia or America.
These considerations have always practically outweighed
the blockading theory, even when our necessities, as a com-
mercial and manufacturing people, were much less than at I

present. If we consult the experience of our past wars, we
shall find that, as a belligerent, we have never attempted to
prevent the productions of our enemies from reaching our
shores. It is true, we have maintained, for our navy, the
traditional right and duty of a blockade, whilst (I beg your
attention to the distinction) we have invariably connived at
its evasion. I will cite a few examples. We all know how
systematically our blockade of France, and other parts of
the coast of the continent, was relaxed by licenses during
the great war with Napoleon, and it is notorious that,
at the height of that war, the deficiency of cur own har-
vests was repeatedly supplied from the corn fields of
our most deadly enemy. Nor must we forget that the
celebrated orders in Council, the most gigantic of all
blockades, were ultimately revoked in the interests of our
own manufactures and commerce. Again, in the war

with the United -States, in 1813, whilst professing to
blockade that coast, our Government resisted the demands

of a powerful and interested party in Parliament, who
called for measures to prevent the importation of American
cotton into England ; and this occurred at a time when our
dependence on the produce of that region was, perhaps, not
equal to a twentieth part of that of the present day.
The Crimean war, however, affords us a more recent
example. That war was declared in March, 1851, but the
ports of Southern Russia were not declared in a state of
blockade until March, 1855. The Allies temporised for a
year with their right and power to close the commercial
ports of the Black Sea, whilst carrying on the most saw-
guinary struggle before the naval arsenal of Sebastopol,
in order to allow the exportation of food from Russia, to
make good the deficient harvests in England and France.
Upwards of half a million of quarters of grain reached our
shores from that region, in 1854. Here, at least, is a pre-
cedent for the policy of restricting b'ockades to fortified
places, and leaving commercial ports unmolested. If we
turn to the operations in the Baltic, during the same war,
we find th,t our blockade of Cronstadt had merely the
effect of diverting the produce of Russia, destined for Eng-
land, into more costly overland channels. An attempt was
made, similar to that of interested parties in 1813, referred
to above, to induce our Government to prevent the impor-
tation of Russian produce into this country through Prussia'
which drew from the Dundee Chamber of Commerce a me-
morial declaring that the raw material from Russia was in-
dispensable to the very existence of the industry of that dis-
trict. After due deliberation, our Government refuses to
require a certificate of origin at the Custom-house, or to
offer any other impediment to the importation of Russian
hemp, flax, tallow, &c., into this country through the
territory of the neutrals. The consequence was
that Prussia, which sent us tallow to the value
of £l5O only in 1853, was enabled, in 1855, to supply
us with that article to the amount of £1,837,300; and
other Russian commodities reached this country in a sirai"
lar. It is only necessary to point to the examples of Chins,
Mexico, &c., to show that in our hostilities with the weaker
maritime powers, we carefully eschew the policy of resort-
ing, as a means of coercion, to the blockade of their com-
mercial ports.
A fair deduction from these facts and premises leads as
to a very grave national dilemma. We persist in uphold-
ing a belligerent right, which we have always shrunk
from enforcing, and shall never rigorously apply, by
which we place in the hands of other belligerents the
power, at any moment, of depriving a large part of our
i,pulation of the supply of the raw materials of their
industry and of the necessaries of life. In this respect the
question of blockade is essentially different from that of
the capture of private property at sea. In the latter case
we are only liable to injury when we choose to become
belligerents, whereas, in the former, we are exposed to
serious calamities as neutrals; and England, by proclaim'
ing the policy of non-intervention, has recently consti-
tuted herself the great neutral Power. In this capacity We
are now enduring the effects of a blockade, by which it is
estimated that the earnings of labour, in the cotton moll-
facture alone, are curtailed to the extent of a quarter of s
million sterling a week. Should it continue it will, I fear,'
bring many of the evils of war home to our doors, and
plunge an ingenious and industrious population, whose re-
cent improvemement and elevation we have witnessed
pride, into the depths of pauperism and misery. Nor hay°
we any assurance that this will prove a solitary case. I can
imagine a combination of events, not more improbable than
the blockade of the cotton region of the United States 11
land and sea would have appeared to be three years ago, bY
which we may be cut off from all commercial intercours°
with other countries on which we are largely dependent for
raw materials and food.
Speaking abstractedly, and not in reference to the
present blockade—for we are precluded from plead'
ing our sufferings as ground of grievance evilest
a people whose proposals for the mitigation of tae°
barbarous maritime code we have rejected—l cl,
not hesitate to denounce, as opposed to the principles 0"
natural justice, a system of warfare which inflicts great° ..
injuries on an unoffending community than on a be
gerent. Certain I am that such a system is incompatible
with the new commercial policy to which we have unre;
servedly committed ourselves. Free trade, in the wides.,
definition of the term, means only the division of labos'
by which the productive powers of the whole earth src
brought into mutual co-operation. If this scheme of usr
vernal dependence is to be liable to sudden dislocation, wise
ever two Governments choose to go to war, it convert;
manufacturing industiy, such as ours, ini.`o a lottery,
which the lives and fortunes of multitudes of men sr_
at stake. I do not comprehend how any British state
nd ;
man, who consults the interests of his country, ` tiny
-
derstands the revolution which free trade is e
in the relations of the world, can advocate the inal-°lB.l
ante of commercial blockades. If I shared their viasg/at
should shrink from promoting the indefinite grclvi
of a population whose means of subsistence would be liata
to be cut off at any moment by a belligerent power, agaiaos:
whom we should have no right of resistance, or even
complaint.
It must surely be in mere irony that the advocates of sum
_
a policy as this ask—of what use would our navy be in oae°
of war, if commercial blockades were abolished ? For "
nation that has no access to the rest of the world but by
sea, and a large part of whose population is dependent 0,,
food en foreign countries, the chief use of a navy suool;
surely be to keep open its communications, not to ties
them.
There is another branch of this subject to which a rece.3l:
occurrence has imparted peculiar importance. We requlro
a clear definition of the cli'numstances which confer
on
belligerent the right of search. The old and univer
saby
admitted rule that any maritime power, when at was, 'Teo
entitled everywhere to stop and visi!; the merchant vessdea
of neutrals, is allowed to be unsuited to this age of ex-te° b,
commerce, of steamers, and postal packets". The mailltliis
ject which belligerents had in view in the Cxercis., °f
power was the capture of enemy's property. But, ein 000
Faris declaration exempts the goods of an enemy fr
for
seizure in neutral bottoms, there is little motive /eft la
preserving this belligerent right ; and the question 'w°llo
receive a very simple solution by assimilating the vraeil

in time of war to that which prevails in time of peace.
Merchant vessels on the high seas are, during peace,. Oil:
sidored and treated as a part of the territory to whichthel„
belong. There is no point in which the maritime poweri
are more clearly understood than that, excepting cases of
special convention to the contrary, such as that for OP'
pressing the African slave trade, the flags of merchantweli
afford an absolute protection against visitation by an slie:
ship of war. This rule applies, of course, only to the high
seas ; for when foreign merchant vessels approach so near
the coast of a maritime state as to place themselves with
its municipal jurisdiction, they are subject to all its POI
and revenue regulations. Now, why should not this be th f
invariable law of the sea, in time of war as well as °f
peace? Because two maritime powers in some quarter °
the globe choose to enter upon hostilities affords no g°°4
reason why neutral merchant ships, sailing in every' se*

should be sdbjected to their authority.
This change would simplify the question of contrabl!
of war, and thus tend to obviate the risks of internatioDP
disputes. An article is rendered contraband of war only bl
its hostile destination. Were the right of search on the
high seas in time of war abolished, the only admissible
proof of this destination would be the feet of the vex sfeti
being found within the waters of a belligerent state.
those waters were in the possession of a hostile power, rill
jurisdiction would appertain to the fleet of that power, a',
a neutral merchant vessel, containing articles contraband
war, entering voluntarily within that jurisdiction, would
u'
ipso facto liable to capture. As to the question what sheal
under such circumstances, constitute an unlawful c131°.:
I see no motive why we should seek to multiply itolie,
ments to commerce by extending the cadegory of articied
contraband of war beyond that proposed by the Vriite
States, viz., arms and ammunition.
Without dwelling on minor details, the three great re:
forms in international maritime law embraceJ in the Pre

ceding argument are— ,„r at
1. The exemption of private property from 0,21:—e
sea, during war, by armed vessels of every kind. A 0
2. Blockades to be restricted to naval arsenals, ell-
towns besieged at the same time on land, with the e%cer
tion of articles contraband of war. td
3. The merchant ships of neutrals on the high sesS /0
be inviolable to the visitation to alien government /eose
in time of war as in time of peace.
It is at the option of the English Government at t
time to enter upon negotiations with the other grei,i'
powers for the revision of the maritime code, and I sPeto
advisedly in expressing my belief that it depends c43,t
colonial
loeoncneti.awl whether
nhoepr willo
monopoly. We
only abovea d d t
hreformsregard are
these
e change carried
0' " °
0
the necessary corollary of the repeal of the navigation It' 0
force, to confide in tpleirep
the abolition of the corn laws, and the abandonment of °of
ocauol all
commerce
arhee:rucdseae
hasnndt .
yearsexce Duringeodfecri theeiitasn under 0
rhinacviepltehroofwfnreeadwoamy.the sceptreo
new regime our flatlet:m.l fortunes; have prospered beY° or
toly. This should encourage us' to go forward, in the '"-to
faith that every fresh impediment
of commerce, whether by sea or lane;
removed from the e 0
tchundnuirninggat,lS
np3tolri;
and whether in Pe:ct
or war, will augment our prosperity, a.. the same time the
it wid promote the general interests of h Ullliinity.-130/ie
eci.Ftoti
rnle4fgo)rr'oce::r s the
.IL CoBDO'
me, my dear sir, yours very sincerely,
Henry Ashworai, Esq., President of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

,ralow

MILITARY DISCIPLINE AT BEBLIN.—A. co_
nication from Grandenz to the People's Gazette at Berb„,P u
says :—" A few mornings back the company of Ca,ptlin ,
of the Bth regiment of infantry of Eastern Prussia, bed th-" LL'5-
sembled at parade. Captain B. appeared, vshen, Witil :
exception of the lieutenant, ensign, ~nd sergeant-major9ll,
one returned the regimental salute. The captain then callea
20 men from the ranks, who obeyed, but an order to the
whole company was unattended to. The commandmr, 31'
stidote
de Wollenhopt, was then summoned, and to his
every one replied. ' What is the matter, my lads r 11,(1f
asked. To this there was no reply,
any of them had complaints to make, they replied as if vitll"
one voice, `All I' The consequence has been that Captain
but on his ask in g 1
B. has been provisionally suspended from his tunction.e,
and a sub-ofncer and ten men arrested. An inClairY 2aB
going on, The articles of war have since been read tot'
tither couiPillAies of the regiment,l