The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-05 00:00:00

[PRICE SD.

reign is entitled to give the same commands to free and in-
dependent nations, and to punish the disobedient as if
they were his subjects. Now, under the Roman law, the
ship upon which the goods of the enemies of Rome were
seized, the ship which was confiscated for containing those
goods, and the trade which was prohibited with the enemies
of Rome, were the ship and the trade of the subjects of
Rome, and not of neutrals. By adopting as rules of the
public law of Europe the rules of the Roman law with re-
gard to commerce with enemies, the sovereigns of Europe
have at various periods and repeatedly laid claim to and
exercised three rights very injurious to neutrals, namely,
the right of capturing enemies' goods, not only on board
the ships of their subjects, but also on board the ships of
neutrals ; secondly, the right of confiscating, not only the
ships of their subjects, but also the ships of a neutral state,
for containing enemies' goods ; thirdly, the right of pro-
hibiting, not only the trade of their subjects, but also of
neutrals, with the enemy. The two last of these claims
have long since been abandoned in theory, though not in
practice ; the first alone now exists, and the friends of the
extension of neutral rights affirm that it is destined to
share the fate of its companions, and ought immediately to
be expunged from the public law of civilised nations. They
affirm that a neutral state is entitled in reason and justice
to say to a belligerent, " As a neutral, I have nothing to
do with your quarrel, you may injure your enemy as much
as you like, provided that in so doing you do not injure
me ; you may hit your antagonist as hard as you can, but
you must not strike me in order to hit him ; and if he
hurt you, you must not retaliate upon him by hurting me.
All that you, as a belligerent, are entitled to demand of
me as a neutral, is, that I will not take any part against
you ; that I will not directly succour and aid your enemy;
that when you are fighting I will not furnish him with
munitions of war ; that when you are blockading his
ports, or besieging his towns, I will not interfere, nor
supply him with the means of prolonged defence ; but pro-
vided that I abstain from doing these things, as a neutral
I am entitled to carry on with your enemy a trade as free
and unrestricted as he and I may think proper to permit."
For, say the friends for the extension of neutral rights, the
sea is free—Grotius has proved it, and Salon was unable
to refute him. Therefore, no portion of the ocean is the
exclusive property of any state, except that portion of it
which is temporarily occupied by the ship of a state, over
that portion the state whose ship occupies it has for the
time sole and exclusive jurisdiction. A neutral ship is a
floating portion of the territory of a neutral sovereign ;
its inhabitants are his subjects ; they are bound to
obey his municipal law, and no other law ; if they
commit crimes on board the ship, they are tried
and punished by his penal law; and the ownership
of every article of property on board the ship is deter-
mined by his civil law. Therefore, say the friends of the
extension of neutral rights, addressing a belligerent sove-
reign, your quarrel, with which the neutral sovereign has
nothing to do, end to which as a neutral he ought to be
perfectly indifferent, cannot destroy his rights on the free
ocean, cannot entitle you as a belligerent to interfere with
his floating territory more than with his fixed territory.
But it must be admitted that the subjects of a neutral
sovereign —the inhabitants both of his floating territory,
and of his fixed territory, ought not to directly aid and
succour your enemy ; for if he were to sanction such con-
duct on the part of his subjects he would cease to be a neu-
tral, and would become your enemy ' • therefore, he ought
to prohibit the inhabitants, both of his fixed and of his
floating territory, from directly aiding any succouring your
antagonist ; and he ought to authorise you as a belligerent,
and you ought to be authorised by the law of nations to
enforce that prohibition, by visiting his ships and confis-
cating contraband of war, and by seizing his vessels in the
event of their attempting to break through your blockade.
But though it must be admitted that the subjects of a neu-
tral sovereign ought to abstain from doing those things,
the evident aim and intention of which are to directly suc-
cour and aid your antagonist,—ought to abstain from all
acts which, if done by his commands, or by his ships of
war, would justify you in treating him as an ally of your
enemy ; yet it does not follow that the subjects of a neutral
sovereign are bound to abstain froth doing those things,
which without directly succouring and aiding your antago-
nist, may tend to benefit and enrich him • and by enrich-
ing him, may tend to strengthen him ; and by strengthen-
ing him, may tend to render it more difficult for you to
vanquish and overcome your enemy. For you must admit
that the established and universally recognised laws of
European warfare permit the subject of a neutral sovereign
to do many things of this description ; that according
to the present public law of Europe, he is entitled to
trade with your enemy, on every description of goods
except contraband of war. He is entitled to enter
any one of your enemy's ports which is not strictly
blockaded ; he is entitled to laden his ships with goods
and merchandise of the produce or manufacture of your
enemy ; he is entitled to carry off those goods and
mer-
chandise, and to sell them in other ports. You cannot
deny that the subject of a neutral sovereign is entitled by
the law of nations to do all these things ; but you affirm
that he must do them subject to this strange and extraor-
dinary condition —that during the period that he is carry-
ing the goods in question from one port to another they
should legally cease to belong to your enemy ; and (say the
friends of the extension of neutral rights) in order to as-
certain whether this extraordinary condition is fulfilled
you claim as a belligerent the right of stopping neutral
ships on the highway of the free ocean, not only for the
purpose of ascertaining their nationality, and whether they
are carrying contraband of war to your enemy, but for the
purpose of searching and minutely inquiring and examining
into the legal ownership of every single article of property
on board a neutral ship ; and if you find anything on board
the ship which you fancy belongs to your enemy—any pro-
perty the purchase of which from your enemy you suspect
has not been completed according to the strict and techni-
cal rules of your law, you claim as a belligerent the right of
detaining the neutral ship, and of compelling it to change
its route, and enter one of your ports, in order that your
judges may inquire into and determine the ownership of
the property in question. Andif your judges decide that,
according to the technical rules of that portion of your mu-
nicipal law, which you call your law of nations, the pur-
chase of the property in question has not been completed,
and that its legal ownership is still vested in your enemy you
claim the right of confiscating that property. And (say the
friends of the extension of neutral rights) you claim the right
of causing these powers to be exercised not only by the
commanders of your regular ships of war, over whom you
have direct control, and who are gentlemen, and have the
honour and interest of their country at heart; but you
claim the right of delegating these powers—at all times
odious and vexatious, and which may bo used to the great
detriment and injury, and even destruction of the trade
and commerce of neutral states—to the freebooters, bucca-
neers, and foreign cut-throats, who man your privateers,
over whom you have little or no control, scourges of the
ocean whose object is plunder, and who can only be dis-
tinguished from pirates by the mark of your licence to pil-
age. (Hear, hear.) Now (say the friends of the extension
of neutral rights) your stakes as a belligerent give you
no more right to enter a neutral ship to search for your
enemy's property, than to enter a neutral port to search
for your enemy's ships. (Hear, hear.) As long as you
and the neutral sovereign are at peace, you have no right
to meddle with any pxoperty on board his ship, except con-
traband of war. For he is sole and independent sovereign
on board his ship, and in virtue of his sovereignty all pro-
perty on board his ship belongs in fact to him, for he can
dispose of it, and does dispose of it, according to his will
and pleasure as declared in the rules of his municipal law.
Therefore, as long as you and he are at peace, you have no
right to ask any questions about any property on board his
ship. either how he became possessed of it, or upon what
conditions he acquired it, whether ho paid for it in hard
cash, or obtained it on credit, whether he holds it for his
own use or in trust for any body else. To insist upon ask-
ing these questions, to insist upon determining them in
your courts of law, to exercise any power over a neutral
ship which the neutral sovereign does not concede to you,
nor admit that you are entitld to exercise according to
what he considers ought to be the rules of international law,
are acts of violence to which neutrals have submitted only
when neutrals have been weak and belligerents strong, and
which neutrals have resisted and will again resist wherever
strong enough to defend their rights. Such is the lan-
guage which the friends of the extension of neutral rights
consider that they are entitled to hold towards a bellige-
rent power that claims the right of confiscating enemy's
goods, not contraband of war, on board neutral ships.
They would tell the learned gentleman that the position to
the eternal maintenance of which he would pledge the
honour of this house and country, so far from being indis-
putably true, is demonstratively false, and very many na-
tions would agree with them. For at various times the
great majority of European states have been induced, partly
by argument, partly by self-interest, to condemn the rule
of capturing enemy's goods on board neutral ships, and
they have repeatedly endeavoured by treaties and conven-
tions with each other to expunge that rule from the public
law of Europe, and to substitute the rule that free ships
should give freedom to the goods which they contain. For
instance, I find that during the century and a quarter that
preceded the French revolution, the all but invariable rule
of amicable relations as established by treaty between the
great maritime powers of western Europe, viz., between
England, France, Spain, the United Provinces of Holland,
and Portugal, was
free ships, free goods." That is,that
the goods of the enemies of one contracting power, being a
belligerent, should not be liable to confiscation on board
'Phis
the
ships of the other contracting power, being a neut
rule is contained in almost every one of the treaties of peace
and commerce which England concluded in the
thelatter part
of the 17th century and the 18th century,
urya
nimportant ,
fact.
with powers
which I have just mentioned.
Tphriehsc is an
tPhoalitcyl
I think it affords so strong
a the
which her Majesty's Government
will briefly enumerate the treatiweshttoohwhooicnhtae refer.lie
first English treaty on record
prin-
ciple "free ships, free goods," was that of Westminster,
in the year 1654,
statesman, than
IV.Kingwhoih
none
of
Portugal, and
that warrior and t
ruled the destinies of this nation, who made the name and
flag of England respectedon every sea, and whose alliance
was courted by all the monarchs of Europe. (Hear.) In
the 23d article of that treaty it was declared, " That all
the goods and merchandise of the enemies of the said re-
public or king found on board the ships of either, or their
people, or subjects, shall remain untouched." This treaty
was confirmed in 1661 and 1703, and continued unaltered
till 1810, when the rule of " free ships, free good" was re-
nounced. Therefore, for 156
years the invariablerule of
our amicable intercourse with Portugal was " free ships
free goods." (Hear.) I will next pass in review our trea-
ties with France. In the year 1655 the Lord Protector
concluded a treaty of peace with Louis XIV in the 15th
article of which it is declared that, " Ornnee naves ad sub-
ditos et popularos alterutriuscl no P ertinentes, et in maxi
Mediterraneo, Orientali, seu oceano negociantes, libera
sint, atque etiam onus suum liberum reddant, licit, in illas
invehantur mercimonia imo grans, reguminave qua alter-
utrius hostium sint." How long the treaty of 1655 con-
tinued in force lam unable to say. But in 1677 the rule
" free ships, free good" was inserted in the treaty of com-
merce of St. German en Laye, and was the rule of our
amicable relations with Franco for the next 116 years.
During that period we concluded five treaties of peace and
three of commerce with France—namely, in 1677, 1697,
1713, 1748, 1763, 1783, 1786—0 f these only one (namely,
in 1697), and which lasted only for five years, contained
no provision with regard to the trade of neutrals during
war ; in all the others I have found an article which
either expressly contained the provisions that the flags
of France and England should protect the goods of
their respective enemies, or which renewed tho commer-
cial treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which contained that pro-
vision in the fullest manner. I should observe that
the commercial treaties of 'Utrecht of 1713 were the