The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-10-24

Je4ulpulent, ana tneSe arms were conveyed
to her in the waters of foreign country
very far from the jurisdiction of England
Gentlemen, these questions must be weigh
go, and think they will be weighed, al
| they frequently have been weighed by the
government of the United States, in the
balance of equity. We know that the For
eign enlistment act and the whole law re-
spectlng the subject is very difficult OF
application. The principle is
clear enough. If you are asked
S..sell muskets, you may sell muskets to
one party or the other, and so with gun
powder, shell or cannon: and you may sell
snip IN the same manner. But, if you,
on the one hand, train and drill a regiment
with arms in their hands, or allow a regi-
ment 10 go out with arms in their hands to
take part with one of two belligerents, YOU
violate your neutrality and commit an Of
tense against the other belligerent So in
the same way in regard 10 ships, if YOU al
low ship to be armed and go at once to
make an attack on foreign belligerent,
you are yourself according to your own
law, taking part in the war, and it is an of
tense which is punished by the law. But
these questions lead, as you will see, to
most difficult problems-as to whether, for
instance, thousand persons here may 20
out as labOrers to the Federal States, and
III the next place thousand muskets NAV
go out in another ship, and when they ar
rive In America, these thousand laborers,
having had an understanding before, may
with these thousand muskets; though, if
that had been done in the territory Of the
Queen, and on the soil of this country, it
would have been an offense. There are 9TH
er questions with regard to ships that have
lately been preparedin in this country, because
these SHIPS are not like ships auhich receiue the
tts1tdt equipment k,,o,on IN acors in times past
ornament, formed for acts of otense and ,va7.
Ihey are steam rams, which might be used
1or the purposes of war without ever touch
ing the shores Of the Confederate ports,
wei! gentlemen, to permit ships of this
KIND knowingly to transport from this
country, not to enter into any Confederate
port, not to enter the port of belligerent,
would, as you see, expose our good faith to
great suspicious; and feel certain that if.
during our war with France, the Ameri-
cans had sent line of battle ships to break
our blockade at Brest, whatever reasons
they might have urged in support of that,
zoe should hGve considered it q vit lation of
neutrality. Msch is tie spirit in achich I am
prepared to act. EUeTythiag thai the lar OF
nations requires, everything that our la0,
that the Foreign Enlistment act requires, II
am prepared to dO, and eue,,, If it should be
prOved to be necessary for the preservation
Of our neutrality, that the sanction of Par
lament should be asked to further measures. |
In short, to sum up, Her Majesty's Goue1n-
ment are prepared te do everything that the
duty OF neutruhty reQuireS-eUe,ything that |
is Just to q friendly nation, taking as pri,,-
ciple thdtWe should do to others as aDe should |
tcish to be done to ourSelues. Loud cheers.
But this we will not dove will not adopt |
any measure that we think to be wrong.-l
We will not yield a jot of British law or |
British right in consequence of the men,
nnn @f Fo~o
prolonged cheers. --.-------
COMPLAINTS OF THE EAMERICANs-MR. SUM
NER's SPEECH.
= And now, reverting again to the COM
plants that have been made, it is singular |
to observe how jaundiced the minds ofsome
OF those who speak in the New England
States are on this subject Of our conduct. |
House of Lords, who thought fit to complain
on an apparent case Of grievance-and not |
one case, but many cases-of ships Of ours
that had been seized; ships in some cases
passing from neutral ports, in other cases on
the sea, but apparently Legitimate voy-
age; and it was urged that we ought not to
submit to have our vessels thus seized, and |
our commerce thus interrupted I had to
deal with that case, and my answer wasthat |
to the law of nations, if a ship
had an ostensible voyage to a destina-
ton which was not her real destination
if she was bound, in fact, to an enemy's
port with munitions of war, the belliger-
ent had right to stop that vessel on the
high seas. I said, the law had been laid |
down by Lord Stowell and other great
English authorities, and that, now we were
did not think it fit we should
depart from law we had laid down as
befligerents. [Cheers.] said that in Amer
lea, although there were some of the local
courts which had not the authority Of
such men as Lord Stowell and Sir William
Grant. yet there was Court OF APP
peal-there was Supreme Court in
the United States, which now contains,
and had for many years contained
men as learned and of as high reputa-
ton in the law, and of as unsullied reputa-
ton for integrity, as any that have set in
our English courts Of justice, and that we
those tribunals. Now, what is my surprise
to find, that Mr.. Sumner is so prejudiced
that he brings these declarations of mine
against me, sayingthat have diminished |
the reputation of the American Courts,
and that showed myself biased against
the Federal States by the declaration l
then made in Parliament? A gentleman
from the Southern States here CALCULATED,
"He is not to be believed.'] / will not de-
tain you further on these subjects; but one
remark / must make on the general ten
dency of these speeches and writings in |
America. The Government Of America !
discusses these matters very fairly with the
English Government. Sometimes we |
think them quite in the wrong ; sometimes
they say we are quite in the wrong; but aCe
discuss them fairly, and with regard to the
Secretary Of State ! see no complaint to
make, think he areighs the disadvantages
and difficulties Of our situation IN very
fair and equal balance. Bnt there are 9TH
ers, and Mr.. Sumner is one of them, his |
speech being an epitome almost ofall that
has been contained in the American Press,
by whom our conduct is very differently
Judged. With regard to all these mat
ters there are difficult questions; we may
have reason to complain in some instan-
ces, and the Federal Republic of America
may have reason to complain also. But let
us recollect that we are, as have said, de-
scended from the same ancestors, that in
the Courts of justice in America the COM
mon law of England is constantly studied,
and the decisions of our great Judges con-
stantly referred to as decisions to be there
that our Shakespeare and our
Milton are to them classical books, as they
are to us; that we have the same inherit
ance of freedom; that many of our lnstltu-