The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1869-06-02


| duty applicable to such cases. This, too, i
lett unsettled. While doing so little for US
| the treaty makes ample provision for al
known claims on the British side, As thes,
are exclusively "individual," they are com
| pletely covered by the text, which has NJ
limitations or exceptions. Already ii is an
nounced in England that even those of Con
federate bondholders" are included. / havi
before me an English journal which describes
the latter claims as founded on "immens(
quantities of cotton, worth at the time o
their seizure nearly two shillings pound
which were then in the legal possession o.
those bondholders," and the same authority
adds, these claims will be brought, in
differently with the Others, before this de
signed joint Commission whenever it shal
sit" From another quarter / learn thai
these bondholders are Every sanguine o
success, under the treaty as it is worded and
certain it is that the loan went up from tC
10, as soon as it was ascertained that the
treaty was signed" doubt if the American
people are ready just now to provide for any
such claims. That they have risen in the
market is an argument against the treaty.
THE CASE AGAINST ENGLAND.
Passing from the treaty, l come now to
consider briefly, but with proper precision,
the true ground of complaint; and here,
of the remedy now applied. 1t is with re-
luctance that | enter upon this statement,
and | do it only in the discharge of duty
which can not be postponed. Close upon
the outbreak Of our troubles, just one month
after the bombardment of Fort Sumter,
when the rebellion was still undeveloped,
when the National Government was begin
ming those gigantic efforts which ended so
triumphantly, the country was startled by
the news that the British Government had
intervened by proclamation, which accord
ed belligerent rights to the rebels. At the
early date when this was done the rebels
were, as they remained to the close, without
ships on the ocean, without prize courts or
other tribunals for the administration of
justice on the ocean, without any of those
conditions which are the essential pre-
requisites to such concession; and yet the
concession was general, being applicable to
the ocean and the land, so that, Sy British
fiat, they became ocean belligerents as well
as land belligerents. In the swiftness of
this bestowal, there was very little consider
alton for friendly Power nor does il appear
that there was any inquiry into those eondi-
tions precedent on which it must depend
Ocean belligerency being "fact," and not
a "principle," can be recognized only on
evidence showing its actual existence, ac-
cording to the rule first stated by Canning,
and afterwards recognized by Earl Russell
But no such evidence was adduced; for it
did not exist, and never had existed. Too
much stress can not be laid upon the rule
that belligerency is 'fact," and not
principle" 1t is, perhaps, the most i'm
portant contribution to this discussion, and
its original statement, on the occasion of the
Greek Revolution, does honor to its author,
unquestionably the brightest genius ever di-
rected to this subject. According to this
rule, bclligerency must be proved TO exist,
and il must be shown. 1t can not be i'm
agined, or OWNED, or invented; it must
exist as "fact' within the knowledge of
the world, or at least as "fact" susceptible
of proof. Nor can it be inferred on the ocean
merely from its existence on the land. From
the beginning, when God called the dry land
earth, and the gathering of the waters called
He seas, the two have been separate, and the
power over one has not necessarily implied
power over the other. There is q dominion
of the land and dominion of the ocean.
But whatever power the rebels possessed on
the land, they were always without power
on the ocean. Admitting that they were
belligerents on the land, they were never bel
lgerents on the ocean:
The oak leviathans. whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
OF lord Of thee, and arbiter of war;
these they never possessed. Such was the
ldSt bhab uuuot SONClh plC6Out QuCs-
ton. The rule, so simple, plain and intelli-
gible, as stated by Canning, is a decisive
tOuchstone of the British concession, which,
when brought to it, is found to be without
support. Unfriendly in the precipitancy
with which it was launched, this concession
was more unfriendly in substance. 1t was
the first stage in the depredations on our
commerce. Had it not been made, no rebel
ship could have been built in England
stp in hpr huildino xUnnld hav
piracy. Nor could any munitions of war
have been furnished. The direct consequence
of this concession was to place the rebels on
an equality with ourselves in all British mar
kets, whether of ships or munitions of war
As these were open TO the National Govern
ment, so they were open to the rebels. The
asserted neutrality between the two began
by this tremendous concession when rebels,
at one stroke, were transformed, not only
into belligerents, but into customers. In at
tributing TO that bad proclamation this pc
culiar influence, / follow the authority of the
law lords of England, who, according to
authentic report, announced that without it
the fitting out of a ship in England to cruise
against the United States would be an act of
piracy. This conclusion was clearly stated
by Lord Chelmsford, ex Chancellor, speaking
for himself and Others, when he said "If
the Southern Confederacy had not been re-
cognized as belligerent power, he agreed
with his noble and learned friend (Lord
that, under these circumstances,
il any Englishman were to fit out a privateer |
for the purpose of assisting the Southern |
States against the Northern States, he would |
be guilty of piracy" This conclusion is |
only according to analogies of law. 1t is |
criminal for British subjects TO furnish bombs |
or hand-grenades to be employed in the as
of foreign sovereign at peace |
with England, as when Bernard supplied |
from England the missiles used by Orsini |
against the life of the French Emperor all |
of which is illustrated by Lord Chief Justice |
Campbell, in his charge to the jury on the |
trial of Bernard, and also by contemporane-
Gus opinions by Lord Lyndhurst, Lord |
Brougham, Lord Truro, and at an earlier day |
BY Lord Ellenboro, in case of libel on the /
First Consul. That excellent authority, Sir |
George Cornwall Lewis, gives a summary |
drawn from all these opinions when he says |
F" The obligation incumbent upon State of |
her soil from being used as an |
arsenal in which the means of attack against |
a foreign Government may be collected and |
prepared for use, is wholly Independent of |
the form and character of the Government"
ION Extradition, page 75.) As every Gov
is constrained by this rule, so every |
There can be no reason why the life of our
Republic should be less sacred than the life
Of an Emperor, or should enjoy less protec-
ton from British law. That England be-
came an " arsenal for the rebels we know,
but this could not have been unless the pro-
had prepared the way. The only
Justification that / have heard for this extra
ordinary concession, which unleashed upon
our country the furses of foreign war TO COM
mingle with the furies of rebellion at home,
Is that President Lincoln undertook 10 pro-
claim blockade of the rebel ports BY the
use of this word blockade" the concession
Is vindicated. Had President Lincoln pro-
claimed a closing Of the rebel ports. there
could have been no such concession. This is