BLOCKADE, in war, the shutting up of any place or port by a naval or military force, so as to cut off all communication with those who are without the hostile line.

There is, perhaps, no part of the law of nations which, in practice, presents so many perplexing questions as that which concerns the respective rights of neutral and belligerent states. No definite line of distinction has yet been drawn between the privileges of war and peace; and the consequence has been, that, in all the wars which have been waged in Europe, the general tranquillity of the world has been endangered by the jarring of these two different interests. It has commonly happened, too, that all these important questions have been agitated during a season of war; when the passions of the contending parties were keenly engaged in the dispute; when principles were already subverted; and when the minds of men, exasperated by the glaring infraction of acknowledged rights, were not in a state to agree on any system of general equity by which to regulate and reform the erring policy of states. In these circumstances, many points of international law, which appear to rest on the most obvious principles, and which are very clearly settled in the writings of civilians, have, nevertheless, been the occasion in practice of no small controversy, and have frequently involved nations in all the miseries of protracted war. This has been in some measure manifested in the case of the Eights of Blockade, respecting which, though no difference of opinion has ever prevailed amongst speculative writers, a controversy arose during the late contests in Europe, which, along with other points, ultimately involved Great Britain in a war with the neutral powers. We propose, in the course of the subsequent observations, to state, lsí, The general principles from which the most approved writers have deduced the rights of blockade; and, 2d , To give a short account of the differences which took place between the neutral and the belligerent states, respecting the extent of those rights.
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In regulating the respective privileges of the neutral and the belligerent, it has generally been held as a fundamental principle, by writers on the law of nations, that those rights, from the exercise of which less benefit would accrue to the one party than detriment to the other, should be abandoned; and in all cases where the rights of peace and the rights of war happen to come into collision, the application of this rule will decide which of the two parties must yield to the convenience of the other. 1hus the neutral state is debarred from carrying on any trade with either of the belligerents in warlike stores. 1he general right to a free trade is modified, in this particular instance, by the paramount rights of the belligerent. To refrain for a time from trading with an individual state in warlike stores, can at most only impose a trifling inconvenience on the neutral power, whilst the continuance of such a trade might terminate in the destruction of the belligerent. The detriment occasioned to the one party, by the existence of such a trade, is, in this manner, infinitely greater than the loss suffered by the other from its abandonment. Warlike stores, and whatever else bears a direct reference to war, are accordingly proscribed as unlawful articles of trade, and made liable to seizure by either of the belligerents. To this inconvenience the neutral is exposed, to avoid the greater inconvenience and damage which might fall on the belligerent by the licensing of such a trade. On the other hand, the neutral state enjoys the most unlimited freedom of trade in all other articles with either of the powers at war; and though, by means of this beneficial intercourse, they may be both furnished with the means of carrying on a protracted contest, this is a contingent and incidental consequence of the trade, which, in its character, is substantially pacific, and which is attended with such great and immediate advantages, that they could not, with any regard to equity, be sacrificed to the remote convenience of the belligerent.

Applying these principles to a siege or to a blockade, it is evident that the belligerent who had an expensive scheme of hostile operations of either kind in dependence would be far more seriously injured by its interruption than the neutral would be benefited by a free intercourse with the blockaded place. On this ground, therefore, a belligerent who has formed a siege or a blockade, has an indisputable right to debar the neutral from all intercourse with those who are included within his lines; and any attempt to penetrate the blockade for the purposes of trade, subjects those who attempt it to destruction, and their properties to confiscation. The very existence, indeed, of a siege or a blockade, as a lawful act of hostility, implies the right of enforcing it by an indiscriminate exclusion of all who seek access to the besieged.

But although this view of the nature of a blockade, and of the rights attaching to it, is clearly laid down by all writers on the law of nations, and although it has been acknowledged in practice by all civilized states, a question was agitated in the late wars of Europe, between the neutral and the belligerent powers, as to the degree of restraint necessary to constitute a blockade, and, of course, to entitle the blockading party to all the rights consequent upon this scheme of operations; and it is this dispute which was, in a great measure, the occasion of a general war with the neutral powers.

The unexampled success which attended the naval operations of Great Britain, during the war with France, naturally suggested to her rulers the possibility of extending this species of annoyance, and of converting the all-powerful navy which they possessed into an instrument of active hostility. .With this view, instead of confining its efforts to the mere watching of the enemy’s already ruined trade, it was resolved to give greater scope to such an immense engine of maritime power, by placing under blockade the enemy’s ports, the mouths of navigable rivers, and even extensive tracts of his coast. Proclamations to this effect were accordingly issued; and the neutral trader was duly warned off, and prohibited, under the peril of detention, from all intercourse with the interdicted coast. But the legality of these blockades by proclamation being disputed, both by the neutral powers and by the enemy, their execution was resisted by a counter-decree, which, on the plea of retaliation, placed under blockade the whole island of Great Britain, and subjected all neutral vessels to detention and capture which should have been found touching at any of its ports. On the same plea of retaliation, several decrees, or orders in council, were issued by Britain, ordaining, that no neutral vessel should have any intercourse with France and her dependencies, except such vessel should first touch at’ a British port, where, in some cases, the cargo was to be landed, and was to pay certain duties to the British government. From this period the maxims of equity, and the rules of international law, were set aside, and the ocean became a scene of proscription and pillage. All this anarchy having originated in a disagreement respecting the nature and extent of a blockade, it becomes of importance to bring back the question to its true elements, and to fix the principles by which alone it should be settled.

The object of a blockade is to reduce the inhabitants of the blockaded town to such straits that they shall be forced to surrender to the discretion of their enemies in order to preserve their lives; and hence the legality of every blockade, except with a view to capture, has been questioned. But without entering into this question, it seems obvious that, in order to constitute the blockade of a town, either with a view to capture or to temporary annoyance, the line by which it is surrounded should be so complete as entirely to obstruct all access into the place. When a place is blockaded with a view to capture, the task of maintaining a real blockade may safely be left to the blockading party. But when a port is blockaded with a view to mere maritime annoyance, the case is widely different; because, in these circumstances, the belligerent will equally attain his end by maintaining the mere show of a blockade, while he is in possession of all its substantial rights. He may, to save himself expense and trouble, relax the blockade of his enemy’s ports, while he enforces the exclusion of all neutrals as rigorously as if he were maintaining an effectual blockade; and, in this case, his proclamations, while they are issued ostensibly for the blockade of the enemy’s ports, would, in reality, amount to edicts for the suppression of the neutral trade; The urgent, immediate, and obvious interests of the neutral would here be sacrificed to the remote, and in many cases imaginary, convenience of the belligerent. An edict might be issued for the blockade of the enemy’s ports, or of extensive tracts of his coast, round which no hostile line could ever be drawn so as to constitute a real blockade; and the whole trade of the neutral, with those interdicted parts of the enemy’s territory, would be immediately annihilated at the arbitrary mandate of one of the belligerents. Instead of being carried on as a matter of right, instead of being regarded as a common benefit to the civilized world, and on this account as proper to be cherished and encouraged, the neutral trade would, under such a system, be looked upon in the light of a tolerated evil, existing only by the sufferance of those who imagined they had an interest m obstructing and in crushing it. The law of nations is not a partial system, modelled to suit the convenience of one party. It is a system of general equity, and its edicts are founded on a comprehensive view of what is for the common[7:4:709] welfare and protection. In this view, then, the consequences to the neutral of those extensive and nominal blockades are sufficient to constitute them illegal. The damage to the neutral is infinitely greater than the benefit to the belligerent. The rights of blockade, and the limitation of those rights, must stand upon the same principle of justice and of public law; and their extension beyond this equitable principle must terminate in universal confusion and anarchy.

In opposition to these arguments in favour of the neutral powers, it has been urged, that the new system of naval annoyance, introduced by Great Britain in 1806, was legal according to the strictest construction of the law of blockade, because the proclamations for interrupting all intercourse between the different parts of the French coast were not issued until it was ascertained, by the most particular inquiries, that Great Britain possessed an effectual naval force to blockade the enemy’s coast from Brest harbour to the mouth of the Elbe. It is solely upon this principle that the ministers of our country maintained the legality of those blockades, and any breach in the line of blockade, they admitted, would be sufficient to constitute them illegal. Such, then, is the state of this important controversy, which seems to resolve itself into a mere question of fact, namely, whether the blockading power has actually carried into effect the blockade, of which notice by proclamation has been given to the neutral powers.

At the conclusion of the last treaty between Great Britain and America, no settlement of these disputed questions took place. The main war between the European belligerents, out of which the American dispute had incidentally sprung, being at an end, the controversy respecting rights which could only be exercised in a state of war had lost all practical importance. It had become a mere question of abstract right, the decision of which was wisely adjourned by the powers at war, and not suffered to clog the work of a general peace. It is likely, however, that on the breaking out of any new war, this and other questions of a like nature would recur; and on this account it might be of importance to the future peace ’of the world, if, in the present interval of universal peace, while men’s passions are at rest, these questions could be settled according to some acknowledged rule of equity or policy, and not left, in the event of another war, to the rude arbitration of force. (f.)