fully sell at home to a belligerent purchaser or carry themselves to the belligerent Powers contraband articles subject to the right of seizure in transitu-a doctrine which had received the express recognition of the judicial authorities in America.

1 Kent, Com. i. p. 142. San- Mass. Rep. p. 113. Opinions of the tissima Trinidad, 7 Wheaton, p. 283. Attorney-General, i. p. 62. WheaRichardson v. Marine Ins. Co. 6 ton's Elements, pt. iv. c. 3, § 26.

CHAPTER VII.

BLOCKADE.

BLOCKADE, DESCRIPTION OF ITS OBJECT-VIOLATION OF BLOCKADE CONVENTION OF 1801 BLOCKADE, WHEN EFFECTIVEDEFINITION OF BLOCKADE BY GROTIUS-EFFECT OF ACCIDENTAL DISPERSION OF THE BLOCKADING FORCE-CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO A VALID BLOCKADE-REGULAR NOTICE OR NOTORIETY ESSENTIAL-ACT OF VIOLATION-SAILING FOR A BLOCKADED PORT -EGRESS VIOLATES BLOCKADE AS MUCH AS INGRESS-CARGO, HOW FAR AFFECTED BY CONDUCT OF THE SHIP CASES WHEN THE OWNER OF THE SHIP AND CARGO ARE DIFFERENT INDIVIDUALS-LICENSE, EFFECT OF-ORDERS IN COUNCIL-VIOLATION OF BLOCKADE NOT AN OFFENCE AGAINST MUNICIPAL LAWSENSE IN WHICH CONTRACTS TO RUN A BLOCKADE ARE "ILLEGAL."

A PRINCIPAL restriction which under the law of nations is imposed on the freedom of commerce as between a neutral and a belligerent State arises from the law of blockade. The practice under which merchant ships trading with the enemy's ports are intercepted by means of armed vessels cruising off the enemy's coast, and by which as well the importation as exportation of supplies is cut off, is of great antiquity, and is spoken of by Lord Stowell as one of the most universal and simple operations of war in all ages and countries, excepting such as were nearly savage. All nations must be subject to the first and elementary principle of blockade, that persons are not to carry into the blockaded port supplies of any kind. This is not a new

operation of war, it is almost as old and general as war itself.1

A blockade is formed by stationing a number of ships, and forming as it were an arch of circumvallation, round the mouth of the prohibited port.

Its object, as described by a learned jurist, is not merely to compel the reduction of the place besieged or blockaded, but as a means of inducing the enemy to surrender by cutting off his supplies of every description. "War," he says, "being a contention by force in the prosecution of right, the primary object of war is to constrain the wrong-doing nation to desist from doing wrong, and to make compensation for past injury. With this object it is lawful for a belligerent to seize the property of an enemy as a pledge of redress for the past, and of good conduct for the future; and, if the enemy resist, to use force, and, if it should be necessary in self-defence, even to take away an enemy's life. The intercepting all supplies going to the enemy is a milder alternative, the immediate effect of such a measure being to constrain the enemy to submit by the inconvenience to which the failure of his supplies will expose him. Blockade is thus a more lenient proceeding in the conduct of a war than actual assault."2 The latter involves the necessary

1 The Hurtige Hane, 3 Rob. p. 325. | Again, in 1838, the ports of the The Kindess Kinder, 2 Rob. p. 89.

2 To blockade is, no doubt, generally speaking, an act of war, and incident to a state of war; and yet there have been in modern time instances in which this proceeding, although belligerent, was instituted during a time of peace. Of this kind was the blockade of the TurcoEgyptian fleet at Navarino in 1827.

Argentine Republic were blockaded by the navies of England and France; and in the case of the war of France with Mexico, which ended in 1839, two years of blockade preceded hostilities. There can, however, be no doubt but that, although as between the parties concerned a blockade may be considered as indirectly perhaps a pacific remedy,

sacrifice of human life, and by the destruction of property which it entails may risk to destroy the means whereby compensation may be made by the enemy for past injury. The former gives to the enemy the option of being spared the effusion of human blood, whilst the belligerent at the same time refrains from destroying property. As between belligerent parties the establishment of a blockade is thus obviously not an improper use of superior force, and as the introduction of supplies by neutral merchants into a blockaded port must necessarily tend to frustrate the purpose of the belligerent party, which is to reduce the enemy to terms by cutting off his supplies, it would be evidently to the prejudice of the just right of a belligerent that a merchant should attempt to introduce any supplies into a place which is blockaded. A belligerent Power will accordingly be entitled to prevent the introduction of any such supplies; and if a merchant persists after notice in attempting to introduce them, the belligerent may seize and confiscate them.

"If the supplies sent," says Grotius, "hinder the execution of my design, and the sender might have known as much, as if I had besieged a town or blocked up a port, and thereupon I presently expect a surrender or a peace, that sender is obliged to make me satisfaction

if regarded as a preventive against | And hence, as Hautefeuille observes, actual hostilities, yet as regards a blockade is an act of war, because neutral countries, it can only be viewed as a direct act of war. This is so because the jurisdiction over the territorial seas, which by right of sovereignty belongs to the government of the blockaded port, is assumed by the blockading force.

it is the result of a previous act which can only take place during war-the complete conquest and continued possession of a part of the enemy's territory.—Tom. iii. pp. 10, 182; and see Wheaton, Inter. Law, note, ed. by Lawrence, p. 846.

for the damage that I suffer on his account, as much as he that shall take a person out of custody that was committed for a just debt, or help him to make his escape in order to cheat me; and proportionally to my loss I may seize his goods and take them as my own, for recovering what he owes me."1 Two conditions, it will be observed, are implied by Grotius in the case as thus stated—namely, actual measures on the part of the belligerent to stop all supplies being furnished to his enemy, and a knowledge of that fact on the part of the neutral merchant.2

Similarly Mr. Wheaton observes, "One of the most important of the belligerent rights is that of blockading the enemy's ports, not merely in order to compel the surrender of the place actually attacked or besieged, but as a means often the most effectual of compelling the enemy, by the pressure upon his financial or commercial resources, to listen to reasonable propositions of peace." He adds, however, "It cannot be fairly denied that the exercise of this incontestable right, when it is applied to all the ports of an enemy's country, so as entirely to cut off his commercial intercourse by sea with other countries, if the measure be continued for an indefinite length of time, must give rise to considerable uneasiness on the part of those Powers whose accustomed trade will be thus seriously affected by it."3

1 "Quod si juris mei executionem rerum subvectio impedierit, idque scire potuerit qui advexit, ut si oppidum obsessum tenebam, si portus clausus et jam deditio aut pax expectabatur, tenebitur ille mihi de damno culpâ dato."-De Jure Belli,

lib. iii. c. 1, § 5.

2 Twiss, Law of Nations, Time of War, pp. 191, 192.

3 Mr. Wheaton to Mr. Buchanan, July 1, 1846, MS., quoted Wheaton, Inter. Law, p. 821, note, ed. by Lawrence.