on the authority of various writers, Grotius, Voet, Heineccius and others, on the Law of Nations.1

The English people have been bred on legal precedents; administrative decrees and irresponsible academical opinions are therefore wholly alien to the spirit and the history of English jurisprudence. Charles Butler, who, in his time, was extraordinarily learned in English Common and Real Property law, and was also a skilful conveyancer, adverting to the small attention paid to the study of the Law of Nations in England, pertinently observes in his Life of Grotius: "Is it not also, because the law of nature and nations, with all its merits, is so loose, that its principles seldom admit of that practical application which renders them really useful; and which an English mind always requires? " Stowell appreciated the nature of the English mind and at once proceeded to place the prize law of Great Britain on the same basis as, and to assimilate it in character with, the law which was administered in the municipal courts of England. He impressed on his collection of international law the historical and national characteristics of English law. He placed it above the uncertainties of temporary administrative orders, outside mutual international

1 The Silesian Loan and Frederick the Great, Satow, p. 88.

pacts; he removed it from academical discussion, he demonstrated to the world that the British Prize Court was a completely impartial judicial tribunal, with a well-defined procedure, and that its decisions were based on a reasoned body of jurisprudence, and he completed promptly and boldly, with infinite wisdom and sagacity, the long evolution of British prize law which had begun in the fourteenth century. This was a remarkable and a memorable achievement, of immense present and future importance, when the growth of the British Empire and that of the United States is borne in mind, and, fitly enough, it was synchronous with the victories of the British Navy, which raised the maritime power of Great Britain to a supreme position.

CHAPTER IV

STOWELL'S JUDICIAL WORK AND ITS

RESULTS

WHEN Scott became Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, with its two distinct jurisdictions, he had attained a peculiar position for which he was especially fitted, at a time fortunate for his country and himself; as Lord Morley says of the appearance of Voltaire, "in the phraseology of pre-scientific times it might well have been called providential." His temperament was judicial. He was a masterly scholar and an erudite lawyer; he was hardworking and shrewd, clear-headed and broadminded. The union of these attainments and qualities, which may be summarized as a union of learning and sagacity, together with the inestimable gift of being able to apply his powers aright, produced a remarkable` result― judgments which are their fruit and representation.

At the moment when Stowell became a judge England was involved in a great European struggle and in a long maritime

1

war the seas swarmed with British cruisers and with brave and energetic, not to say rapacious, privateers. The Prize Court was therefore in continuous request. Stowell instinctively realized his opportunity, and set himself to fulfil a great task which was admirably achieved. How clearly he recognized his position is to some extent evidenced by some words in a judgment delivered early in his judicial life in 1799in which also he definitely stated certain basic principles in regard to visit and search of neutral vessels by belligerent ships of war. "I trust," he says, "that it has not escaped my anxious recollection for one moment, what it is that the duty of my station calls for from me-namely, to consider myself as stationed here, not to deliver occasional and shifting opinions to serve present purposes of particular national interest, but to administer with indifference that justice which the Law of Nations holds out, without distinction, to independent states, some happening to be neutral and some to be belligerent."1 Stowell pursued judicial ideals and he perceived that he was placed in a position in which they could be realized and in which he could permanently create a body of British prize law. Many capable and

1 The Maria, 1. C. Robinson, p. 340; 1. English Prize Cases, p. 152.

honest judges would have been satisfied to deliver, what Stowell called in the judgment in the Maria, occasional and shifting opinions. There is, indeed, a great temptation to a judge of a Prize Court to look rather to present and transitory circumstances than to general principles. It has been said that Stowell leaned towards his own country-a belligerent nation. This criticism was certain to be made against his judgments, because in them he recognized the fundamental basis of maritime capture in time of hostilities, that it is in principle a necessary operation of war. For this reason he would not countenance any suggestion by which a blockade should be weakened. "What is the object of a blockade?" he asked. He answers the question by the words, "to cut off all communication of commerce with the blockaded place." "I must, therefore," he continued, "consider the act of egress to be as culpable as the act of ingress." 1

There are and always will be two schools in regard to the conflicting interests of belligerents and neutrals, one seeking to affirm the powers of belligerents and the other to safeguard the convenience of neutrals in time of war. Stowell, whilst he recognized the

1 The Frederick Molke, 1. C. Robinson, p. 86; 1. English Prize Cases, p. 58.