sent into port for adjudication as is provided in other treaties and ordinances. The treaty of commerce concluded at Utrecht, 1713, between France and Great Britain, art. 26, stipulated that "the contraband goods, discovered by the search thus made, shall not be sold, exchanged, or otherwise alienated in any manner whatever, until a regular proceeding, according to the laws and customs, against the prohibited goods, and until they shall have been condemned by the respective judges of the admiralty; excepting, however, the vessel itself and the other merchandize found on board, and which are to be considered as free by the present treaty, and without their being detained under the pretext that they are laden with prohibited goods, and still less confiscated as lawful prize."e

Another exception to the general freedom of neutral commerce and navigation in time of war, recognized by the approved usage of the period now in question, was the trade to places actually besieged, invested or blockaded.

§ 16. Block

ade.

Opinion of

We have already seen that Grotius, writing in the preceding age on the respective limits of belligerent and neu- Grotius. tral rights respecting trade and navigation, which he states had been and still continued the subject of sharp contention prohibits the carrying any thing to besieged or blockaded places as tending to impede the execution of the lawful design of the belligerent in endeavoring to compel his enemy to surrender or make peace.f

Bynkershoek, in commenting upon this passage of Grotius, has perhaps mistaken his meaning in supposing that he requires as a necessary ingredient in a strict blockade that there should be an expectation of peace, or of a surrender, whereas he probably merely mentions that as an example, and by way of putting the strongest possible case.g

Of Bynkershoek.

Bynkershoek also contests the mild doctrine of Grotius,
which limits the right of the belligerent in such a case to
require an indemnity from the neutral for the damage oc-
casioned by his fault, and if no actual damage has been
suffered, that the latter may only be compelled by the de-
tention of his goods to give security that he will not do the
like in future. But we are not to understand Grotius as
thus limiting the penalty for a breach of blockade in all
cases; for he adds in the latter part of the passage, that
where the neutral contributes by his supplies to sustain the
enemy in an unjust war, he ought to be held, not only ci-
villy, but criminally responsible, like a party who screens
a fugitive from justice, and to be punished accordingly,
even by the confiscation of his goods in a suitable case.b

Bynkershoek then proceeds to expound the law of blockade, as defined by treaties previous to those of Utrecht, and by belligerent ordinances issued during the second war waged by the Dutch for their independence of Spain. He enumerates a number of treaties between the States General and other powers, in which the carrying of any thing to places blockaded or besieged is prohibited, without specifying the penalty for a breach of the prohibition. He infers however that if the carrying any thing to such places be unlawful, the goods thus carried must be contraband, and as such liable to confiscation. He comments at large upon a remarkable decree of the States General published in 1630, with the advice of the courts of admiralty and the ablest Dutch civilians, to regulate the blockade of the ports of Flanders in possession of Spain.

The text of this ordinance, with the commentary of

h Quod si præterea evidentissima sit hostis mei in me injustitia, et ille eum in bello iniquissimo confirmet, jam non tantum civiliter tenebitur de damno, sed et criminaliter, ut is qui judici imminenti reum manifestum eximit : atque eo nomine licebit in eum statuere, quod delicto convenit, secundum ea quæ de pœnis diximus; quare intra eum modum etiam spoliari poterit. (Grotius, de J. B. ac P. lib. iii. cap. i. § v. No. 8.)

Bynkershoek upon its provisions will give us a complete notion of the law of blockade as understood among maritime nations from the time, when this decree was issued until the period when he wrote.

1. Les Etats Generaux des Provinces Unis aiant reçu et pesé les positions des cas ci à côté, ont après une mûre délibération préalable et sur l'avis des respectifs colleges de l'Amirauté trouvé bon et entendu à l'égard du premier point, que les vaisseaux neutres qu'on trouvera qu'ils sortent des ports ennemis de Flandres, ou qu'ils y entrent, ou qu'ils sont si près qu'il est indubitable qu'ils y veulent entrer, que ces vaisseaux avec leurs marchandises doivent être confisqués par sentence des susdits respectifs colleges, et cela à cause que leurs Hautes Puissances tiennent continuellement les dits ports bloqués par leurs vaisseaux de Guerre à la charge excessive de l'Etat, afin d'empêcher le transport et le commerce avec l'ennemi, et parceque ces ports et ces places sont reputés être assiegés, ce qui a été de tout temps un ancien usage selon l'exemple de tous les Rois, Princes, Puissances, et autres Républiques qui se sont servis du même droit dans de semblables occasions.

“2. A l'égard du second point, Leurs Hautes Puissances déclarent, que les vaisseaux et marchandises neutres seront aussi confisqués quand il constera par les lettres de Cargaison, Connoissemens, ou autres Documens, qu'ils ont été chargés dans les ports de Flandres, ou qu'ils sont destinés d'y aller, quand même on ne les auroit rencontrés que bien loin encore de là, de sorte qu'ils pourroient encore changer de route et d'intention. Ceci étant fondé sur ce qu'ils ont déjà tenté quelque chose d'illicite, et mis en oeuvre, quoi-qu'ils ne l'ayent pas achevé, ni porté au dernier point de perfection, à moins que les maîtres et les propriétaires de tels vaisseaux, ne fissent voir dûment qu'ils avoient désisté de leur propre mouvement de leur entreprise et voyage destiné, et cela avant qu'aucun vaisseau de l'Etat les eût vû on poursuivi, et que ceux-ci trouvassent la chose sans fraude ce qu'on pourra juger en examinant la nature de

l'affaire par des conjectures, les circonstances et l'occasion.

"3. A l'égard du troisième point, Leur Hautes Puissances déclarent, que les vaisseaux revenans des ports de Flandres (sans y avoir été jetés par une extrême necessité), et quoique rencontrés loin de là dans le Canal ou dans la Mer du nord, par les vaisseaux de l'Etat, quand même ils n'auroient pas été vûs ni poursuivis par ceux ci en sortant de là, seront aussi confisqués, à cause que tels Navires sont censés avoir été pris sur le fait, tant qu'ils n'ont point achevé ce voyage, et qu'ils ne sont point sauvés dans quelque port libre, ou appartenant à un Prince neutre. Mais ayant été, comme il a été dit, dans un port libre, et étant pris par les vaisseaux de Guerre de l'Etat dans un autre voyage, ces vaisseaux et marchandises ne seront point confisqués; à moins qu'ils n'ayent été en sortant des ports de Flandres suivis par les vaisseaux de Guerre, et poursuivis jusques dans un autre port que le leur, ou celui de leur destination, et qu'en sortant de nouveau de là, ils ayent été pris en pleine Mer."i

As to the first article, which condemns not only neutral ships, with their cargoes, found actually going into or coming out of the enemy's ports, but also those which should be found so near to those ports as to show beyond a doubt that they intended to run into them, Bynkershoek considers that this latter provision is fully justified as a rule of evidence by the general presumption, which the more ancient public jurists established, where contraband goods are found on the confines of the hostile territory. The only exception to this general presumption admitted by him is that arising from stress of weather.

He also approves of the second article, as collecting the intention to violate the blockade from the express admission of the party himself, contained in the documents found on

i Robinson's Collectanea Maritima, p. 158.

board, in like manner as the same intention is tacitly collected under the first article from circumstantial evidence. But he finds some difficulty in sanctioning the locus penitentiæ accorded by the edict unless upon very clear proof of the alteration of the voyage.

The third article he considers as properly distinguishing between vessels which are chased or compelled to take refuge, and those which proceed voluntarily to the port of their destination. "The latter are excused" says he, "when found coming out of that port, their voyage being considered as ended, and a new one begun, while the former are condemned as being taken in the very act of violating the blockade. But on the subject of these, the edict speaks in the disjunctive, and says 'if they are chased into their own port, or the port of their destination,' so that there may be a doubt as to the sense of these words, and the law which results from them. Certainly there can be no doubt if the same thing is meant by their own port, and the port of their destination. But if an Englishman who was bound to a port of Denmark, is driven into a port of England, and coming out of it, and prosecuting his voyage, should be taken before he reached the Danish port, it appears to me that he would be taken in the course, and in the very act of the illicit voyage, and that it would be of no consequence whether it was his port, or not, which he had entered into, if the voyage which he was engaged in had not been completely finished. Therefore as disjunctives are frequently to be construed as conjunctives, I understand these words their own port, in the said article to mean the port to which the vessel was bound, and where her voyage was to be ended."k

My learned friend, Mr. Duponceau, the translator of Bynkershoek, supposes that this part of the edict is too plain to require any constructive interpretation, "since whether the vessel was chased into the actual port of her destination, or into any other port of her own country, she is equally to be condemned according to the letter of the law as it is given to