apprenticeship between her crew and her owners or masters, should cease to be binding. These, and many other things equally irrational and absurd, a sovereign state has doubtless the power to do; but they are not to be presumed. It is not to be taken for granted, ab ante, that it is the will of the sovereign state thus to withdraw itself from the circle of civilized nations. It will be time enough to believe this to be its intention when it formally announces that intention by appropriate enactments, edicts, or other declarations.

In regard to slavery within the British territories, there is a well-known and clear promulgation of the will of the sovereign authority; that is to say, there is a well-known rule of her law. As to England herself, that law has long existed; and recent acts of Parliament establish the same law for the colonies. The usual mode of stating the rule of English law is, that no sooner does a slave reach the shore of England than he is free. This is true; but it means no more than that, when a slave comes within the exclusive jurisdiction of England, he ceases to be a slave, because the law of England positively and notoriously prohibits and forbids the existence of such a relation between man and man. But it does not mean that English authorities, with this rule of English law in their hands, may enter where the jurisdiction of another nation is acknowledged to exist, and there destroy rights, obligations, and interests lawfully existing under the authority of such other nation. No such construction, and no such effect, can be rightfully given to the British law. It is true that it is competent to the British Parliament, by express statute provision, to declare that no foreign jurisdiction of any kind should exist in or over a vessel after its arrival voluntarily in her ports. And so she might close all her ports to the ships of all nations. A state may also declare, in the absence of treaty stipulations, that foreigners shall not sue in her courts, nor travel in her territories, nor carry away funds or goods received for debts. We need not inquire what would be the condition of a country that should establish such laws, nor in what relation they would leave her toward the states of the civilized world. Her power to make such laws is unquestionable; but, in the absence of direct and positive enactments to that effect, the presumption is that the opposites of these things exist. While her ports are open to foreign trade, it is to be pre

sumed that she expects foreign ships to enter them, bringing with them the jurisdiction of their own government, and the protection of its laws, to the same extent that her ships and the ships of other commercial states carry with them the jurisdiction of their respective governments into the open ports of the world. just as it is presumed, while the contrary is not avowed, that strangers may travel in a civilized country in a time of peace, sue in its courts, and bring away their property.

A merchant-vessel enters the port of a friendly state, and enjoys while there the protection of her own laws, and is under the jurisdiction of her own government, not in derogation of the sovereignty of the place, but by the presumed allowance or permission of that sovereignty. This permission or allowance is founded on the comity of nations, like the other cases which have been mentioned; and this comity is part, and a most important and valuable part, of the law of nations, to which all nations are presumed to assent until they make their dissent known. In the silence of any positive rule affirming, or denying, or restraining the operation of foreign laws, their tacit adoption is presumed, to the usual extent. It is upon this ground that the courts of law expound contracts according to the law of the place in which they are made; and instances almost innumerable exist in which, by the general practice of civilized countries, the laws of one will be recognized and often executed in another. This is the comity of nations; and it is upon this, as its solid basis, that the intercourse of civilized states is maintained.

But while that which has now been said is understood to be the voluntary and adopted law of nations, in cases of the voluntary entry of merchant-vessels into the ports of other countries, it is nevertheless true that vessels in such ports only through an overruling necessity may place their claim for exemption from interference on still higher principles; that is to say, principles held in more sacred regard by the comity, the courtesy, or, indeed, the common sense of justice of all civilized

states.

Even in regard to cases of necessity, however, there are things of an unfriendly and offensive character, which yet it may not be easy to say that a nation might not do. For example, a nation might declare her will to be, and make it the

law of her dominions, that foreign vessels cast away on her shores should be lost to their owners, and subject to the ancient law of wreck. Or a neutral state, while shutting her ports to the armed vessels of belligerents, as she has a right to do, might resolve on seizing and confiscating vessels of that description which should be driven to take shelter in her harbors by the violence of the storms of the ocean. But laws of this character, however within the absolute competence of governments, could only be passed, if passed at all, under willingness to meet the last responsibility to which nations are subjected.

The presumption is stronger, therefore, in regard to vessels driven into foreign ports by necessity, and seeking only temporary refuge, than in regard to those which enter them voluntarily, and for purposes of trade, that they will not be interfered with; and that, unless they commit, while in port, some act against the laws of the place, they will be permitted to receive supplies, to repair damages, and to depart unmolested.

If, therefore, vessels of the United States, pursuing lawful voyages from port to port along their own shore, are driven by stress of weather, or carried by unlawful force, into English ports, the government of the United States cannot consent that the local authorities in those ports shall take advantage of such misfortunes, and enter them for the purpose of interfering with the condition of persons or things on board, as established by their own laws. If slaves, the property of citizens of the United States, escape into the British territories, it is not expected that they will be restored. In that case, the territorial jurisdiction of England will have become exclusive over them, and must decide their condition. But slaves on board of American vessels lying in British waters are not within the exclusive jurisdiction of England, or under the exclusive operation of English law; and this founds the broad distinction between the cases. If persons guilty of crimes in the United States seek an asylum in the British dominions, they will not be demanded until provision for such cases be made by treaty; because the giving up of criminals, fugitive from justice, is agreed and understood to be a matter in which every nation regulates its conduct according to its own discretion. It is no breach of comity to refuse such surrender.

On the other hand, vessels of the United States, driven by necessity into British ports, and staying there no longer than such necessity exists, violating no law, and having no intent to violate any law, will claim, and there will be claimed for them, protection and security, freedom from molestation, and from all interference with the character or condition of persons or things. on board. In the opinion of the government of the United States, such vessels, so driven and so detained by necessity in a friendly port, ought to be regarded as still pursuing their original voyage, and turned out of their direct course only by disaster, or by wrongful violence; that they ought to receive all assistance necessary to enable them to resume that direct course; and that interference and molestation by the local authorities, where the whole voyage is lawful, both in act and intent, is ground for just and grave complaint.

Your Lordship's discernment and large experience in affairs cannot fail to suggest to you how important it is to merchants and navigators engaged in the coasting trade of a country so large in extent as the United States, that they should feel secure against all but the ordinary causes of maritime loss. The possessions of the two governments closely approach each other. This proximity, which ought to make us friends and good neighbors, may, without proper care and regulation, itself prove a ceaseless cause of vexation, irritation, and disquiet.

If your Lordship has no authority to enter into a stipulation by treaty for the prevention of such occurrences hereafter as have already happened, occurrences so likely to disturb that peace between the two countries which it is the object of your Lordship's mission to establish and confirm, you may still be so far acquainted with the sentiments of your government as to be able to engage that instructions shall be given to the local authorities in the islands, which shall lead them to regulate their conduct in conformity with the rights of citizens of the United States, and the just expectations of their government, and in such manner as shall, in future, take away all reasonable ground of complaint. It would be with the most profound regret that the President should see that, while it is now hcped so many other subjects of difference may be harmoniously adjusted, nothing should be done in regard to this dangerous source of future collisions.

I avail myself of this occasion to renew to your Lordship the assurances of my distinguished consideration.

LORD ASHBURTON, &c., &c., &c.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster.

Washington, August 6, 1842.

SIR, You may well be assured that I am duly sensible of the great importance of the subject to which you call my attention in the note which you did me the honor of addressing me the 1st instant, in which you inform me that the President had been pleased to express his regret that I was not empowered by my government to enter into a formal stipulation for the better security of vessels of the United States when meeting with disasters in passing between the United States and the Bahama Islands, and driven by such disasters into British ports.

It is, I believe, unnecessary that I should tell you that the case of the "Creole " was known in London a few days only before my departure. No complaint had at that time been made by Mr. Everett. The subject was not, therefore, among those which it was the immediate object of my mission to discuss. But at the same time I must admit that, from the moment I was acquainted with the facts of this case, I was sensible of all its importance, and I should not think myself without power to consider of some adjustment of, and remedy for, a great acknowledged difficulty, if I could see my way clearly to any satisfactory course, and if I had not arrived at the conclusion, after very anxious consideration, that, for the reasons which I will state, this question had better be treated in London, where it will have a much increased chance of settlement on terms likely to satisfy the interests of the United States.

The immediate case of the "Creole" would be easily disposed of, but it involves a class and description of cases which, for the purpose of affording that security you seek for the trade of America through the Bahama Channel, brings into consideration questions of law, both national and international, of the highest importance; and, to increase the delicacy and difficulty of the subject, public feeling is sensitively alive to every thing connected with it. These circumstances bring me to the convic