E.b.N. and E.N.E., as far as 92° E.; and to the South of the parallel of 5° N. it is E.S.E., and as before mentioned.

I am well aware that no written description of the extent and direction of currents can convey so correct or satisfactory an idea of them as a representation on a chart. I trust, however, that these few notes, though incomplete, will not be without their practical utility.

I am, &c.,

J. A. HEATHCOTE, H.M. Indian Navy. To the Editor of the Nautical Magazine.

AN OUTLINE OF SOME PRINCIPAL POINTS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW. By H. C. Becher, Esq., Q. C.

[Some observations on the subject of international law at the present moment may not be out of season, when an appeal has so recently been made to those customs and usages on which it is founded in reference to the late affair of the Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company's ship Trent. The subject has been taken up at London, in Canada West, by a gentleman of the bar in that country, and not very far from Lake Erie. We therefore preserve the following remarks, which he made in the course of his lecture.-ED.]

International Law was defined as the customary law which determines the rights and regulates the intercourse of independent states in peace and in war, as founded on custom and implied compact,—the unwritten law, in fact, established by the consent of nations. Its repositories were history, treaties, proclamations, marine ordinances, and decisions of prize courts; its subjects were sovereign states. The objection urged against it as law is that it can be no law, because there is no common superior authority acknowledged between nations. But the means of enforcing the law were found, and independent of such means there was the law. The lecturer alluded to the various writers upon the law and its origin and perfection. Grotius, a writer born in the sixteenth century, was specially mentioued. He then treated his subject under two heads-the pacific, and the belligerent rights of nations.

The first of these formed the right of security, independence, equality, and property-all of which were defined and dilated on. As incidental to the first, the doctrine of intervention was explained, and allusion was made to the system known as the "balance of power."

International pacific rights, those of legation and negotiation, were explained. The learned lecturer then proceeded to the consideration of the belligerent rights of nations. To redress their injuries, nations. had recourse to reprisals or to war. The former were defined at length: a positive reprisal consisted in seizing persons and effects be

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longing to another nation in order to compel them to give satisfaction. The contemplated course of England with regard to Mexico seemed to partake of this character. War, he said, was defined by Vattel as "that state in which we prosecute our rights by force." Various definitions of war were given, perfect and imperfect, civil and national, offensive and defensive. Civil war, it was observed, was a public war as far as the existing government were concerned, but a private one on the part of the insurgents. The sovereign power alone could make war, and civil war was an exception from this.

The custom of declaring war went far back into antiquity: the Romans practised it, and it was long continued; but the present practice was for the State with whom the war commences to publish a manifesto within its own territories, stating the existence of hostilities and the reasons for them.

The seizure of persons and confiscation of enemy's property within its own territory was a clear belligerent right. Modern usage had, however, modified this. All trade between belligerent nations, unless authosised by their governments, was prohibited. The law prohibited all cruelty not absolutely necessary for the ends of war, which were to protect nations in the enjoyment of their just rights. The employment of Indians had been much decried; but the Indians of the present time had been subjected to civilising influences; they were employed by the government in 1837, during the occupation of Navy Island, and from three weeks' observation of them then, he (the lecturer) could bear testimony to their order and good behaviour. Should a war unhappily occur between England and the United States, he had no doubt they would be employed on both sides.

The laws of war were then discussed. The lecturer alluded then to privateering; it had been carried further by the Americans than any other nation. During the last war with Great Britain, the State of New York passed an act constituting every association of five persons desiring to embark in the trade of privateering a body corporate. In the late war with Russia there were no privateers. The law prohibits certain modes of warfare: such as poisoning, assassination, and, according to Martens, the loading of cannon with pieces of iron, nails, &c. To this latter treatment the inhabitants of Amherstburgh, on the Detroit River, had been subjected in 1837, by the pirate schooner Anne. He next referred to the treatment of prisoners of war: exchanges, of releases on parole, and the penalty of death attaching to a prisoner taken as a spy; and here he made feeling allusion to the case of Major André, reading the English account of it, and also that given by Washington Irving.

As to warfare at sea and on land, Mr. Becher observed there was a wide distinction. In maritime warfare, the object was the destruction of the enemy's commerce and navigation. This was only attainable by capture and confiscation of private property, while the object of war by land was conquest or the acquisition of territory. As to the enemy's property, in the rigour of international law, to capture or destroy this is lawful. But this has been much modified by the humane

usages of nations. The distinction, however, between land and sea operations was not to be forgotten.

Laying waste an enemy's country was only justifiable when necessary for the success of military operations; a departure from these usages was sometimes justifiable under the lex talionis, or law of retaliation, which was considered of much influence in restraining excesses in modern warfare. The case of Captain Asgill in the American Revolutionary war; the drawing lots among the Federal prisoners lately as to who should be put to death in the event of the sentence being carried into effect against the Southern privateersmen convicted of piracy, and the burning of the summer palace of the Emperor of China, were cited as instances.

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As to the title to property captured, possession for twenty-four hours seems essential to its transfer to the captors. In the case of ships and goods, however, taken at sea, the title does not pass until the validity of the capture has been confirmed by a competent prize court of the captors' government, sitting in its own country. Time, Mr. Becher said, prevented him touching upon the law of embargo, of licences to trade, of recognition, extradition, and other topics, and he could but shortly notice the law of blockade. Blockade was defined a sort of circumvallation round a place, by which all foreign connexions and correspondence were, as far as human force could effect it, entirely cut off." In order that the law should apply, it was necessary the biockade should be actual. To enter or quit a blockaded port, with a cargo laden after the commencement of the blockade, was punishable with confiscation of the ship and cargo. This brought him to the consideration of the rights of war regarding neutral nations. These nations were those who in time of war remained the friends of both belligerents without favoring the arms of either. Hostilities could not be lawfully exercised within the territory, land or water, of a neutral state. There was an exception to this rule, however, laid down by writers on the subject: and it was well exemplified by the circumstances which led to the capture of the steamer Caroline, at Port Schlosser, in 1837. He then read this case from Phillimore's Law of Nations, page 189. He next referrad to the duties of neutrals not to permit the arming and equipment of ships or troops within their territory. With us this was forbidden by the Foreign Enlistment Act, the Imperial Act 59 Geo. III. cap. 69. He referred to the case of Colonel Rankin, and supposed that that case was not proceeded with because the 9th section of the Act provided only for the trial of offences committed against it out of the United Kingdom, before the court of Queen's Bench at Westminster.

As to the commerce of neutrals with the enemy, they had a right to carry on their general commerce, and even to carry the enemy's goods from the enemy's country to their own, without subjecting the ship or any neutral goods on board to confiscation.

A belligerent was entitled to seize an enemy's goods on board a neutral vessel. It had been, however, frequent in commercial treaties, to stipulate that free ships should make free goods, and thus this prin

ciple, like many others of international unwritten law, had been modified by convention. The principle of free ships making free goods was recognised in 1854 by England, and adopted by France and Russia. France renounced her right of confiscating neutral property on board Russian ships, and England that of confiscating Russian property on board of neutral ships. This liberal doctrine would, perhaps, be entirely adopted, and govern belligerents in future wars. He would refer to the order in council as to our part of this matter presently.

But this freedom of commerce did not extend to contraband of war, such as warlike stores, anything auxiliary to warlike purposes. There was a long catalogue of contraband, which he would not go into ; articles of food, if going to the enemy's forces, had been adjudged contraband. He then quoted the following from Polson's Law of Nations, appendix, 63:

"Despatches.-To convey to the enemy's possessions an official communication of an official person in the service of the enemy, is an act that will expose the neutral carrier to the consequences of engaging in a contraband trade, although if the owner of the cargo, at the time of the shipment, be ignorant the ship is about to engage in such an undertaking, the cargo will be saved harmless. To carry dispatches from the enemy to his ambassador, or to his consul in a neutral country, is no ground of condemnation."

The Caroline, 6 Rob. 465; the Susan, 6 Rob. 461; the Madison, Edw. 224, were quoted in support of this.

"Carrying military persons subjects the vessel to condemnation." See the Friendship, 6 Rob. 420. This case he would refer to presently. All contrabands were subject to seizure, and, under certain circumstances, carrying them confiscated the vessel. Mr. Becher then

read from Levi's Commercial Law, p. 87, the order in council of the 15th of April, 1854, respecting the trade of neutrals and British subjects, to which he had before referred, and they would now better understand its bearing.

"To preserve the commerce of neutrals from all unnecessary obstruction, her Majesty is willing, for the present, to waive a part of the belligerent rights appertaining to her by the law of nations.

"It is impossible for her Majesty to forego the exercise of her right of seizing articles contraband of war, and of preventing neutrals from bearing the enemy's dispatches; and she must maintain the right of a belligerent to prevent neutrals from breaking any effective blockade which may be established with an adequate force against the enemy's forts, harbours, or coasts.

"But her Majesty will waive the right of seizing enemy's property laden on board a neutral vessel, unless it be contraband of war.

"It is not her Majesty's intention to claim the confiscation of neutral property, not being contraband of war, found on board enemy's ships; and her Majesty further declares, that being anxious to lessen

as much as possible the evils of war, and to restrict its operations to the regularly organized forces of the country, it is not her present intention to issue letters of marque for the commissioning of pri

vateers.

The lecturer then illustrated the mode of proceeding in Prize Courts. He took the case of the Friendship, above cited, because there was something in that case that was of interest at present.

The case came on in the High Court of Admiralty in 1807, before Sir William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell.

She was an American ship, bound from Baltimore and Annapolis to Bordeaux, with a very small cargo of fustic and staves, and with ninety passengers, eighty-four of whom were French soldiers.

She was captured by a British cruiser, and her condemnation was sought on the ground that, in point of fact, she was a transport carrying these soldiers to France.

Her owner, a Frenchman by birth, but a subject of the United States, claimed her, and alleged the innocence of her trade, denying she was a transport, or engaged in that service, alleging the soldiers were chance passengers.

Sir William Scott condemned her. The following part of his lordship's judgment will be received with interest:-Under these circumstances, I am of opinion that this vessel is to be considered as a French transport. It would be a very different case if a vessel appeared to be carrying only a few individual invalided soldiers, or discharged sailors, taken on board by chance, and at their own charge. Looking at the description of the men on board, I am satisfied that they are still as effective members of the French marine as any can be. Shall it be said, then, that this is an innoxious trade, or that it is an innocent occupation of the vessel? It is asked, Will you lay down a principle that may be carried to the length of preventing a military officer in the service of the enemy from finding his way home in a neutral vessel from America to Europe? If he was going merely as an ordinary passenger or as other passengers do, and at his own expense, the question would present itself in a very different form. Neither this Court nor any other British tribunal, has ever laid down the principle to that extent. This is a case differently composed. It is the case of a vessel letting herself out in a distinct manner, under a contract with the enemy's government to convey a number of persons, described as being in the service of the enemy with their military character. I do with perfect satisfaction of mind pronounce this to be a case of a ship engaged in a course of trade which cannot be considered to be permitted to neutral vessels, and without hesitation pronounce this vessel subject to condemnation."

The fustic and staves were condemned also.

Next came the right of visit and search, This, said Mr. Becher, in time of war was a most undoubted right on the part of the lawfully commissioned cruisers of the belligerent states. They could lawfully stop and search all neutral private vessels for the purpose of seeing whether or not they were employed in the enemy's service.