ding with an enemy, and trading in the produce and manufactures of the enemy's country, are obviously distinguishable. Such produce may be purchased from a neutral, who had previously purchased it from the enemy; in this case the purchase is from the neutral owner, from a friend, and the place of origin of the property, the antecedent ownership, the price which the neutral paid, the market in which he bought it, the mode of conveyance to the port of shipment, its further or ultimate destination, are manifestly immaterial; for the neutral is entitled to purchase it in the port of one belligerent and convey it for sale to the port of the adversary, for both are equally his friends.

CHAPTER IX.

ALLIES.

1354. THERE are two kinds of alliance, defensive and offensive.

1355. A treaty of defensive alliance only binds the contractor to aid in resisting a war commenced against the party whom he has contracted to aid. By commenced, we mean caused, not formally commenced, for the preparations of one country may render it necessary for the other to anticipate a meditated invasion. He is not bound to aid in a war created by the ally's own provocation, injustice, or aggression; but he cannot evade his contract on any shallow pretence; he is bound to regard his ally as in the right unless he is manifestly wrong.

1356. A treaty of offensive alliance is a contract engaging co-operation in war, either immediate, prospective, or conditional, against some particular Power or Powers. Such treaties are numerous, and in general define the terms, contingencies, and conditions.

1357. Treaties may be offensive and defensive, as offensive treaties necessarily to some extent are.

1358. These treaties sometimes stipulate for aid by good services; that failing, with stipulated marine or land forces; that failing, with open declaration of war and assistance, with all the vigour they can employ.

1359. Strictly speaking, the relation of allies refers to the actual raging of war, as during general peace the various alliances existing between nations, however influential, are inoffensive to others.

1360. All the allies are enemies of the common enemy, and consequently the subjects of neither of the allies can carry on commerce with the common enemy without the sanction of the sovereign authority of all the nations engaged in the alliance.

1361. The offending vessel of any one of the allies is liable to capture by the cruiser of its own nation, or of any other of the allied nations, and to condemnation in the prize-courts of either of the allies.

1362. All the allies on one side stand confronted with all the allies on the other. Each set of allies, to a certain extent, constitute one belligerent; and as such, any of the allies on the one side is entitled to treat and to capture the vessel and goods of any of the allies on the other, as if two nations only were engaged in the conflict.

1363. And their relations to neutral powers are similar. But both with regard to enemies confederated in the alliance and to neutrals, each of the allied nations may be bound by antecedent conventions, and special engagements in treaties, even affecting the conduct of war, as though each of the belligerent nations were warring only against that included in the treaty, or as if it were not associated with belligerents whose relation to the neutral is different. All those allied with a nation so bound must respect, so far as his conduct is concerned, the conditions of the treaty.

CHAPTER X.

CONFEDERATES.

1364. TREATIES of alliance or federation may constitute, as already appears, a relation less close than that of entire concurrence in actual war. Nations may contract for a general combination in a war either offensive or defensive, or they may contract only for such combination under contingencies or conditions which may not have arisen; the contract may be for limited assistance or subsidy in a war with any nation, or with a particular nation, in certain eventualities, with a stipulated naval or military force, and with conditional increase or diminution under other circumstances.

1365. Whatever be the effect of these treaties, the contracting parties are bound to perform them. Nations are assumed to be acquainted with the treaties and conventions existing between others, as well as those to which they are parties; although it does happen that there are sometimes: secret stipulations not in conformity with international faith.

1366. Each of two bellicose nations making their preparations has to consider the position of other nations, whether any of them are bound by treaties of alliance, or of subsidy or assistance, which may qualify the neutrality which it would be their duty otherwise to observe. For if his contemplated adversary A. has contracted with nation B. for. the aid of 20,000 troops, and with nation C. for the assistance of twenty ships of war, and limited stores in ammunition and arms, he must be content to encounter those forces of B. and C. confederated with his enemy, and to fight: their vessels which convey such contraband of war; and yet in all other respects to regard B. and C. as his friends, or to abstain from the contest, or he must prepare for battle with all the forces of the confederation. The contract of a

nation to supply munitions of war does not protect its subjects in resisting the search for, and seizure of, contraband. The subjects must observe strict neutrality.

1367. It is possible that inconsiderate treaties may have involved a prince in intricate complications; they may entangle him in the obligation to afford limited assistance to each of the contending parties. If so, the faith of treaty must not be violated. But his troops are not to confront each other in battle, like the divided bands of hired condottieri. Are his own regiments to encounter each other in the deadly charge? Are his own crews to board and destroy his own vessels? Necessity requires that he should only aid, with the amount of the difference in forces, that one of the contracting nations which was entitled to demand the most extensive assistance; and if the amount stipulated to each be equal, he performs his contract by remaining absolutely neuter.

1368. A neutral under such conventions with one of the belligerents violates his neutrality by affording an assistance in excess of what he is bound to afford. But so long as he confines his assistance to the quota which he has contracted to furnish, in soldiers, ships, or supplies, the belligerent, whatever his damage, is not entitled to complain. As to the military outfit, the confederate is an ally of the belligerent he aids, and an enemy of the adversary; in all other respects he is the friend of both. The expedition which he furnishes in vessels and men is an element of the war, a part of his confederate belligerent's force, to assault and slaughter the adverse belligerent's forces, and to encounter the hazard of destruction and defeat; in all other respects the confederate is a neutral, and all his amicable relations with both of the belligerents remain undisturbed. The condition of a confederate is ever a precarious state.

1369. Under the head of confederacy must also be ranked the conventions containing stipulations by which the con

tracting Powers secure to each other any privileges inconsistent with their strict neutrality towards other Powers, in the eventuality of a war in which either of the contracting parties may be engaged, such as transit across their territories or maritime dominions; to advance against, or pursue, or to retreat, or take refuge from the adverse belligerent; permission to hire or enlist soldiers or sailors; to fit out or arm, or increase the armaments of vessels of war; to supply with arms, to introduce and sell prizes in its ports; or any military advantage or convenience which is to be denied to the adversary; in fact, any stipulation inconsistent with the normal condition of a strictly neutral nation.

Such conditions constitute valid qualifications of neutrality, and must be respected by the belligerents, on the ground that they are known conditions on which they enter upon hostilities. Therefore secret conventions of that character are unlawful, especially if made on the eve of, and in anticipation of, a war.

1370. But nations are not bound by the classifications of authors. They are not obliged to abstain from considering the justice of the war, or how their interests may be affected, although they are bound to act as if both belligerents were justified, so long as they continue neutral. Each nation may on the outbreak, or at any period of the war, declare that she will assist, or permit her subjects to assist, one of the belligerents; and that she will not assist, or permit her subjects to assist, the other. She has a right to assert the freedom of her commerce, and to declare that, in defiance of the cruisers of either belligerent, her merchant ships shall traverse the ocean unquestioned and unsearched, and that they shall enter the blockaded ports uninterrupted and unassailed. She has a right to interdict the interference of the ships of war of either belligerent, or of both. The belligerents must accept the conditions under penalty of additional warfare. Neither of them has a better right to quarrel than all other nations have, separately or combined,