enemy father to a neutral son, the absence of pecuniary consideration,' or in case of a sale, the fact of part of the money being still unpaid is not a valid objection." Convoy, when the British government is engaged in hosti- THE LAW OF lities, becomes a private necessity, and a State policy. The government, in order to prevent the enemy from recruiting his means by the capture of our merchantmen at sea, provides an armed convoy from time to time, to start from a specified rendezvous for a particular voyage with all vessels ready by the time named, and intended for the final destination, or for certain intermediate ports, or appointed half-way rendezvous of other convoys. Under a statute passed for a temporary purpose, neglect to sail with convoy, disobedience to sailing instructions, and such other default as would tend to frustrate the assistance of government and further the aims of the enemy, are punished with penalties and imprisonment." The obligation of the shipowner under a warranty to sail with convoy binds him to avoid all negligence that would vitiate the policy and expose the vessel and her cargo to capture. For if he do not sail with convoy, and the vessel is lost, although by tempest, the insurance is thereby become void, and the shipowner liable for what the freighter would otherwise have obtained from the underwriter. And he does not sail with convoy, in view of the law, by merely proceeding in company; he must obtain sailing instructions from the officer in command, or at least show that he failed through no negligence in him. We have already seen what is such a starting and arriving with convoy as will satisfy the warranty. He must also continue with it, if tempest or other reasonable excuse prevent not; for it would seem that negligence in this, The Benedict, Spinks, Prize Cases, 314. 2 Sorensen v. The Queen, 11 Moore, P. C. 119, reversing The Baltica, Pygelstrom, Spinks, Prize Cases, 264. See the expired statutes, 38 Geo. 3, c. 76; 43 Geo. 3, c. 57. 4 Phillips v. Baillie, 3 Doug. 374; Rinquist v. Ditchell, 3 Esp. 64; Sanderson v. Busher, 4 Camp. 54 n., where Gibbs, C. J., gives an account of Rin- 5 Webb v. Thompson, 1 B. & P. 5 ; CONVOY. CAPTURE AS Free Ships, free Personal Character impressed on the Property. Character of the Country impressed on the Produce of it. Who is Owner, Shipper, or Consignee. ending in loss to the enemy, will subject him to an action for the damage occasioned thereby to the shipper.' In addition to what has already been said of capture in this and previous chapters, a few things remain which it is proper to mention here, as being likely to produce hostile interference with the due performance of the contract of affreightment. Enemy's ships, we have seen, continue to be lawful prize; but by the concession of 1856, enemy's goods in neutral bottoms are not. A very large amount of property is thereby withdrawn from liability to confiscation; and investigations and legal questions often of a nice and difficult nature before the prize tribunals have thus been obviated. But as neutral goods on board of enemy's ships are not prize, questions and investigations of a similar description, occasioned by the desire of the enemy to escape condemnation, will still arise. As a general rule, personal property follows the rights of the person. The law of domicil on which these rights may be dependent, is liable to be complicated, if not altogether superseded by the presumption of the law of nations against one who lingers in an enemy's country, that he is remorant and an enemy. Therefore, a ship purchased from an enemy by such a person, though claiming to be a neutral, is liable to condemnation, unless his presence in the enemy's country be satis factorily explained.3 But altogether, irrespective of the rights of the person who is owner, property which is the produce of the hostile soil takes character from the country, and becomes liable to confiscation notwithstanding it was cropped from the plantation of a neutral, and shipped before the outbreak of hostilities.' As to the person who is the owner, that is a question on the threshold of the inquiry as to ship or cargo. With regard to the ship, the colours and pass that she sails Lilly v. Ewer, 1 Doug. 72; Jeffrey . Legendra, Carth. 216; 3 Lev. 320. Even if recaptured, there is the burden of salvage, The Wight, Forde, 5 C. Rob. Ad. 315. Ante, pp. 16, 418, 474-478. 3 The Bernon, Dunn, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 104. 4 The Vrow Anna Catharina, Mahts, 5 C. Rob. Ad. 167; The Phoenix, Wildeboer, 5 C. Rob. Ad. 21; The Dree Gebroeders, Vandyk, 4 C. Rob. Ad. 235. under are conclusive against her,' but not for her. And if she is not properly documented, exhibiting no bill of sale, although a pretended purchase, but originally an enemy's ship,' or if there has been a spoliation of papers, and other signs of bad faith; these are grounds of unfavourable presumption, the effect of which is not to be avoided, except by clear and satisfactory evidence to the contrary. 4 As to the cargo, even before the civil tribunals, it is often a question, whether the goods after shipment, are at the risk of the consignor or the consignee. In the prize courts it is a general rule, that capture of goods shipped to an enemy, being equivalent in view of the law of nations to delivery, vests the property in the captors,' unless it appear that by an established custom of the trade, or by a bona fide contract not made in contemplation of war,' the goods remain at the risk of the shipper. On the contrary, when the shipment is by an enemy, it is a settled principle of prize law, that in order to constitute an effectual transfer of the property, there must be either an order for the goods, or an acceptance of them by the consignee, prior to the capture. Condemnation, therefore, followed the capture of specie consigned by an enemy shipper for the purpose of answering the drafts of his correspondent in a neutral country, there being no document to show that the money was out of the consignor's control. So under a similar absence of documents with regard to goods shipped "for neutral account; à fortiori, where the shipper's letter directed his agent to retain The Vrow Elisabeth, Probst, 5 C. Rob. Ad. 2 note; The Vigilantia, Gerritz, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 13; The Goede Hoop, Van Thuysen, 2 Acton, 32. The Fortuna, Verissimo, 1 Dods. 87; The Success, Smith, 1 id. 130. 3 Per Lord Stowell, The Copenhagen, Mening, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 289; The Sisters, 5 id. 155; The America, Sherborne, 3 C. Rob. Ad. 36. The Rising Sun, Wilkie, 2 C. Rob. Ad. 108; The America, Sherborne, supra; the Atlas, Kimbell, 3 C. Rob. 304 and note; The Margaret, Heard, 1 Acton, Ad. 333; The Santissima Coraçao 99 10 De Maria, Carneiro, 2 Acton, Ad. 91. 5 Per Lord Stowell, The Packet De Bilboa, Depucheta, 2 C. Rob. Ad. 133; The Neptunus, Bachman, 6 C. Rob. Ad. 403, 409; The Anna Catharina, Wupper, 4 id. 111. 6 Per Lord Stowell, The Packet De Bilboa, Depucheta, supra. 7 The Anna Catharina, supra. 8 The Cousine Marianne, Deboer, Edw. Ad. 346, 347. The Josephine, Fish, 4 C. Rob. Ad. 25. 10 The Jonge Pieter, Musterdt, 4 C. Rob. Ad. 79. Right of Search. Contraband of Offence, how consummated-how purged. the goods till paid for, or security given, by the consignee, or where the bill of lading before sailing was altered and made "to the order of the shippers." Even the delivery of the bills of lading has been held not to be sufficient of itself to prove an effectual transfer of the property." From all this it is obvious that notwithstanding the concession of 1856 in favour of the neutral flag as a protection to the goods of an enemy, the ship is still liable to the belligerent right of visitation and search; for non constat but she is sailing under false colours, or carries contraband of war, or intends committing a breach of blockade.' Resistance, therefore, to the exercise of that right by any lawfully authorised ship of the belligerent power, entails condemnation on the neutral vessel if it be shown that she had reasonable grounds to be satisfied of the existence of a war. And although an evasion of the right,' or a slight hesitation about resisting it, has not, in practice, been held so penal; yet a clear intention on the part of a neutral to resist, evinced by sailing under positive instructions from his own government, delivered to and accepted by him, to prevent, by force, if necessary, all inquiry and search, amounts, in view of the law of nations, to a complete act of hostility; and abandonment of the intention after that is a defence that cannot be set up.' The carrying of goods which are contraband of war to an enemy's port is a deviation from neutral conduct, and an offence which is visited by the law of nations with consequences that vary according to the circumstances of the case. This offence is consummated the moment that the vessel quits the port of loading. Usually it is purged with the 1 The Aurora, Lindberg, 4 C. Rob. Ad. 219. 2 The Marianna, Posadilla, 6 C. Rob. Ad. 24. 3 Per Lord Stowell, The Maria, Paulsen, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 340; Le Louis, Forest, 2 Dods. Ad. 244; Bynkershoek, Quaest. Jur. Pub. lib. 1, c. 14; Vattel, Law of Nations, bk. 3, c. 7, $114; Wheaton, International Law, 588. 4 The St. Juan Baptista, and La Purissima Concepcion, 5 C. Rob. Ad. Per Lord Stowell, The Maria, 8 The Imina Bauman, Vroom, 3 C. Rob. Ad. 167, 168. deposit of the goods, although that be in the enemy's port. It is, therefore, only during the prosecution of the voyage with contraband on board that the vessel and her cargo are amenable to the law of nations. The consequences of her capture under these circumstances would be, in an ordinary case, the confiscation of the contraband articles, and of all property on board belonging to the same person, even to the share that he might have in the ship herself." The vessel, so far as she does not belong to the owner of the contraband cargo, suffers the loss of freight for the confiscated property and her expenses; but beyond that the ship and rest of the cargo are not liable to loss.' But when this misconduct of the neutral is connected with malignant and aggravating circumstances, as where the cargo is shipped with a false destination, and the vessel proceeds with false papers on board, both ship and cargo are liable to confiscation on the homeward as well as the outward voyage, notwithstanding she may have discharged and loaded again several times in the interval at intermediate ports, and be at the time of capture clear of contraband on board." band of War. The list of articles which are contraband of war is by no Articles contrameans fixed or definite; considerable changes have been made in it during the last hundred years, and it is always liable to be modified by treaty stipulations. Generally, it may be said to comprise all warlike and all naval stores,' including hemp," 1 The Frederick Molke, Boysen, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 85, 87; The Immanuel, Eysenberg, 2 C. Rob. Ad. 186, 196; but it is a circumstance to affect her credit on the return voyage even, per Lord Stowell, The Margaretha Magdalena, Predborn, 2 C. Rob. Ad. 138, 140. 2 The Imina Bauman, Vroom, 3 C. Rob. Ad. 167, 168. The Sarah Christina, Gorgensen, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 237, 242; The Neptunus, Bachman, 6 C. Rob. Ad. 403, 409; The Staadt Embden, Jacobs, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 29, 30; The Jonge Tobias, Hilken, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 329. The Ringende Jacob, Krephen, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 90; The Sarah Christina, Gorgensen, supra; The Neutralitet, Burning, 3 C. Rob. Ad. 295; The Mer- 8 5 The Margaret, Heard, 1 Acton, 333; The Santissima Coraçao De Maria, Carneiro, 2 Acton, 91; The Nancy, Knudsen, 3 C. Rob. Ad. 122; The Charlotte, 6 C. Rob. Ad. 386, note. 6 See Lord Stowell's judgment in The Jonge Margaretha, Klausen, 1 C. Rob. Ad. 189. 7 The Sarah and Bernhardus, Hay and Mar. 175; The Margaretha Magdalena, Predborn, 2 C. Rob. Ad. 141. 8 The Evert, Everts, 4 C. Rob. Ad. 354; unless it be of an inferior quality, |