and other authorities of that day, became as familiar at Philadelphia, as Wheaton and Kent and Lord Stowell have since become at Washington at the epoch of the "Trent" affair. Only there were much fewer persons to be found in 1793-4 who knew how to read and master the old international-law writers in Latin and French, than could be found in 1861 competent to examine and discuss the same class of topics, when treated by English and American publicists in their own mother tongue.

I cannot be mistaken, therefore, I believe, in supposing, a priori, that the neutral law of the United States, at the outset, was sought to be based on the justest and most scientific principles; and it is to this circumstance quite as much perhaps as to its fearless enforcement, that it owes its celebrity. If any proof were wanting to corroborate this idea, it would be furnished, it seems to me, by what occurred at the "Alexandra” trials (jury and law) in England, in 1863. On those occasions, for the first time for forty years, as they themselves confessed, the English judges and lawyers were compelled to study the elementary principles of neutral law, as embodied in the respective foreign-enlistment acts of England and the United States. But it was only in the jurisprudence of the latter country that they were able to find these principles expounded and applied. With belligerent law they had been sufficiently conversant, from the almost normal attitude of Great Britain as a warring Government; but neutral law was to them an essentially unknown province.

How, then, did American neutrality strike them? One and all paid homage to its early development under the hands of Hamilton and Jefferson. It would seem as if they could not get beyond it. On the one hand, Sir Hugh Cairns, for the claimants of the "Alexandra," insisted that Hamilton's "Instructions to Collectors" embodied all the law of nations on the subject; while, on the other hand, the Crown lawyers were in doubt whether those instructions did not go beyond it, and overstep the line of international obligation. By way of hedging on the "Alabama" question, as I believe I am justified in inferring, the Attorney and Solicitor Generals contended that the Instruc

tions did thus surpass the limit of neutral duty. But all concerned agreed in recognizing the moral integrity and legislative and judicial skill, with which Washington's policy of neutrality, at that day, was inaugurated and practically enforced.

Beyond doubt, much the greatest share of praise, for the inauguration of this national policy, is due to Hamilton. He certainly first broke ground in the Cabinet in that direction, and ultimately carried President Washington with him. Besides being the originator, if not the draftsman, of the Neutrality Proclamation, and the author of the "Instructions to Collectors," and the writer of the various papers, "Pacificus," "Camillus," "No Jacobin," &c., in popular advocacy of Washington's foreign policy, he drew the act of 1794, as noticed by General Banks himself.

Jefferson, on the other hand, though in entire antagonism to Hamilton on the question of the French alliance and similar subjects connected with the observance of neutrality, was ultimately compelled to come into his views in the main; and, as the mouthpiece of the Executive, to set them forth in its communications with foreign powers. Whether, in those masterly despatches, he merely echoed the sentiments of the President and of Hamilton, simply clothing them with his own felicitous diction, or whether, to a large extent (as his biographers and friends assert), the matter, as well as the manner, of those famous compositions were his own, I will not undertake to decide. I will only venture to affirm, that neutral law, as embodied in the State papers of Washington and his Secretaries, and as enforced in the legislation and jurisprudence of his administration, furnishes as bright an example of exact and upright neutrality, based on scientific and impartial principles, as the history of the world can produce.

If I may be supposed to state this matter too strongly, through patriotic pride, I beg to quote two or three corroborating authorities from foreign sources, by way of meeting the disparaging statements of the Report from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Says Mr. John Ward, the author of the "History of the Law of Nations," and of the treatise on "The Rights and Duties of

Belligerent and Neutral Powers," which Chancellor Kent says "has exhausted all the law and learning applicable to the question," in writing in 1801, four years after Washington's retire

ment:

"Of the great trading nations, America is almost the only one that has shown consistency of principle. The firmness and thorough understanding of the laws of nations, which during this war [the French Revolution] she has displayed, must for ever rank her high in the scale of enlightened communities." (Ward's "Rights and Duties," &c., p. 166.)

Says Sir Robert Phillimore, the present Queen's Advocate, and author of the most comprehensive and systematic "Commentary on International Law" that England has produced :

"The conduct of the United States with respect to this matter [the principles professed by the armed neutrality of 1780] has been, under the most trying circumstances, marked, not only by perfect consistency, but by preference for right and duty over interest and the expediency of the moment." (Com. on Int. Law, vol. iii. p. 282.)

So, the same writer, after giving a summary of our practice and jurisprudence in seizing and condemning vessels captured in violation of neutrality, says,—

“In these doctrines, a severe but a just conception of the duties and rights of neutrality appears to be embodied." (lb., p. 427.)

So, again, in quoting Washington's language to the French Government in 1795, upon the point of our insisting upon neutral property being safe under the belligerent flag, a point where the French were quite as outrageous towards us, as in insisting that we should allow them to use our ports as a basis of hostilities against England, Mr. Phillimore characterizes the American despatch as "an honest and courageous" vindication of our rights.

But I have no intention of wearying the reader with a collection of authorities to corroborate a statement so generally accepted, and so much a part of every well-educated American's knowledge, as that our early neutral history is a just cause of national pride. I have cited the above two text-writers almost

at random, because they happen to bring out the traits which I am considering; viz., whether our neutrality was not as honest and wise as it was independent and brave.1

There is one piece of national reputation, however, connected with our fulfilment of the dictates of public law, so apropos to this matter of enacting or repealing neutrality statutes, that I must ask the reader's indulgence to quote it. I mean what was said by Mr. Canning, when British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in urging upon his countrymen the example of the United States, to induce them to retain on their statute-book the British Foreign-Enlistment Act, whose repeal was then under consideration, and which act, so far as I now remember, is the only British legislation ever borrowed from the United States.

The quotation is a familiar one to many of my readers; but it cannot well be overlooked, when we hear the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives of the United States gravely and deliberately declaring to that body, as General Banks did in the late debate of July 26, that he did not like to say much about the history of this [our neutral] legislation, because it was not an agreeable subject.” (Washington Globe, July 30.) On the contrary, I believe no American can fail of having the subject made agreeable to him, by listening to the sentiments of approbation of our neutral policy, on the part of one of the greatest of British statesmen, whose political antecedents by no means inclined him to flatter us.

Mr. Canning, then, as one of the British ministry, having been largely instrumental in effecting the adoption of the Foreign-Enlistment Act in 1819,-four years later, in 1823, as Foreign Secretary, took up the word in Parliament, on behalf of the Government, to prevent its repeal. In the course of a memorable speech on that occasion, in the House of Commons. (April 16, 1823), he used the following language:

1 Mr. Dana, in his valuable and extended annotation on neutrality, in his recent edition of "Wheaton's Elements of International Law," says, without specifying instances, "The course pursued by Washington and his Cabinet, in sustaining neutrality and impartiality, has received the commendations of the masters of public law in all nations." (Note to p. 540.)

"I do not now pretend to argue in favor of a system of neutrality; but, it being declared [by proclamation] that we intend to remain neutral, I call upon the House to abide by that declaration so long as it shall remain unaltered. . . . We have spent much time in teaching other powers the nature of a strict neutrality; and, generally speaking, we have found them most reluctant scholars. All I now call upon the House to do is to adopt the same course which it has recommended to neutral powers upon former occasions. If I wished for a guide IN A SYSTEM OF NEUTRALITY, I should take that laid down by America, in the days of the presidency of Washington, and the secretaryship of Jefferson. [After giving a brief historical summary of that system and practice, he then added:] Here, sir, I contend, is the principle upon which we ought to act."— Hansard, Parl. Deb., vol. viii. new series, p. 1056.

Mr. Rush, our minister to London at that period, has set down in his diary some account of his meeting Mr. Canning, a few days after his paying this notable tribute to the United States, and of the interest which this speech excited among the foreign ministers then resident at the British Court. On his telling Mr. Canning, on this occasion (a diplomatic dinner given by the British Foreign Secretary, April 23, 1823, and attended by all the foreign ambassadors and ministers then present in London), "with what pleasure I had read it," Mr. Canning remarked, "that he had lately been examining the State papers of our Government at that era, and that they presented, in his opinion, especially the letters of Mr. Jefferson, while Secretary of State, principles well fitted to enter into a neutral code."

"The ambassador of the Netherlands," adds Mr. Rush, "who sat close by, appeared to listen with as much interest as I did to this tribute, from such a source, to the American defence of neutral rights; and another ambassador, from a larger power, who sat further off, and who had not been able to hear distinctly what Mr. Canning had said, sought me out on the day following, on purpose to ascertain what it was Mr. Canning had said to me about neutral rights. I told him; adding that what he had publicly said in the House of Commons, on the 16th, amounted in effect to the same thing." ("Residence at the Court of London from 1817 to 1825," p. 464.)

Had General Banks sat in Mr. Rush's place at Mr. Canning's