April 17, 1861. The English government were consequently advertised that the high seas were about to be covered by armed vessels, who, under the color of a commission, claimed to exercise against neutrals the rights of warfare-that is, claimed to stop and to search English merchant vessels, to capture them, and to carry them into their ports for adjudication, and to condemn them in case they had on board contraband of war. Nor was this all. If legitimate war existed, the penalties of the foreign enlistment act came into operation. If no such war existed, then the shipbuilders might equip, arm, and dispatch vessels of war equally to New York and to Charleston. English subjects might enlist and take service in the forces of either party. Mr. Bright aspires to the part of the champion of the mercantile interests of Great Britain. I would venture to ask him whether it was compatible with the duty of the English government to leave them for a single instant in doubt as to their real situation in respect to the condition of things which had arisen in America? Was an English merchantman, sailing peaceably in pursuance of his ordinary trade, to be left in ignorance whether an armed vessel which overhauled and captured him was regarded by his own government in the light of a pirate committing a robbery on the high seas, or whether it was a lawful belligerent exercising the recognized rights of war? What was to be the position of the English navy, who are posted in every corner of the habitable globe, to protect, by their presence, and if necessary to vindicate by their arms, the security of our mercantile marine? Were they or were they not to be informed whether they were to "sink, burn, and destroy" as pirates, or to respect as lawful belligerents the cruisers of either party who exercised against our merchantmen those acts of force which the rights of war alone could justify? No wonder that Lord Lyons thought it necessary to strain every nerve to give Sir A. Milne the earliest intelligence of the state of affairs. I am in [put it to] the judgment of every man, whether he be in England or in America, who deserves the name of a statesman or of a jurist, whether, if the English government, after the receipt of the dispatch of Lord Lyons, should have interposed an instant's unnecessary delay in declaring to the subjects of the Queen their rights and their liabilities arising out of the conflict in America, would not have been guilty of the most grave dereliction of the duty which they owe to the Crown and to the country. The English government knew their duty, and they did it. Accordingly, on the 13th of May, 1861, the Queen's proclamation was issued. If there is anything to be regretted, it is only that the forms necessary for publishing such a document should have made a delay of three days necessary, otherwise it ought to have been issued the very day that Lord Lyons' dispatch was received; and if the Atlantic telegraph had been complete it should have been issued on April 19, the day on which President Lincoln's proclamation of blockade was put forth.

Now, what was the purport of the Queen's proclamation of May 13, 1861? I will venture to say that Mr. Bright has never read it, or if he has, he has certainly not understood it. The Queen's proclamation was neither more nor less than a warning to her subjects that a state of things had arisen which seriously affected their interests, and which altered their existing rights and their liabilities, and directed them how to act thereupon. It began by stating, "Whereas we are happily at peace with all sovereigns, states, and powers." It then proceeded, "Whereas hostilities have unhappily commenced between the government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America;" a statement precisely in accordance with the proclamation of President Lincoln, which had issued these words previously, and which assumed the belligerent right of blockade. It goes on, "Whereas we, being at peace with the government of the United States, have declared our royal determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending parties." Then it recites the foreign enlistment act, which is only operative in the event of hostilities existing abroad, and warns the subjects of the realm to observe its prohibitions and avoid its penalties; and its concludes by advertising the Queen's subjects that if they engage in breaking a blockade established by either party, or by carrying contraband to either party, they will be abandoned to the penal consequences imposed by the law of nations, and will forfeit all right to the protection of the Crown.

Such is the purport of the Queen's proclamation. It will be seen that in its nature it is nothing more nor less than a domestic document affecting the position of the Queen's subjects alone, and not in any way interfering with the affairs of other nations. It is of the highest importance clearly to understand the true character of this document. In loose and inaccurate parlance we hear it said that in the proclamation of neutrality the Queen's government conferred upon or conceded to the Confederate States belligerent rights. It did nothing at all of the sort. The Confederate States had belligerent rights by the mere fact of being at war. They acquired these rights immediately that a state of hostilities arose by the North going to war with them, or their going to war with the North. Their title to belligerent rights was derived, not from the concession of any foreign power, but from the established code of the law of nations. We did not confer upon, or concede to, them the right to go to war. They went to war of their own will and pleasure, and from the moment they did so the enjoyment of

belligerent rights accrued to them as a matter of course. They were rights which we had neither the power to confer nor to withhold. We had no option or election in the matter at all. All that the proclamation of neutrality did was to inform the subjects of the Queen what were the consequences to them of a condition of things over which the English government had no sort of control.

To make this perfectly clear, just let us consider what would have been the state of things if the English government had not issued the proclamation of neutrality. The state of hostilities in America would have existed just the same; either party would have claimed and exercised the rights of war against the other and against neutral governments none the less. The North would have searched our vessels, enforced the blockade, and captured contraband. The southern cruisers would have done the same. Their rights in these respects were not created by the Queen's proclamation, and would not have been lessened by its absence. What were we then to do? Were we to hide our heads in the sand, like the ostrich, and not recognize a state of things which existed, and would continue to exist, whether we recognized it or not?

Suppose the proclamation of neutrality not to have issued, what would have been the consequence? A confederate cruiser captures an English merchant vessel laden with arms destined for New York; in what light is the cruiser to be regarded, and how is she to be treated by our government and our courts? An armed vessel exercising force against the ship of a foreign state on the high seas must be one of three thingsan enemy, a pirate, or a lawful belligerent. Was the southern cruiser to be treated by the English government as an enemy? On that supposition we should have been at war with the South. Is that what Mr. Bright desires? But, if she was not an enemy, was she a pirate! I will not condescend to argue such a question. It has been settled for more than three centuries. A people in revolt are entitled to all the rights of war against the sovereign, and, if to the rights of war against him, a fortiori against others. This matter and the reasons of it are admirably expounded in the well-known chapter of Fattel, (B. III, cap. 18, § 287–293.) Humanity and policy alike revolt at the idea of treating rebellion as piracy. The passions and folly of enraged and baffled governments may induce them to employ such menaces, but they cannot and dare not execute them. In that great landmark of English politics and English literature, Mr. Burke's letter to the sheriffs of Bristol, will be found the following passage, instinct with all the profound philosophy of a great political intellect:

"The persons who make a naval warfare upon us in consequence of the present troubles may be rebels; but to treat and call them pirates is confounding not only the natural distinction of things, but the order of crimes, which, whether by putting them from a higher part of the scale to the lower or from the lower to the higher, is never done without dangerously disordering the whole frame of jurisprudence. The general sense of mankind tells me that these offenses, which may possibly arise from mistaken virtue, are not in the class of infamous actions. If Lord Balmerino in the last rebellion had driven off the cattle of twenty clans I should have thought it would have been scandalous and low juggle utterly unworthy of the manliness of our English judicature to have tried him for felony as a stealer of cows."

The northern government, it is true, threatened in the first instance to treat the southern privateers as pirates; but, even in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, he does not venture to assert that they can be so treated under the law of nations, but only under the municipal laws of the United States. The case was brought to the test in the instance of the crew of the Savannah privateer, who were tried at New York in 1862, for piracy. The arguments are published at length in a report of the trial, for a copy of which I am indebted to the eminent lawyer, Mr. Evarts, who represented the United States government on that occasion. The judge charged the jury that the ship could not be regarded as a pirate under the law of nations. And the government could not get a jury to convict on a municipal statute.

In such a question the courts of law follow the action of the government. It is necessary for this, as well as for other reasons, that the government should declare its view to guide the courts of law. But the view of a government of a foreign country on such a question can only be governed by the law of nations, and we have the authority of the American judges in this very conflict that by the law of nations a southern priva teer could not be treated as a pirate when exercising force against us. Well, then, if the southern cruisers could not be regarded as enemies, and could not be treated as pirates, we could only treat them as lawful belligerents. But if our government and our courts of law could only treat them as such, was it not of the most pressing and imminent importance that all the subjects of the realm should know that they were clothed-not by an act, but by the law of nations-with the rights against neutrals which belong to such a character?

But then, says Mr. Bright, "I don't dispute that you are right in acknowledging the South as belligerents, but you did it in too great a hurry-you might have waited a little longer." But why, in the name of common sense-why wait a single instant in a matter so urgently affecting the rights of every subject of the Crown? Why were the English merchantmen to wait to know whether they were to submit to be searched

and captured alike by the southern and the northern cruisers? Why were they to wait to know whether they might or might not carry arms and munitions of war in safety to New York or to New Orleans? Why were they to wait to know whether there was or was not a lawful blockade, and whether they might or might not sail in safety for Charleston or Mobile? Why were English ship-builders to wait to know whether they might or might not enter into contracts for the building of ships of war without exposing themselves to fine and imprisonment? Why were the courts of law to wait to know in what light they were to regard vessels or crews arraigned before them for forcible seizures at sea? Why were the admirals on all our stations abroad to wait to know in what manner they were to treat the cruisers of the North and of the Southwhether they were to regard the ships of the former as marine trespassers exercising rights over our merchantmen, which could only be justified by a state of war, and whether they were to attack and destroy the southern privateers as pirates, or to respect them as lawful belligerents? And on what pretense, I should like to ask, were questions to us of such momentous importance to be kept in suspense? Because, forsooth, Mr. Dallas did not like to be troubled on business, and Mr. Adams had not yet arrived. In the name of common sense, why was the English government to wait in order to consult Mr. Adams as to notifying to the subjects of the Queen the consequences to them of a fact which Mr. Lincoln had proclaimed to the world in his declaration of blockade twenty-four days previously? If Mr. Adams must necessarily have assented to the propriety of the proclamation, why was it necessary to discuss the matter with him? But if he had protested against it, would it have been proper or possible in the English government to have paid any heed to his remonstrance? Mr. Bright complains of the unfriendly conduct of the English government, and the shock Mr. Adams must have received when "he arrived in London on May 13, and when he opened his newspaper the next morning he found it contained the proclamation of neutrality, and the acknowledgment of the belligerent rights of the South." But why should Mr. Adams be shocked or surprised by the contents of his newspaper of May 13, 1861? He had arrived from America by the very mail which brought Lord Lyons' dispatch and the several proclamations of President Lincoln and President Davis. The proclamation of the Queen conveyed no news to Mr. Adams. He had sought, no doubt, in his dispatch for Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of April 19, which, in claiming the belligerent right of blockade for the North, in fact declared the belligerent rights of the South. He could have had no cause to complain that on May 13 the Queen should explain to her subjects the consequence to them of a state of things which its own chief had created and declared by his proclamation three weeks before. To make such a transaction a ground of complaint is really to reproduce the old fable of the wolf and the lamb drinking at the same stream. Sir, I do Mr. Adams (whose wise and prudent courtesy and equanimity has been of such signal service to his own country and to ours) the justice to believe that turbulent politicians on both sides of the Atlantic make an unauthorized use of his name when they represent him as having been treated with want of consideration in this transaction.

We acknowledge the belligerent rights of the South because the government of the United States, by making war upon the land, at once created and declared their rights as inherent in them. We acknowledged their rights because those rights existed, and ex*isted entirely independently of any action of ours. We could have done no otherwise, even if we would. When a riot takes place in the street the neutral tradesman puts up his shutters. He acknowledges thereby the riot, it is true; but one party to the tumult has no right to complain that the tradesman either aggravates the riot or gives assistance thereby to his antagonist. It is a little too bad that he should at the same time be made to lose his custom, and also be abused for attempting to protect his property. The North created belligerent rights in both parties by making war upon the South. The North have enjoyed their rights, and we have indorsed them. They have' seized our merchantmen and crippled our trade, and they have had a right to do it. If the South had not had belligerent rights it could only be because there was no war. But if there was no war, then the North could have enforced no blockade, they could have seized no combatant, they could have made no prizes. English merchants might have traded as before to Charleston, and Wilmington, and Savannah, and Mobile, and New Orleans, with impunity. To have seized our ships would have been to make war on England. If there had been no war, Mr. Laird might have equipped for the South five hundred Alabamas without interference. This is what the North have gained. But war is a quarrel which necessarily requires two sides. In order to exercise belligerent rights yourself, you must have an antagonist, and that antagonist must have belligerent rights also. And yet it is this just and inevitable consequence of their own policy which the North seem disposed to lay at our doors, and to make a ground of complaint against us.

I must again apologize for expounding at this length a matter which to most of your readers will appear obvious and self-evident. But I am too well aware of the unhappy irritation which exists on the subject in the public mind of America not to desire to offer the smallest contribution towards its removal. Ignorance unfortunately is as fertile a

source of mischief as malevolence itself. Nothing can be regarded as trival which either fosters or may tend to tranquilize the feelings of exasperation which agitate a proud and susceptible people. There are, unhappily, too many persons on both sides of the Atlantic who indulge themselves in the wicked and dangerous amusement of inflaming passions which they ought to soothe, and exasperating prejudices and misapprehensions which they ought to labor to remove. Sir, I do not envy these men the occupation they propose to themselves, nor the success which, alas! they too often achieve. My ambition is of quite another sort. I desire, by a recourse to those fixed and ascertained principles of law and maxims of justice, which are enshrined in the records of nations and the conscience of mankind, as the perpetual arbiters of truth and of peace, to remonstrate against an unreasonable anger and an unjust animosity. Surely, sir, these evil tongues, which are like a sharp sword, may rest sated with the blood they have helped [make?] to flow. Sat prata biberunt. Let us appeal from these grievance-mongers, who trade in fancied wrongs and unfounded injuries, to the reason, the good sense, the good humor, and the justice of a kindred nation, which "is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh."

TEMPLE, March 18.

HISTORICUS.

[From the New York Times, March 16, 1868.]

BRITISH NEUTRALITY-HASTY RECOGNITION OF REBEL BELLIGERENCY AND OUR RIGHT TO COMPLAIN OF IT.

LETTER FROM GEORGE BEMIS, ESQ.

To the Editor of the New York Times:

I do not propose, under the caption above selected, to enter at large into the merits of the controversy about British neutrality now waged by the English publicists, some of whose discussions, I am glad to see, you have thought of consequence enough to reprint for American perusal. It is now as long ago as May 3, 1865, that I communicated an article to the Boston Daily Advertiser under this head, which, with a little expansion afterward, grew into a good sized pamphlet. In that article I went quite fully into the subject, treating of matters which I do not propose to revive on the present occasion. It seems to me that while the discussion is being carried on by Englishmen themselves, and particularly by such able and competent writers as Historicus on one side, and Mr. Westlake and Lord Hobart on the other, Americans may well stand aside and bid the controversy God-speed.

I will only say, in passing, thus much about the general merits of the debate as upheld on the part of Mr. Westlake and Lord Hobart, both of whom I welcome as new disputants in this field of practical discussion of the international law topics of the day, that their communications show both their respective authors, in my judgment, highly qualified to criticise and shape the pleadings involved in this great governmental issue of the Alabama question, a far higher qualification for its instructive discussion, in my estimation, than to be able to make a merely rhetorical or sensational declamation about it, whether orally or in print. Thus far, however, the American journals, (including your own,) I regret to see, have not thought fit to reprint Mr. Westlake's thoughtful juridical article contained in the London Daily News of January 24, a compliment not less justly deserved by its intrinsic merits than by the established reputation of its author as a writer on public law. As to my old antagonist, Historicus, as Mr. Harcourt is pleased to style myself, I have respectfully to remind him, if he is not more accurate in his general statement than in the particular allegation of his postscript, that I am now "commissioned to write in support of the policy of Mr. Seward," I must report of him as a writer altogether unworthy of credence. I neither have nor expect to hold any retainer for the Secretary of State, nor for any other department of the government, nor do I write with hope or expectation of compensation of any kind, public or private. My essays on international topics, poor as perhaps they are at their best estate, are at least unpaid for.

But to the purpose of my communication. I take up my pen to treat, and, as I hope to dispose of the single important point raised by Historicus, among others, in his late discussion with Lord Hobart, which forms the chief subject of his rejoinder to Lord Hobart of January 24, viz: Whether British neutrality was the natural sequence and inevitable consequence of the prior existence of the American proclamation of blockade, or whether, as Lord Hobart insists, (following the lead of my own pamphlet of May, 1865, as Historicus charges,) the British government had in fact no official knowledge of the American manifesto, when they took the precipitate and unprecedented step of raising the confederate rebels to the status of a belligerent power.

I am greatly obliged to Historicus for again giving prominence to this point, over

some supposed detection of flaws in Mr. Seward's early diplomatic pleading in reference to the blockade. It is no part of my present purpose to explain away or attempt to reconcile some of the Secretary of State's apparently conflicting phraseology on this head. Lord Hobart's suggestion, that the substance of Mr. Seward's international theory, however, was throughout pursued with consistent uniformity, and that it is not worth while to stop and closely criticise his passing expressions about "neutrals" and "civil war," and the like, mainly disposes of the gravamen of Historicus's imputation. I hasten on to answer the new substantive allegation-revived again by Historicus from the old discussion of 1865 at the first favorable opportunity-that the United States have nobody to complain of for the institution of rebel belligerency, and of its counterpart British neutrality, but themselves. This position I hope now to settle once

for all.

Since the publication of the pamphlet of May, 1865, already referred to, I happen to have come into possession of a piece of diplomatic evidence, which demonstrates, on the authority of the British Foreign Office itself, as I understand it, that no official notice of President Lincoln's proclamation of blockade reached the British government till after the issue of Queen Victoria's proclamation of neutrality. That is, I am prepared to prove that while the British proclamation passed the privy council and received the royal signature on the 13th day of May, 1861, the official notification of the American blockade did not reach the Foreign Office till May 14.

I annex the document, now for the first time reprinted in this country, which I copy from British Parliamentary Papers, for 1861, (vol. lxv, p. 583,) constituting the Blue Book, entitled "Correspondence with the United States Government Respecting Blockade." I only hope that the document may by this time have come to Lord Hobart's knowledge, for the purpose of replying to Historicus, as I feel quite sure it has, long since, to the knowledge of Lord Russell and Historicus, both of whom, I am sorry to believe, have for some time been presuming upon American lack of acquaintance with it. But I reserve for further comment Earl Russell's and Historicus's remarkable reticence as to this important state paper. Here is the document itself:

"No. 1.

"Lord Lyons to Lord J. Russell, (received May 14.)

[Extract.]

"WASHINGTON, April 27, 1861.

"I have the honor to transmit to your lordship herewith a copy of a note which I have received to-day from the Secretary of State of the United States, communicating to me printed copies of the President's proclamation of the 19th of April, declaring a blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. I inclose two of those copies of the proclamation which were sent to me with the note.

"The Secretary of State further informs me, in the same note, that another proclamation has been signed by the President, establishing a blockade of the ports of the States of Virginia and North Carolina.

"I have, &c.,

"[Inclosure in above.]
"Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons.

"DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

"LYONS."

66

Washington, April 27, 1861. "The undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States, has the honor to communicate to Lord Lyons the accompanying printed copies of the President's proclamation of the 19th instant, declaring a blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

"The undersigned has the honor also to inform Lord Lyons that another proclamation has been signed by the President, and will be published to-morrow, establishing a blockade of the ports of Virginia and North Carolina.

"The undersigned, &c.,

"WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

("Inclosure of President Lincoln's proclamation of April 19, 1861.")

The attentive reader will doubtless have taken notice of the memorandum following the address of document No. 1, and preceding its date, which I have taken the liberty to capitalize thus: "RECEIVED MAY [FOURTEEN] 14." That memorandum on the original stands, to those conversant with the parliamentary publication by the British government of its foreign diplomatic dispatches, for the official indorsement by the