But in none of these instances were her pretended blockades either submitted to by neutrals, or even to any considerable extent attempted to be enforced by herself. There can be no doubt that no prize-court would now condemn a vessel captured for the alleged violation of any such mere nominal blockade. It has, however, been decided that the blockade is good although the ships stationed at the place may have been for a short time removed to a little distance by a sudden change of wind, or any similar cause.

The second, and only other circumstance necessary to constitute a blockade which the prize-courts will recognise, is, that the party violating it shall be proved to have been aware of its existence. "It is at all times most convenient," Lord Stowell has said in one of his judgments (see case of the Rolla, in Robinson's Reports'), "that the blockade should be declared in a public and distinct manner." There ought to be a formal notification from the blockading power to all other countries. Nevertheless this is not absolutely required, and a neutral will not be permitted with impunity to violate a blockade of which the master of the vessel may reasonably be presumed to be aware from the mere notoriety of the fact. Lord Stowell, however, has said that, whereas when a notification has been formally given, the mere act of sailing with a contingent destination to enter the blockaded port if the blockade shall be found to be raised, will constitute the offence of violation, it might be different in the case of a blockade existing de facto only.

With regard to neutral vessels lying at the place where the blockade commences, the rule is, that they may retire freely after the notification of the blockade, taking with them the cargoes with which they may be already laden; but they must not take in any new cargo.

The offence of violation is effected either by going into the place blockaded, or by coming out of it with a cargo taken in after the commencement of the blockade. But vessels must not even approach the place with the evident intention of entering if they can effect their object. It would even appear that a vessel will

render itself liable to seizure and condemnation if it can be proved to have set sail with that intention. In such cases however it must be always difficult for the captors to make out a satisfactory case.

After a ship has once violated a blockade, it is considered that the offence is not purged, in ordinary circumstances, until she shall have returned to the port from which she originally set out; that is to say, she may be seized at any moment up to the termination of her homeward voyage. If the blockade however has been raised before the capture, the offence is held to be no longer punishable, and a judgment of restitution will be pronounced.

The effect of a violation of blockade to the offending party when captured is the condemnation usually of both the ship and the cargo. If however it can be shown that the parties to whom the cargo belongs were not implicated in the offence committed by the master of the ship, the cargo will be restored. It has sometimes, on the contrary, happened that the owners of the cargo have been found to be the only guilty parties, in which case the judgment has been for the condemnation of the cargo and the restitution of the ship.

If a place, as generally happens in the case of maritime blockades, be blockaded by sea only, a neutral may carry on commerce with it by inland communications. The neutral vessel may enter a neighbouring port not included in the blockade with goods destined to be carried thence over land into the blockaded place.

When a place has once been notified to be blockaded, a counter notice should always be given by the blockading power when the blockade has ceased. The observance of this formality is obviously conducive to the general convenience, but there are of course no means of punishing a belligerent for its neglect.

In this country a blockade is ordered and declared by the king in council. It is held however that a commander of a king's ship on a station so distant as to preclude the government at home from interfering with the expedition necessary to meet the change of circumstances may

have authority delegated to him to extend or vary the blockade on the line of coast on which he is stationed. But the courts will not recognise a blockade altered in this manner within the limits of Europe. It appears to be recessary for the sake of the public convenience that the power of declaring a blockade should, as far as possible, be exercised only by the sovereign power in a state; but it would perhaps be going too far to insist that it should in no circumstances be delegated to a subordinate authority. This would seem to be something very like interfering with the internal arrange

ments of states.

Some very important questions connected with the law of blockade were brought into discussion in the course of the last war by the Berlin decree of Bonaparte and the orders of the king of Great Britain in council.

The Berlin decree, which was issued on the 21st of November, 1806, declared the whole of the British islands in a state of blockade, and all vessels, of whatever country, trading to them, liable to be captured by the ships of France. It also shut out all British vessels and produce both from France and from all the other countries then subject to the authority of the French emperor. By a subsequent decree, issued soon after in aid of this, all neutral vessels were required to carry what were called letters or certificates of origin, that is, attestations from the French consuls of the ports from which they had set out, that no part of their cargo was British. This was the revival of an expedient which had been first resorted to by the Directory in 1796.

There can be no question as to the invalidity of this blockade, according to the recognised principles of the law of nations: the essential circumstance of a good blockade, namely, the presence of a force sufficient to maintain it, was here entirely wanting. And it is proper also to state that a certain representation of the nature of the decree, much insisted upon by some of the writers and pamphleteers in the course of the subsequent discussions, with the view of mitigating its absurdity and violence, that is to say, that it was never attempted to be en

| forced, is now well known not to have been strictly correct. Many vessels of neutrals were actually captured and condemned by the French courts, in conformity with it, during the first few months which followed its promulgation.

The first step in resistance to the Berlin decree was taken by Great Britain on the 7th of January, 1807, while the Whig ministry of which Mr. Fox had been the head was still in office, by an order in council subjecting to seizure all neutral vessels trading from one hostile port in Europe to another with property belonging to an enemy. This order, however, is said to have been extensively evaded; while, at the same time, new efforts began to be made by the French emperor to enforce the Berlin decree. It is admitted that in the course of the months of September and October, 1807, several neutral vessels were captured for violation of that decree; that a considerable alarm was excited among the mercantile classes in this country by these acts of violence; that the premium of insurance rose; and that some suspension of trade took place. (See Edin. Rev.' vol. xiv. p. 442, &c.) It is contended by the supporters of the British orders in council, that the effect of the Berlin decree upon the commerce of this country during the months of August, September, and October in particular, was most severely felt. (See Mr. Stephen's 'Speech.')

In these circumstances the British government, at the head of which Mr. Perceval now was, issued further orders in council, dated the 11th and 21st of November, 1807. These new orders declared France and all its tributary states to be in a state of blockade, and all vessels subject to seizure which were either found to have certificates of origin on board, or which should attempt to trade with any of the parts of the world thus blockaded. All neutral vessels, intended for France or any other hostile country, were ordered in all cases to touch first at some British port, and to pay custom-dues there, after which they were, in certain cases, to be allowed to depart to their destination. In all cases, in like manner, vessels clearing out from a hostile port were, before proceeding farther

The predicament in which neutral countries were placed by this war of edicts was sufficiently embarrassing. The effect of the recent British orders in council is thus distinctly stated by a writer in the Edinburgh Review,' vol. xii. p. 229:-"Taken in combination with the Berlin decree, they interdict the whole foreign trade of all neutral nations; they prohibit everything which that decree had allowed; and they enjoin those very things which are there made a ground of confiscation."

By a subsequent decree, issued by Bonaparte from Milan on the 27th of December, 1807, the British dominions in all quarters of the world were declared to be in a state of blockade, and all countries were prohibited from trading with each other in any articles produced or manufactured in the parts of the earth chus put under a ban. Various additional orders in council were also promulgated from time to time, in explanation or slight modification of those last mentioned.

It is asserted by the opponents of this policy of the British government, that the result was a diminution, in the course of the following year, of the foreign trade of this country, to the extent of fourteen millions sterling. It is even contended that, but for some counteracting causes which happened to operate at the same time, the falling off would have been nearly twice as great. (Edin. Rev., vol. xiv. p. 442, &c.)

The principal branch of trade affected was that with America, which was at this time the only great neutral power in existence; and which in that capacity had, previous to the Berlin decree, been an annual purchaser of British manufactures to a large amount, partly for home consumption, but to a much larger extent for the supply of the Continent. Both the Americans, therefore, and the various parties in this country interested in this export trade, exclaimed loudly against the edicts of the two belligerent powers. It appears that the American government, on application to that of France, obtained an assurance which was deemed satis

that the Berlin decree would not be put in force against American vessels; but when this was urged as a sufficient reason for the revocation of the English orders in council, the English government refused to pay any attention to it, maintaining that America should insist upon a public renunciation of the obnoxious French decree.

The subject was brought before parliament in March, 1808, by motions made in both houses asserting the illegality of the orders in council. On the 1st of April the merchants of London, Liverpool, and other towns, who had petitioned for the repeal of the orders, on the ground of their injurious operation upon the commercial interests of the country, were heard at the bar by their counsel, Mr. Brougham, whose speech, as has been already mentioned, was afterwards published. The result was, that ministers consented to the institution of an inquiry into the effect of the orders, in the course of which many witnesses were brought forward both by the petitioners and by the ministers in support of their respective views. But no immediate result followed, either from this inquiry, or from a motion made in the House of Commons on the 6th of March, 1809, by Mr. Whitbread, declaratory of the expediency of acquiescing in the propositions made by the government of the United States.

On the 26th of April, however, a new order in council was issued, which, it was contended by the opponents of the policy hitherto pursued, did in fact amount to an abandonment of the whole principle of that policy. On the pretext that the state of circumstances, so far as the Continent was concerned, had undergone a complete change by the insurrection of the Spaniards, the blockade, which had formerly extended to all the countries under the authority of France, was now confined to France itself, to Holland, to part of Germany, and to the north of Italy; and the order which condemned vessels for having certificates of origin on board was rescinded. On the other hand, the interdict against trading with the blockaded ports was apparently made more strict and severe by the revocation

of the liberty formerly given, in certain cases, to neutral vessels to sail for an enemy's port after having first touched at one in Great Britain. Upon this point, however, some important modifications were made by subsequent orders. A system was introduced of licensing certain vessels to proceed to hostile ports after having first touched and paid custom-dues at a British port; and this was eventually carried so far, that at last the number of such licences granted is said to have exceeded 16,000.

The position, however, in which America was still placed was such as almost to force her to go to war either with England or France. In this state of things, in the spring of 1812 a vigorous effort was again made by the opposition in parliament to obtain the entire removal of the orders in council. In the Lords, a motion was made by the Marquis of Lansdowne on the 28th of February for a select committee of inquiry into the effect of the orders, but was negatived by a majority of 135 to 71. On the 3rd of March a similar motion made in the Commons by Mr. Brougham was also rejected by a majority of 216 to 144. On the 3rd of April, however, an order of the prince regent in council appeared in the Gazette, revoking entirely the former orders in so far as regarded America, but only on the condition that the government of the United States should also revoke an order by which it had some time previously exeluded British armed vessels from its ports, while it admitted those of France. This conditional revocation being still considered unsatisfactory, Lord Stanley, on the 28th of April, moved in the Commons for a committee of inquiry into the subject generally, and the discussion ended by ministers giving their assent to the motion. Many witnesses were in consequence examined, both by this committee and by another of the Lords, which sat at the same time, having been obtained on the 5th of May on the motion of Earl Fitzwilliam. When the examinations had been brought to a close, Mr. Brougham, on the 16th of June, moved in the Commons, that the crown should be addressed to recall or suspend the orders uncondi

tionally. At the termination of this discussion ministers intimated that they were prepared to concede the question; and accordingly, on the 23rd of the same month, an unconditional suspension of the orders, in so far as America was concerned, appeared in the 'Gazette.' By this time, however, the government of the United States had declared war, on the ground, as is well known, not only of the orders in council, but of other alleged acts of injustice on the part of the British government.

The policy of the British government in issuing the orders in council of November, 1807, was maintained by its opponents to be wrong, on the double ground that it was both inexpedient and not warranted by the principles of the law of nations. On this latter head it was argued that no violation of international law by one belligerent power could justify the other in pursuing a similar course.

The question, like all others connected with the law of blockade, appears to be one which must be determined chiefly by a reference to the rights of neutral powers, as regulated by the principle already stated, namely, that no neutral power shall be annoyed or incommoded by any warlike operation, which shall not have a greater tendency to benefit the belligerent than to injure the neutral. In this case the benefit which the British government professed to expect from its retaliatory policy, which was the excitement of a spirit of resistance to the original French decree both in neutral countries and among the people of France themselves, was extremely problematical from the first, and turned out eventually to be wholly delusive. On the other hand, the injury to neutrals was certain and of large amount, tending in fact to interdict and, as far as possible, to put a stop to the entire peaceful commercial intercourse of the world.

The orders in council were sometimes defended, for want of better reasons, on a very peculiar ground, namely, on that of the pecuniary advantage which the country derived from the captures made under them, from the increase of port dues which they occasioned, and from the revenue obtained by the licensing system.