Part 11 (1/2)

But this warranty requires not only that the vessel shall sail under the protection of the convoy, but also that she shall continue during its course under the same protection, unless prevented from so doing by tempest or other unavoidable accident, in which case, the master and owners will be excused, if the master does all that is in his power to keep with the convoy.

The merchantman must, before sailing, obtain or endeavour to obtain, the sailing orders issued by the convoying squadron. The value of a convoy appointed by Government arises in a great degree from its taking the s.h.i.+ps under control, as well as under protection; but this control cannot be exercised except by means of sailing orders.

Otherwise, the master could not learn the rendezvous in case of dispersion by a storm, or obey signals in case of attack.

The obligation to sail with convoy does not depend merely on special agreement; but, by act of parliament, a merchant cannot sail without a convoy, on a _foreign_ voyage, unless previously licensed to do so.[197]

SECTION IV.

[Sidenote: _Armed Neutralities_.]

It is not improbable the course of events in the present war may make it not uninteresting to my readers to have some short account of the origin and meaning of _Armed Neutralities_, especially as the principles on which they were founded may again be open to discussion.

The right to take enemy's property on board neutral vessels has, in the present war, been waived by the Queen, in a declaration, dated Buckingham Palace, March 29th 1854. This is however tempered by a reservation of the right to search for contraband. Up to the present time the right to take enemy's goods on board a neutral vessel has in this country been steadily maintained; though in France it has been fluctuating; the interests of another commercial power became the origin of the extraordinary confederacies termed _Armed Neutralities_.

At an early period it was an object of interest with Holland, a great commercial and navigating country, whose permanent policy was essentially pacific, to obtain a relaxation of the severe rules which had previously been observed in maritime warfare. The States General of the United Provinces having complained of the provisions in the French Ordinance of 1538, a treaty of commerce was concluded between France and the Republic in 1646, by which the law, as far as respected the capture and confiscation of neutral vessels for carrying enemy's property, was suspended; but it was found impossible to obtain, at that time, any relaxation as to the liability to capture of enemy's property in neutral vessels.

This latter concession, however, the United Provinces obtained from France by the treaty of alliance of 1662, and the commercial treaty signed at the same time with the peace, at Nimiguen, in 1671; confirmed by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697. The maxim that _free s.h.i.+ps_ make _free goods_ was coupled in these treaties with its correlative maxim, _enemy's s.h.i.+ps_ make _enemy's goods_.

The same concession was obtained by Holland from England in 1668 and 1674, as the price of an alliance between the two countries against the ambitious designs of Louis XIV.

In the subsequent war of 1756, a controversy arose between England and Holland, in which it was said, on the one hand, that England had violated the rights of neutral commerce; and on the other, that Holland had not fulfilled the guarantees under which those privileges had been granted.

Afterwards, when the American Revolution gave rise to a war between France and Great Britain, the latter power, instead of following the example of her enemy, (who had issued an ordinance prohibiting the seizure of neutral vessels, even when bound to or from enemy ports, unless carrying contraband,) issued an order in council, (March, 1780,) suspending the special stipulations respecting commerce and navigation contained in the Treaty of 1674.

This was the crisis of many complaints made by the neutral powers against Great Britain; and, in 1780, the Empress of Russia proclaimed the principles of the Baltic Code of Neutrality, and declared she would maintain them by _force of arms_.

This system of armed neutrality contained the following principles.

1. That commerce with the ports and roads of the enemy is free to neutral powers.

2. That the s.h.i.+p covers the cargo.

3. That those merchandizes only be considered as contraband, which are declared to be such by treaties with the belligerent powers, or with one of them.

4. That no place shall be considered as blockaded, till it is surrounded in such a manner by hostile s.h.i.+ps that no person can enter it without manifest danger.

5. That these principles shall serve as a basis for decisions concerning the legality of prizes.

The princ.i.p.al powers of Europe, as Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Germany, Holland, France, Spain, Portugal, Naples, and also the United States, acceded to the Russian principles of neutrality.

The Court of London answered this declaration by appealing to ”the principles generally acknowledged as the Law of Nations, being the only law between powers where no treaties subsist;” and to

”the tenor of its different engagements with other powers, where those engagements had altered the primitive law by neutral stipulations, according to the will and convenience of the contracting parties.”

England, being thus opposed to all the maritime world, was at this time obliged to smother her resentment; only simply expostulating with Russia. But the want of the consent of a power of such decided maritime superiority as that of Great Britain, was an insuperable obstacle to the success of the Baltic Conventional Law of Neutrality; and it was abandoned in 1793 by the naval powers of Europe, as not sanctioned by the existing law of nations, in every case in which the doctrines of that code did not rest upon positive compact.