were ready to depart fom their neutrality, in order to assist her enemies in carrying on their warfare with more vigor and effect. "This momentous innovation" (P. 75.) on colonial monopoly on the one side, and neutral good faith on the other, is the cause which forced Great Britain to apply the principles on which belligerent rights are founded, to redress the grievances and injuries to which she was ob

noxious.

The fourth head of the American author is the

CONDUCT OF GREAT BRITAIN,

Which he divides into two parts; and first, that "whilst Great Britain denies to her enemies a right to relax their laws in favor of neutral commerce, she relaxes her own, those relating as well to her colonial trade as to other branches;" (P. 76.) in which he says she is "governed by the same policy of eluding the pressures of war, and of transferring her merchant-ships and mariners from the pursuits of commerce to the operations of war;" (P. 78.) and these remarks occur again in P. 79, 81, 160, et sub. and 190.-Pray in what do these remarks impugn the "rule of 1756?" Does Great Britain deny to her enemy the right to open her colonial ports in time of war? No, not a bit more than she denies her the

right of conveying her colony produce in her own ships during war. But Great Britain says this to the belligerent" Open your ports, and welcome; but I will intercept your own trade with them, and all neutral commerce with them too, which you have admitted contrary to your customary peace regulations."-Does any one. deny to a belligerent to levy troops in a neutral country? No one, certainly; yet such levy in any country is a good ground of war, and an evident departure from neutrality; and therefore an act which the injured belligerent has a right to oppose.

Does any one deny to the belligerent the right to purchase contraband of war of a neutral nation, and to have it conveyed in a neutral ship? No one denies this right to the belligerent: but the right of affording this supply, help, and succor, is by all denied to the neutral. It is not the right of the belligerent to receive assistance, but the right of the neutral to give it, which is the question. In the case of a blockaded town, no one denies the right of the besieged to receive supplies, but the neutral conveys them at his peril; and subject, if intercepted, to capture and condemnation.

The relaxations, therefore, of her colonial monopoly by Great Britain, afford no sort of argument against the right which she exercises

of capturing and condemning a neutral trade shut in peace and opened in time of war by her enemies.

The second position of the author is—that "whilst Great Britain denies to neutrals the right to trade with the colonies of her enemies, she trades herself with her enemies, and invites them to trade with her colonies." (P. 76.)

And to what does this amount? Great Britain has a clear right to interdict such commerce, but she finds it for her interest to let the right sleep. In so doing, she does not the least injury to any neutral state whatever, nor does she invade any one neutral right; in so doing, she makes her enemy's colonies subservient to her revenue and her naval greatness, and thereby is enabled to carry on the war with more vigor. While her enemy loses the supply of his colonies, and can only obtain part of their produce, after it has extended her navigation, and swelled her revenue, thus does this trade of Great Britain with her enemy essentially aid her in the war; while the interference of neutrals reverses the whole, and casts the balance of advantage into the scale of France, this is weakening the means of annoyance, and injuring the prosperity of one belligerent at the time of aiding the revenue and prosperity of the other, and of enabling him to carry on the war with more vigor and ef

fect. (P. 3.) This, in the language of Grotius, is to side with the enemy; (P. 10.) and, in that of Bynkershoek, is to take part in the war. (P. 20.) In other words, it is a departure from neutrality, and an injury which the belligerent has a particular right to oppose.

The neutral advocate says "It is a material fact that the principle was never asserted or enforced by England against other nations before the war of 1756." (P. 81.) "At some times," he adds, "nations have been seen engaged in attempts to prevent all commerce whatever with their enemies; at others, to extend the list of contraband to the most innocent and necessary articles of common interchange; at others, to subject to condemnation both vessel and cargo, where either the one or the other was the property of an enemy*; at others, to make the hostility of the country producing the cargo a cause of its confiscation. But at no time was this encroachment on the rights of neutrality devised by any nation until the war of 1756:" (P. 84-5.) and so to prevent all commerce whatever with an enemy, does not include the interdiction of a particular branch of trade with him!

The fact however is-that until the war of 1756, the French and Spaniards never attempted

This has always been the law in France.

to elude the pressure of war by relaxing their colonial monopoly; for the attempt of France in 1705 can scarcely be deserving of mention; or if it is, then the " rule of 1756" is of as ancient date as the neutral vessels so employed were captured, and the effort crushed at the outset.

The author shows the great error into which he has fallen throughout his argument, when he remarks that" certain it is, the original principle was that of a virtual adoption, this principle being commensurate with the original occasion; and that, as soon as this original principle was found insufficient to reach the new occasions, a strong tendency was seen towards a variation of the principle, in order to bring the new occasions within its reach." (P. 90.)

In truth, the original principle is that on which enemy's property is confiscated when found on board a neutral vessel; that on which is founded the list of contraband and the other rights of belligerents; namely, that it is the duty of those who are neutral not to succor one belligerent against the other, nor to assist either one or other with those things which may furnish and foment the war.

Now the American author admits that the trade prohibited by the "rule of 1756" does enable a belligerent to carry on the war with more vigor and effect. (P. 3.) Such a trade,