The court unarmed vessel of war. The two cases are not similar, nor founded on equal reason. It is apparent, on the face, that the mere selling here, in New York, of a dozen of carbines, or a thousand percussion caps to Chile, leaving to the "confidential agent" the risk of transporting them to that country, need not be acts dangerous to our neutrality, for the reason, among others, that the contraband articles may, in the absence of any vessel from here, be but component parts of a naval enterprise, fitted out in the belligerent's own territory. Parrott-guns, carbines, and percussion caps cannot alone make up a naval expedition, for they cannot cruise to commit hostilities; but the latter can and do transport the former, and so, without entering into any foreign port, or any port of the belligerent, constitute a terrible enterprise of destruction, as the Alexandra, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida taught us by the lurid flames of peaceful traders and toiling fishermen, burned into a watery grave. More than that, it is not needed now that a cruiser have guns on board to constitute her a warlike instrument of naval offence. To "run down a ship," to "cut a ship in twain," were the common phrases of the late war. Powerful engines, and stout bows, are dangerous enemies to peaceful merchantmen. Your Honor must have observed the persistence with must look to which the counsel for the claimants has, from the beginning the reigning and juris legislation to the end of his argument, in the great part of the citations prudence of which he has submitted to the court, clung to what was said to-day, and not to the Executive year 1794. nets of the and done in this relation during the early period of our prior to the Republic. Far be it from us, here or elsewhere, to undervalue the opinions of those great men of the Revolutionary epoch who, out of decaying nationalities, the keen jealousies. of States, and the formidable animosity of the parent country, laid the foundation of this federated fabric of republican government. He must be bold, indeed, who ventures to arraign, or qualify in any sense, the teachings of either of the great triumvirate of statesmen-Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson-who not only allured others to national independence, but in their own persons led the way. But it is no impeachment of their profound statesmanship, and farseeing devotion to all that could concern the name and fame of the young government, to suggest that there were peculiar circumstances at that time, which tended to mould and form the opinions which the Government expressed in respect to neutral duties. The attitude of the administration of Washington was as bold as it was just. It was, however, before action by Congress in 1794, constrained to consult somewhat the temper of the people, and to harmonize conflicting popular emotions. The citations made on the other side, from "Sparks' Life of Washington," the "Works of Hamilton," "Jefferson's Complete Works," and the " American State Papers,' all refer to a series of official acts prior to the neutral legislation of 1794, which was a new and significant point of departure for the United States in respect to neutral duties. The circular of Mr. Alexander Hamilton to collectors of customs was issued in 1793, and contained, no doubt, a correct statement of the utmost limit to which, at that time, President Washington felt bound to go. But since that time much has become changed--changed by legislation and judicial construction; changed by naval architecture; changed in those physical facts by which one vessel secures the subjection and surrender of another vessel at sea. My learned friend, who has conducted this case with such conspicuous ability on the part of the claimants, does not ordinarily need outside suggestions to aid in the conduct of causes which he happens to represent, in this or any other judicial tribunal, but yet no one can fail to see that a chief part of the propositions of law, and the arguments thereon, which he has addressed to your Honor, are not unlike those which constituted the staple of the enemies of the United States, in discussing the question of belligerent rights, during our recent rebellion. Then and there, as now and here, the claimants of inculpated vessels, no matter whether the Messrs. Laird, of Liverpool, or the Messrs. Forbes, of Boston, clung with unreasoning pertinacity to precedents drawn from the first ten years of our history. Nothing could shake off their grip. If any official in the United States, before the year 1794, did an act, or said a thing, demanded by the exigencies of that early day, it has been flauntingly quoted as a just exposition of existing opinion in the United States. Subsequent legislation, and the reigning jurisprudence of today, all go for nothing with them. In the time of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, a ship could not well be a vessel of war unless she had guns actually protruding from her port-holes, and ready for instant action. Then steam had not become the great motive power in naval combats; then iron vessels were unknown; then those terrible monsters of the deep, the Monitors, were things never dreamed of. But now, under the influence of science, and the march of invention, captures are made at sea, peaceful merchantmen are terrified into a surrender, quite as much by a powerful crew, a projecting prow, and engines like those constructed for the Meteor, as, in the olden time, they were by the guns which ranged around a fully-equipped man-of-war. In the case of Great Britain herself, in the matter of the iron-clads, to which I alluded in my opening statement, and assumed to be built for the Confederates by the Messrs. Laird, it will not be pretended that, at the time those ships were seized by the English Government, they were armed, fully equipped, and enlisted in the Confederate service. On the contrary, they had not a gun, a shell, or a cannon, on board. It was when the fortunes of the rebellion began to wane, and England began to see her true interest to be in relations of amity with the United States, and Lord Russell was brought to his senses by the dispatch of Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, under date of July 11, 1863, in which the Secretary of State informs the Queen's Government that if the doctrine of the Alexandra case is to be maintained by Great Britain, the United States will reflect whether the maintenance of their Change of opinion in England after Mr. Se ward,in July 1863, assert ican doctrine neutral du Soon after the reception in England of the dispatch of Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, of the date of July 11, 1863, to which I have before referred, there can easily be discerned a ed the Amerchange in public opinion indicated by the daily press, and in respect to by journals especially devoted to legal discussion. With ties. permission of the Court, I desire, in confirmation of what I suggest, to call attention to an article in the London Law Times for September 19, 1863, upon this subject. This journal had previously been most decided in vindication of the theory of neutral obligations contended for by the Confederate agents. But at the date to which I refer, there is an article most significant in its tone of thought and expression. I will read but a brief extract therefrom: If a nation permit anything to be organized and constructed within its boundaries, which is plainly designed for the use of one belligerent, it is guilty of a very clear breach of neutrality against the other. By a loose, and, as we believe, highly improper reading of the law, it has been taken for granted that it is not against the principles of international law for a neutral power to permit its subjects to sell munitions of war to a belligerent power. It is held that a contrary principle would interfere too much with the shipbuilders of the Mersey and the Clyde, and the gunmakers of Birmingham, to be tolerated. But it appears to us that there are some things which, in the estimation of rightly-thinking men, may be of even higher importance than the prosperity of the Birkenhead shipowners or the Birmingham gunmakers, and, among them we may be permitted to reckon a reverence for law and the preservation of the national honor. It may be that, if we were to put the The pro spirit of the law into force-that spirit which arms the proclamation of the Queen when she prohibits the sale of all munitions of war—by preventing ships, evidently built for warlike purposes, and cargoes of lethal weapons, except upon proof that they were not to be used in a quarrel as to which we are neutral-it may be that in such a case a few men would have to get rich more slowly; but, at any rate, the nation would be saved from the imputation of the guilt of blood—a guilt which is equally abhorrent whether it sullies the reputation of a man or of a people. The central proposition of law, therefore, upon which the law mainly learned counsel for the claimants rests his defence of the Me position of relied upon by the claimants. Exposition teor, is the one so much exploited in the case of the Alexandra. It was relied upon by the Parliament and public press of England, to uphold the conduct of the Queen's Government, in the matter of the Alabama, and therefore was support sought in the case of the Santissima Trinidad. Having been used elsewhere, to justify British subjects in supplying Confederate agents with gunboats, and all the naval thunders which the private shipyards and arsenals of that country could produce, that overworked case is now reproduced for the protection of the Meteor. With how little reason it can be thus used, will now be considered. On the trial of that case, in the court below, it was of the case proved that a vessel built and used as a privateer, in the war tissima Trin- of 1812, was, after the peace, sold by her owners, and by the of The San idad. purchasers sent as a commercial adventure, with her armament and a cargo of warlike materials, to Brazil (then at war with Spain), for sale to the Government of Brazil, if it saw fit to purchase her. There was no previous contract or understanding as to who the purchaser was to be, nor any limitation in that respect. The vessel was bought there by private parties, commissioned as a Brazilian war vessel, under the name of Independencia del Sud, and sailed on a cruise along the Spanish coast. She subsequently put into Baltimore, and there added thirty men to her crew, procured another small vessel (Altravida), as a tender, and sailed away again. Having made capture of certain articles, she brought them into Norfolk, Virginia, and placed them in the customs warehouse for safekeeping, where they were libelled by the |