doing, fortified as he was by the opinion of an American judge, declared in open court, that such an act was not forbidden by the laws of the United States. But the British Government, before any complaint was made, prohibited any further such enlistment; and when the American Government did complain, it made an apology for the unintentional offence. Surely a high-minded and honourable Power should have been satisfied. If we had done wrong, we had apologised. No other reparation was asked for, as, in truth, there could be none. But there seemed to be an opportunity of insulting us with safety, and gratifying the vanity of the most vainglorious nation on the face of the earth. Our ambassador was dismissed, and as by the Law of Nations which we respect, the dismissal of an ambassador it not a casus belli, we again acquiesced. Great was the triumph of America. The Lion seemed to have quailed before the Eagle, and the idea became more firmly fixed than ever that England did not dare to go to war with the United States. At last an event happened which brought the question to an issue.

6

The Trent,' a packet ship belonging to the British Mail Steamship Company, which runs from Vera Cruz to Havannah, and thence to St. Thomas (where her passengers and mails are transferred to another steamer to be conveyed to Southampton), had touched in the month of November last, in the usual course of her voyage, at Havannah, to take in passengers and letters. Four gentlemen, Messrs Slidell, Mason, Eustis, and M'Farland, who had paid their passage-money for the whole route from Havannah to Southampton, embarked on board. Mr. Slidell was accompanied by his wife and two daughters. He and Mr. Mason had been sent as envoys from the Confederate States to Europe, Mr. Slidell being bound for France, and Mr. Mason for England. They came on board as ordinary passengers at a neutral port, in a neutral ship. They could not be clothed with any official or diplomatic character, for neither the Court of England nor the Court of France had recognised the independence of the Confederate States, from which they originally came. There is not a tittle of evidence that the captain of the 'Trent' knew who they were, although that really is a matter of no importance at all. A passenger ship is a common carrier by sea, and he was bound by law to receive all that came, provided he had accommodation for them, unless they were contraband in some way or other, as coming from a belligerent power.

On the 7th of November the Trent' sailed for St. Thomas, and when she reached the Old Bahama Channel she observed a ship lying stationary. The 'Trent' hoisted her flag, but no flag was shown by the stranger. As she approached a shotted gun

was

a

was fired by the other vessel across her course,* and the United States flag was displayed at the same moment at her peak. It turned out to be the United States war-steamer San Jacinto,' commanded by Captain Wilkes. The British flag was again hoisted by the Trent,' and so remained. She continued her course, and shell was fired which burst across her bows. A boat put off from the 'San Jacinto,' followed by two other boats full of armed men, and a lieutenant in the uniform of the United States boarded the Trent,' and demanded from Captain Moir, the commander, his list of passengers. This was refused, and Captain Moir formally protested against any right to visit his ship for such a purpose. The lieutenant of the San Jacinto,' announcing his commission, said that two gentlemen named Slidell and Mason were known to be on board, as well as two other gentlemen named Eustis and M'Farland, and that his orders were to take and carry them on board the San Jacinto.' Commander Williams, R.N., the British Admiralty agent, who was in charge of the mails of the 'Trent,' protested vehemently against the act, and denounced it as piratical. We will quote what follows from the statement drawn up by the four Southern gentlemen, and delivered by them to Captain Wilkes, to be transmitted by him to the Government of the United States: †—

6

'The lieutenant addressed Mr. Slidell, and afterwards Mr. Mason, repeating that his orders were to take them, together with Eustis and M'Farland, and carry them on board his ship. Messrs. Slidell and Mason, in reply, protested in the presence of the captain of the "Trent,' his officers and passengers, against such threatened violation of their persons and their rights, and informed the lieutenant that they would not leave the ship they were in unless compelled by the employment of actual force greater than they could resist, and Messrs. Eustis and M'Farland united with them in expressing a like purpose. That officer stated that he hoped he would not be compelled to resort to the use of force, but, if it would become necessary to employ it, in order to execute his orders, he was prepared to do so. He was answered by the undersigned that they would submit to such a force alone. The lieutenant then went to the gangway, where his boats were, the under

*This seems a favourite mode with the Americans of speaking a foreign ship. To say the least, it is not very courteous. We will relate an anecdote which we have not seen in print, but which we know to be true. Last October a little British gun-boat, called the 'Steady,' employed in carrying despatches for Lord Lyons between Charleston and New York, was on her way northwards with her pennant flying, when an American frigate fired a shot across her bows to bring her to. Captain Grant, of the Steady,' ordered his men to quarters to prepare for action, when a boat put off from the American, and the first lieutenant came on board. Seeing how matters stood he went back to his own ship and brought the captain, who gave a written apology to Captain Grant for what he had done.

† We observe that Mr. Seward's account of the transaction varies from this in some particulars, but they do not seem to be of much importance.

signed going at the same time to their state-rooms on the deck next below, followed by Captain Moir, and by the other passengers. The lieutenant returned with a party of his men, a portion of whom were armed with side-arms, and others-appearing to be a squad of marines -having muskets and bayonets. Mr. Slidell was in his state-room, immediately by and in full view. The lieutenant then said to Mr. Mason that, having his force now present, he hoped to be relieved from the necessity of calling it into actual use. That gentleman again answered that he would only submit to actual force greater than he could overcome, when the lieutenant and several of his men by his order took hold of him, and in a manner and in numbers sufficient to make resistance fruitless; and Mr. Slidell joining the group at the same time, one or more of the armed party took like hold of him, and those gentlemen at once went into the boat.'

We may add, although it certainly does not affect the legal question at all, that Commander Williams asserts that the San Jacinto' had been at the Havannah from St. Thomas previously; that she had coaled there; and two of her officers, passing themselves off as Southerners in their hearts, had lunched with Mr. Slidell and his family, and extracted from them a communication as to their intended voyage. We may also mention that when Mr. Slidell went into his cabin, his daughter, Miss Slidell, placed herself at the door to bar the entrance of the marines; and so resolute was her determination, that her father, fearing she might be injured by the use of force, made his way through the window on to the deck, as she would not consent to open the door.

We really believe that a clearer case of violation of national rights and international law never occurred than this. It was evident from the first that the Federal States Government must accept one of two positions. Either it was a belligerent Power, or it was not. If it was engaged in merely putting down a rebellion of its own subjects, as President Lincoln and Mr. Secretary Seward strenuously maintained, it was not belligerent, and had no belligerent rights. In that case the 'San Jacinto' had not even the right of search to see whether the neutral vessel carried contraband of war or not— for there was no war. And if the character of the Southern Commissioners was that of traitors and rebels, they were as absolutely protected from seizure on board a British ship as if they had been walking in the streets of London. Our flag constitutes an inviolable asylum for all whom we have not by some extradition treaty bound ourselves voluntarily to give up. Be they felons or traitors, they cannot be reached without our free consent, and the smallest vessel in the British merchant-service is entitled to carry them unmolested, although all the guns of the American navy were bearing upon her. Political offenders we never have

agreed

agreed to surrender, and never will; and no Power has asserted the same doctrine more emphatically than the United States.

If, however, the ground was shifted to suit the urgency of the case, and it was to be determined as a question of international law between a belligerent and a neutral Power, there was at once an end of the pretension to treat secession as rebellion. The parties to the conflict stood face to face as enemies at war with each other, and by the rights of war the question must be tried. In the first place, then, it is an admitted principle of international law that the validity of a maritime seizure must be determined in a Prize Court. This,' said the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Jackson v. Montgomery (13 Howard's 'Reports,' 516):—

'is required by the Act of Congress in cases of capture by ships of war of the United States, and this Act merely enforces the performance of a duty imposed upon the captor by the law of nations, which, in all civilised countries, secures to the captured a trial in a Court of competent jurisdiction, before he can finally be deprived of his property. But there are cases where, from existing circumstances, the captor may be excused from the performance of this duty, and may sell or otherwise dispose of the property before condemnation. And where the commander of a national ship cannot, without weakening inconveniently the force under his command, spare a sufficient prize-crew to man the captured vessel, or where the orders of his government prohibit him from doing so, he may lawfully sell or otherwise dispose of the captured property in a foreign country, and may afterwards proceed to adjudication in a court of the United States.'

Captain Wilkes asserted that the 'Trent' was a lawful prize, and with amusing naïveté he wrote to the Secretary of the Navy and told him that he determined to intercept' the Southern Commissioners, and carefully examined all the authorities on international law to which he had access-Kent, Wheaton, Vattel, and Lord Stowell. It is certainly a novel mode of proceeding to decide first and examine authorities afterwards. We may smile at the idea of a legal opinion from a lawyer; but even supposing him to be right as regards the 'interception,' he was utterly wrong in not taking his prize into Court to have the question of the legality of his act determined by the only competent authority. He made a merit of not doing so on account of the derangement it would have caused to innocent persons;' but we have nothing to thank him for. He constituted himself on the high seas judge and jury on the question, and determined it in favour of himself. It matters not whether the thing seized is persons or property. The principle is the same, except that the seizure of persons is a more

offensive

offensive act than the seizure of property. And we are satisfied that any Court of competent knowledge and resolved to decide fairly must, if the Trent' had been carried into port, have released her and condemned Captain Wilkes in damages for the illegal detention. In the mode, however, in which the capture was made there was a manifest illegality which vitiated the act, even if the Southern Commissioners were contraband of

war.

But was the British vessel liable to condemnation in a Prize Court? In other words, was she guilty of any breach of international law as a neutral ship? Was it because she was carrying despatches from a hostile Power? In the first place, no despatches were ever asked for, and Captain Wilkes had not a tittle of proof that any such were on board. He says, indeed, with happy ingenuity, that he considered 'the Commissioners as "the embodiment of despatches," and therefore equally liable to seizure as if they had been made of paper instead of flesh and blood.' But this plea is of no avail. We are spared the necessity of arguing the point, for the industry of a learned civilian has furnished to the Times a case which is precisely in point, except that the facts of the 'Trent' affair are more strongly in our favour:

'On August 7, 1777, the Dutch brig "Hendric and Alida" was captured on the high seas by His Britannic Majesty's ship "Ardent," under the command of Lord Mulgrave, and was shortly afterwards brought into Portsmouth for adjudication as prize of war. The brig was bound, according to her ship's papers, from a port of Holland to the Dutch settlement of St. Eustatia, one of the Leeward Islands. She was laden with a cargo of arms and ammunition, and she had on board as passengers five military officers, with their servants. These officers were furnished with commissions in the rebel army, granted by Benjamin Franklin, who was at that time actively engaged as one of the Commissioners of the rebel provinces at Paris, in endeavouring to procure from M. de Vergennes the recognition of the independence of the United States.

The case of the ship and cargo came on for adjudication in the Prize Court on the 23rd of November, 1777.

'The Judge of the Admiralty Court, Sir George Hay, adjudged the ship and cargo to be Dutch property, and directed them to be restored to the claimants, on the ground that "the Dutch had a right to carry in their own ships to their own colonies or settlements everything they pleased, whether arms or ammunition, or any other species of merchandise, provided they did it with the permission of their own laws."

Of course the doctrine here laid down must be understood with the qualification that the voyage is bona fide. The mere

fact