Chap. VI. taken measures for issuing letters of marque, arrived at the same time as Lord Lyons's despatch. Two days afterwards intelligence of the Proclamation of blockade reached London: the fact was mentioned in the House of Commons on the evening of the 2nd May; on the 3rd the substance of the Proclamation was published in the English newspapers; and on the 5th a copy of it was received from Her Majesty's Consul at New York. A second copy, transmitted by Lord Lyons, reached Downing Street on the 10th, having been delayed by the disturbed condition of Maryland, where a secessionist rising had cut off, on the night of the 19th April, and for several days afterwards, all communication between Washington and the North. Lord Lyons inclosed in the same despatch a copy of Mr. Davis's notification, issued on the 17th April. On the 11th May the Proclamation of blockade was officially communicated to Earl Russell by Mr. Dallas. He at the same time placed in Lord Russell's hands a copy of a circular, dated 20th April, which had been addressed by Mr. Seward to the Ministers of the United States at foreign Courts, and in which the Secretary of State referred to the probability that attempts would be made to fit out privateers in England against American commerce.

On the first publication of this intelligence, merchants, ship-owners, and insurers took the alarm. The Atlantic is threaded by many well-known highways, intersecting one another in all directions, over which the commerce of America, the West Indies, and Brazil passes to and fro. British ships throng these highways. In many of the Southern ports there was a large amount of British property; the cargoes in the Mississippi alone at the end of May were computed to be worth a million sterling, and the greater part of these had been shipped for Liverpool.1 Owners of British shipping look, and have a

1 Mr. Seward (to Lord Stanley, 12th January, 1867) is severe upon the unlucky persons whose property was thus placed in jeopardy. He right to look, for protection to the British squadrons Chap. VI. stationed in various parts of the world; and it is the duty of the British Government to keep the commanding officers of those squadrons properly instructed as to the cases in which protection should be afforded. Three or four weeks must elapse before instructions, even if sent out immediately, could reach the towns on the Southern coast, the Bahamas, and the British West Indies, to say nothing of the more remote dependencies of the Crown, or of commerce scattered over more distant seas. But what had occurred? A blockade had been proclaimed, extending over a coast line of some 3,000 miles. Letters of marque had been publicly offered an invitation very tempting to the adventurous and reckless men who are always to be found in every maritime nation. Both the Government of the United States and the de facto Government of the Confederacy had assumed, and were actually exercising on the high seas, the rights of war; and the neutral who resists the enforcement of those rights does so under the penalty of capture. Branches of trade perfectly lawful before might now be treated as unlawful, and punished by seizure and confiscation. Mr. Lincoln's administration had sent agents to England to purchase arms; Mr. Davis's would certainly resort,

seems, indeed, to be rather angry with them. "Lord Stanley says that Her Majesty's Government had to provide at a distance for the losses and interests of British subjects in or near the seat of war. But who required British subjects to be there? Who obliged them to remain in a place of danger? If they persisted in remaining there, had they not all the protection the citizens of the United States enjoyed? Were they entitled to more?" Who required them to be there? Who obliged them to remain there? Why, they were there when the war broke out, in the pursuit of their legitimate trade, which was just as much for the advantage of America as for that of Great Britain. What protection citizens of the United States enjoyed in May, 1861, at Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, I do not know. But it is certain that British subjects and property were not, on the outbreak of the war, treated by the Government of the United States and its officers as upon the same footing with American subjects and property; they were treated as neutrals and neutral property are treated in war.

K

Chap. VI. if it had not already resorted, to the same market. This was the state of facts existing during the first week of May, so far as they were known to the English public and on these facts the Government was called upon, both by the mercantile community and by some of the warmest partisans of the Northern cause, to define its position, to recognize or repudiate the blockade, to accept or reject the character of a neutral Power, and to publish its decision as widely and as speedily as possible. No request could have been more natural or more reasonable.1

1 In the House of Commons, on the 2nd May, Earl Russell (then Lord John Russell), answering a question put by Mr. Ewart, said: "Her Majesty's Government has felt that it was its duty to use every possible means to avoid taking any part in the lamentable contest now raging in the American States. Nothing but the imperative duty of protecting British interests, in case they should be attacked, justifies the Government in at all interfering. We have not been involved in any way in that contest by any act or giving any advice in the matter, and, for God's sake, let us, if possible, keep out of it."

On the 9th May, "Mr. W. E. Forster said: He wished to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is not a criminal offence against the provisions of the Foreign Enlistment Act for any subject of Her Majesty to serve on board of any privateer licensed by the person assuming, as President of the Southern Confederacy, to exercise power over a part of the United States, or for any person within Her Majesty's dominions to assist in the equipment of such privateer; and, if so, whether he will take measures to prevent the infringement of the law, either by Her Majesty's subjects or by any agents of the Southern Confederacy who are now in England; and also whether any such privateer equipped in a port of Her Majesty's dominions will not be liable to forfeiture?

"Sir George Lewis: Sir, it is in the contemplation of Her Majesty's Government to issue a Proclamation for the purpose of cautioning all Her Majesty's subjects against any interference in the hostilities between the Northern and Southern States of America. In that Proclamation the general effect of the Common and Statute Law on the matter will be stated. The general principle of our law is, that no British subject shall enter into the service of any foreign Prince or Power, or engage in any hostilities that may be carried on between two foreign States. With respect to the precise effect of the Foreign Enlistment Act in the case supposed, it would not be proper for me to undertake to lay it down, inasmuch as the construction of any Statute is matter for judicial decision rather than for any opinion of my own. The general bearing of the law

On the 1st May directions were given for the rein- Chap. VI. forcement of the squadron on the North American and West Indian stations, "so that the Admiral in command may be able duly to provide for the protection of British shipping in any emergency that may occur."1 On the 6th, after consultation with the Law Officers, the Government came to the conclusion that, upon the principles recognized both by Great Britain and by America, the revolted States must be regarded as a belligerent party in the war now known to have begun.

will, however, as I have said, be set forth in the Proclamation."Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (Third Series), vol. clxii, pp. 1378 and 1763.

The reasons which make it important that a neutral Government should lose no time in issuing instructions to its officers, and information to its subjects, are stated by Mr. Dana :

"Where the insurgents and the parent State are maritime, and the foreign nation has extensive commercial relations and trade at the ports of both, and the foreign nation and either or both of the contending parties have considerable naval force, and the domestic contest must extend itself over the sea, then the relations of the foreign State to this contest are far different. In such a state of things, the liability to political complications, and the questions of right and duty to be decided at once, usually away from home, by private citizens or naval officers, seem to require an authoritative and general decision as to the status of the three parties involved. If the contest is a war, all foreign citizens and officers, whether executive or judicial, are to follow one line of conduct. If it is not a war, they are to follow a totally different line.

"Now, all private citizens of a foreign State, and all its executive officers and judicial magistrates, look to the political departinent of their Government to prescribe the rule of their conduct, in all their possible relations with the parties to the contest. This rule is prescribed in the best and most intelligible manner for all possible contingencies by the simple declaration, that the contest is, or is not, to be treated as war. If the state of things requires the decision, it must be made by the political department of the Government. It is not fit that cases should be left to be decided as they may arise. by private citizens, or naval or judicial officers, at home or abroad, by sea or land. It is, therefore, the custom of nations for the political department of a foreign State to make the decision." Dana's Wheaton, p. 135, Note.

1 Lord J. Russell to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, 1st May, 1861.

Chap. VI. On the 13th, the Royal Sign-manual was affixed to a Proclamation of Neutrality, which was published in the London Gazette on the following day. Copies were sent on the 15th to Lord Lyons and to the British Consuls at American ports, "with instructions to exhibit the same in their respective Consular offices, and to take suitable steps for making known the purport of the same to Her Majesty's subjects residing or entering within their jurisdiction, taking care, however, to do so in the manner best calculated to avoid wounding the susceptibilities of the authorities or people of the places where they reside."1

The tenor of the Proclamation was as follows:-It began by taking notice that "hostilities had unhappily commenced between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America," announced the Queen's determination "to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending parties," and commanded her subjects to observe a like neutrality. It recited at length various prohibitions of British criminal law contained in the Foreign Enlistment Act (59 Geo. III, c. 69), enjoined obedience to these prohibitions, and concluded by a warning, addressed to all Her Majesty's subjects, that, should they infringe the law of nations by any violation of neutral duties, they would incur under that law penal consequences against which they would receive no protection from the Crown. The substantial part of it was the public declaration that, in the judgment of the Executive, a state of war existed, with all those incidents which are attached to a state of war by the law of nations. In other respects, it operated only as a warning. It imposed on the subjects of the Crown no legal liabilities from which they would otherwise have

1 Lord J. Russell to Lord Lyons, 15th May, 1861.