552

AMERICAN BLOCKADE CASES

Other authorities expounding American Prize Law and its application to captures for breach or attempted breach of blockade, may be here cited; as The Springbok, 1 Wall. 1; The Peterhoff, ibid. 28; United States v. Weed, ibid. 62; The Gray Jacket, ibid. 342; The William Baggalry, ibid. 377; The Sir William Peele, ibid. 517; The Sally Magee, 3 ibid. 541; The Thompson, ibid. 155.

In the Revere (2 Spr. 107), the political status of the United States in relation to the revolted States was judicially defined. The former had against the latter both sovereign and belligerent rights: by sovereign, it might interdict all commerce in the insurgent States; by their belligerent right, the United States might establish the blockade. A continued misrepresentation of a voyage afforded cause sufficient for condemnation, and those only were entitled to warning who were ignorant of the President's Proclamation of April 19, 1861.

In the James Andrews (ibid. 121), the preparatory evidence showed a clear case of enemy property; but in such case, when, after further proof, restitution shall be decreed, it will, in prize, be on terms of costs and expenses; but aliter, in an instance suit.

In the Cuba (ibid. 168), August, 1862, it was held, that the prize documents should not be inspected before the completion of the preparatory evidence; and that a vessel documented as neutral, but with false log and other papers, must be condemned as enemy property, for attempted breach of blockade.

In the Lilla (ibid. 177, s. c., L. Rep. Dec. 1862, p. 81), the court held that capture in neutral waters must be controverted, if at all, by the neutral nation whose rights

have been infringed; and not by a private person, or even by a consul; also that the portion of a neutral owner, who shall claim another portion of the captured property belonging to an enemy, for the purpose of deceiving the court, will be condemned as a penalty for the fraudulent conduct of such neutral owner.

In the Aries (ibid. 198), the court held that, on a breach of blockade, not only were the owners of the vessel bound by the master's act, but that the owners of the cargo also were so bound, with few exceptions, and those carefully guarded.

In the Victory (ibid. 226), it was held, that vessels picking up goods thrown overboard during a chase, were entitled to such goods as captors, and not as salvors; in 680 Pieces of Merchandise, (ibid. 233,) held that the United States district courts have jurisdiction over enemy's property found on a wharf, recently waterborne, and there captured by boats from a vessel of

war.

In the Wando (L. Rep. May, 1866, p. 391), Judge Lowell (successor to Judge Sprague) condemned a shipmaster's money, though it was not intended for trade.

The Island Belle was condemned by Judge Cadwallader, as a hostile ship, with hostile cargo. Vide L. Rep. March, 1864, p. 263.

For other American decisions, reference must be made generally to Blatchford's Prize Cases, where will be found a full collection of those heard and determined in the Southern District for New York.

With the preceding synopsis of the more recent authorities on blockade, the general plan of this treatise will be accomplished without any further particular

554

CASE OF THE STEPHEN HART,

reference (save a single exception) to the decisions collected and published in 2 Sprague, Blatchford, Black, and Wallace's Reports; which Reports are now accessible to the profession generally. The single exception is the case of the Stephen Hart (formerly the Tamaulipas of New Orleans), Blatchford's Prize Cases, 400 particular reference is now made to this case for the special purpose of fully illustrating the general mode and manner of the revolted States, aided by their foreign unneutral friends, if not allies, in running the blockade, in pretended neutral bottoms, from a neutral base of operations; and starting thence with false papers and on a fictitious destination, ostensibly to an intermediate stopping port for transhipment, for the purpose of rendering the expedition apparently, or in part, innocent. But these ill-contrived disguises to impose upon a prize court, Judge Betts stripped off; and neither double destination, consignment to an intermediate port before proceeding to the contingent destination, nor flying a neutral flag, either deceived the blockading cruisers or misled the court; but it was judicially pronounced that neutral bottoms afforded no protection to contraband cargoes; that a fictitious destination was not vindicated by an intermediate transhipment; that a voyage in part wrong was wholly so; that articles which were enemy property at the inception of an enterprise, were the same at the time of capture, and that owners of both cargo and vessel, if laden with contraband goods, were presumed to be connusant of an intention to enter some enemy port, by breaking the blockade if possible; and without repelling this presumption of law, by purging themselves of such unneutral or hostile intent, they could not fairly claim the restitution of goods designed to aid and comfort an adverse belligerent.

DECIDED BY JUDGE BETTS.

555

The Stephen Hart sailed from London, November 19, 1864, bound ostensibly for Cardenas, Cuba, laden with powder, arms, munitions, uniforms, and cloth for uniforms, with 90,000 buttons marked C. S. A., and was captured by the United States steamer Supply, some 25 or 30 miles from Key West, and sent to New York for adjudication. The entire cargo was appraised at $238,945.37. One Major or Captain Hughes appears to have been the active Confederate agent in procuring and shipping this cargo, which purported to be consigned to a Major Charles J. Helm at Cardenas. By intercepted letters, Col. J. Gorgas, as chief of ordnance, seems to have been connected with the general business, as in his contract with Ch. H. Reid for running five fast steamers, Major Caleb Huse is referred to by name. These three Confederate officers or agents were Josias Gorgas (of Penn.) who was at West Point of the class of 1841; Charles J. Helm (of Ky.) was an aid of Gen. Wool in the Mexican War, 1848; and Caleb Huse was educated at West Point in the class of 1851; and notwithstanding their presumed antecedents, all seem to have been devotedly engaged in procuring, and introducing into the blockaded ports of the revolted States, war materials of every description for the purpose of prolonging the civil war and destroying Union soldiers.

The intercepted letters and agreement referred to were published in the "Boston Daily Advertiser" of November 17, 1863.

1st. A letter dated at London, September 16, 1863, from Edgar P. Stringer to J. M. Mason, inquiring as to Major Huse's present authority, as Stringer had "learned that by a recent order of the War Department, Major Huse's authority was now limited to the supply

556

BLOCKADE-RUNNING EXEMPLIFIED.

of ordnance stores, or in other words to contraband of war, and these to be sent forward by government vessels."

2d. A letter from J. M. Mason in reply, dated Sept. 19, 1863.

3d. The agreement of J. Gorgas with Charles H. Reid to run a line of five steamers from England, via St. George's, Bermuda, and Nassau, N. P., to Wilmington, N. C., and Charleston, S. C., as Confederate ports; but no contraband, and referring to Major Caleb Huse for "receipt of notification."

Other ports, beside those already named, were resorted to, as Matamoras, Galveston, New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, and Beaufort, to carry on this business of blockade running, wherever ingress was feasible, or whenever escape from the blockading force was probable.

But the voyage of the Stephen Hart, though purporting to be consigned to an intermediate port, was a continuous voyage, in fact, from England to an ulterior destination in some port of the Southern States. The pretended stopping-port was a mere blind to deceive United States cruisers or mislead a prize court; but broke not the legal continuity of the voyage. The contingent destination was her only destination. At Cardenas, Confederate buttons with their special marks and device, could command no price, but for reshipping or transhipping. Indeed, this voyage was as open in its inception and partial prosecution, as it would have been in its ultimate termination had it been successful. The bungling attempts of Confederate agents at disguise or concealment, so far from mitigating, only aggravated the attempted fraud. The buttons, arms, powder, mu