has never suffer d without just complaints in individual cases, and constant and strong remonstrauce on the part of the Government of the said States against the principle and practice of everything like an imaginary blockade, the hydra of lawless oppression. "Thus it has ever been maintained by the United States that a proclamation or ideal blockade of an extensive coast, not supported by the actual presence of a naval power competent to enforce its simultaneous, constant, and effective operation on every point of such coast, is illegal throughout its whole extent, even for the ports which may be in actual blockade; otherwise every capture under a notified blockade would be legal, because the capture itself would be proof of the blockading force. This is, in general terms, one of the fundamental rules of the law of blockade as professed and practiced by the Government of the United States. "And if this principle is to derive strength from the enormity of consequences resulting from a contrary practice, it could not be better sustained than by the terms of the original declaration of the existing Brazilian blockade, combined with its subsequent practical application." Mr. Forbes, minister of the United States to Buenos Ayres, to Admiral Lobo, commanding the Brazilian squadron blockading Buenos Ayres, Feb. 13, 1826. Brit. and For. St. Pap. (1825-'26), `vol. 13, 822. The orders and decrees of the belligerent powers of Europe affecting the commerce of the United States are given in 3 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 263. Count Romanzoff's circular of May 14, 1809, as to the blockade of the Baltic, is in 3 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 327. President Madison's message of Jan. 12, 1810, with the accompanying papers, Mr. Pinkney's exposition of the law of blockade, in this relation, in his note of As to blockade by Spain of the ports of Santa Fé, see 4 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), President Monroe's message of Feb. 12, 1818, as to blockade of Santa Fé, is in 11 Wait's St. Pap., 473. An elaborate and extended discussion, carried on in 1825-28, between Commodore Biddle, commanding the United States Navy in Brazilian waters, and Mr. Raguet, United States minister at Brazil, in reference to the Brazilian blockades of Pernambuco and the River Plate, will be found in the Brit. and For. St. Pap. for 1828-29, vol. 16, 1099 ff. The message of President J. Q. Adams, of May 23, 1828, containing a mass of correspondence in reference to the Brazilian blockade then recently existing, as well as to certain alleged outrages of the Brazilian Government, is contained in House Doc. 499, 20th Cong., 1st sess.; 6 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 1021. See also same volume, 277 ff., Brit. and For. St. Pap. (1826–’27), vol. xiv, 1165, for further correspondence. The blockade of Buenos Ayres by Brazil, and Mr. Raguet's demand for his passport, are given in House Ex. Doc. 281, 20th Cong., 1st sess. 6 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 1021. As to blockades on Mexican coast and the Rio de la Plata, see Mr. Van Buren's message of Feb. 22, 1839, House Ex. Doc. 211, 25th Cong., 3d sess. As to the practice of the United States as to blockade, see 3 Phill. Int. Law (3d ed.), 478. S. Mis. 162-VOL. III-23 353 The correspondence with Great Britain respecting the blockade of the west coast of Mexico in 1846, is found in the Brit. and For. St. Pap. for 1848-49, vol. 37, 565. The documents include a note from Mr. Buchanan, Secretary, to Mr. Pakenham, of December 29, 1846, in which it is said: "It is sufficiently apparent from the whole proc lamation (of Commodore Stockton) that he did not intend to estab lish a paper blockade. This would have been equally unwarranted by his instructions and by the principles which the United States have maintained in regard to blockades ever since we became an independent nation." In a circular from Mr. Mason, Secretary of the Navy, of December 24, to the commanding officers of the United States Navy in the Pacific, it is said that "a lawful maritime blockade requires the actual presence of a sufficient force stationed at the entrance of the ports, sufficiently near to prevent communication. The only exception to this rule which requires the actual presence of an adequate force to constitute a lawful blockade, arises out of the occasional temporary absence of the blockading squadron produced by accident, as in the case of a storm, which does not suspend the legal operation of a blockade. The law considers an attempt to take advantage of such an accidental removal a fraudulent attempt to break the blockade. The United States have at all times maintained these principles on the subject of blockade; and you will take care not to attempt the application of penalties for a breach of blockade, except in cases where your right is justified by these rules. You should give general notice that under Commodore Stockton's general notification no part on the west side of Mexico is regarded as blockaded unless there is a sufficient American force to maintain it actually present, or temporarily driven from such actual presence by storms of weather, intending to return." "Your dispatch of June 28, No. 10, has been received. "I have already, in a previous communication, informed you that this Government has not been disturbed by the action of the British authorities in sending three regiments into Canada, nor by the announcement of the coming of British armed vessels into American waters. These movements are certainly not very formidable in their proportions; and we willingly accept the explanation that they proceed from merely prudential motives. "Doubtless it had been better if they had not been made. But what Government can say that it never acts precipitately, or even capriciously? On our part the possibility of foreign intervention, sooner or later, in this domestic disturbance is never absent from the thoughts of this Government. We are, therefore, not likely to exaggerate indications of an emergency for which we hold ourselves bound to be in a measure always prepared. "Another subject which, according to your report, was discussed in your late interview with Lord John Russell demands more extended remarks. I refer to the portion of your dispatch which is in these words: 'His lordship then said something about difficulties in New Granada, and the intelligence that the insurgents there had passed a law to close their ports. But the law officers here told him that this could not be done as against foreign nations, except by the regular form of a block ade. He did not know what we thought about it; but he had observed that some such plan was said to be likely to be adopted at the coming meeting of Congress in regard to the ports of those whom we considered as insurgents.' "Much as I deprecate a reference in official communications of this kind to explanations made by ministers in Parliament, not always fully or accurately reported, and always liable to be perverted when applied to cases not considered when the explanations are given, I nevertheless find it necessary, by way of elucidating the subject, to bring into this connection the substance of a debate which is said to have taken place in the House of Commons on the 27th of June last, and which is as follows: "Mr. H. Berkly asked the secretary of state for foreign affairs whether Her Majesty's Government recognized a notification given by Señor Martin, minister plenipotentiary to this court from the Granadian Confederation, better known as the Republic of New Granada, which announces a blockade of the ports of Rio Hacha, Santa Marta, Savanilla, Carthagena, and Zaporte, and which Government did Her Majesty's Government recognize in the so-called Granadian Confederation. "Lord John Russell said the question is one of considerable importance. The Government of New Granada has announced, not a blockade, but that certain ports of New Granada are to be closed. The opinion of Her Majesty's Government, after taking legal advice, is that it is perfectly competent for the Government of a country in a state of tranquillity to say which ports shall be open to trade and which shall be closed; but in the event of insurrection or civil war in that country, it is not competent for its Government to close the ports that are de facto in the hands of the insurgents, as that would be an invasion of international law with regard to blockade. Admiral Milne, acting on instructions from Her Majesty's Government, has ordered the commanders of Her Majesty's ships not to recognize the closing of their ports. "Since your conversation with Lord John Russell, and also since the debate which I have extracted occurred, the Congress of the United States has by law asserted the right of this Government to close the ports in this country which have been seized by the insurgents. "I send you herewith a copy of the enactment. The connecting by Lord John Russell of that measure when it was in prospect with what had taken place in regard to a law of New Granada, gives to the remarks which he made to you a significance that requires no especial illustration. If the Government of the United States should close their insurrectionary ports under the new statute, and Great Britain should, in pursuance of the intimation made, disregard the act, no one can suppose for a moment that the United States would acquiesce. When a conflict on such a question shall arrive between the United States and Great Britain, it is not easily to be seen what maritime nation could keep aloof from it. It must be confessed, therefore, that a new incident has occurred increasing the danger that what has hitherto been, and, as we think, ought to be, a merely domestic controversy of our own, may be enlarged into a general war among the great maritime nations. Hence the necessity for endeavoring to bring about a more perfect understanding between the United States and Great Britain for the regulation of their mutual relations than has yet been attained. "In attempting that important object I may be allowed to begin by affirming that the President deprecates, as much as any citizen of either country or any friend of humanity throughout the world can deprecate, the evil of foreign wars, to be superinduced, as he thinks unnecessa rily, upon the painful civil conflict in which we are engaged for the purpose of defending and maintaining our national authority over our own disloyal citizens. "I may add, also, for myself, that however otherwise I may at any time have been understood, it has been an earnest and profound solici tude to avert foreign war that alone has prompted the emphatic and sometimes, perhaps, impassioned remonstrances I have hitherto made against any form or measure of recognition of the insurgents by the Government of Great Britain. I write in the same spirit now; and I invoke on the part of the British Government, as I propose to exercise on my own, the calmness which all counselors ought to practice in debates which involve the peace and happiness of mankind. "The United States and Great Britain have assumed incompatible, and thus far irreconcilable, positions on the subject of the existing insurrection. "The United States claim and insist that the integrity of the Republic is unbroken, and that their Government is supreme so far as foreign nations are concerned, as well for war as for peace, over all the States, all sections, and all citizens, the loyal not more than the disloyal, the patriots and the insurgents alike. Consequently they insist that the British Government shall in no way intervene in the insurrection, or hold commercial or other intercourse with the insurgents in derogation of the Federal authority. "The British Government, without having first deliberately heard the claims of the United States, announced, through a proclamation of the Queen, that it took notice of the insurrection as a civil war so flagrant as to divide this country into two belligerent parties, of which the Federal Government constitutes one and the disloyal citizens the other; and consequently it inferred a right of Great Britain to stand in an attitude of neutrality between them. "It is not my purpose at this time to vindicate the position of the United States, nor is it my purpose to attempt to show to the Government of Great Britain that its position is indefensible. "The question at issue concerns the United States primarily, and Great Britain only secondarily and incidentally. It is, as I have before said, a question of integrity, which is nothing less than the life of the Republic itself. "The position which the Government has taken has been dictated, therefore, by the law of self-preservation. No nation animated by loyal sentiments and inspired by a generous ambition can even suffer itself to debate with parties within or without a policy of self-preservation. In assuming this position and the policy resulting from it, we have done, as I think, just what Great Britain herself must, and therefore would, do if a domestic insurrection should attempt to detach Ireland, or Scotland, or England from the United Kingdom, while she would hear no argument nor enter into any debate upon the subject. Neither adverse opinions of theoretical writers nor precedents drawn from the practice of other nations, or, even if they could be, from her own, would modify her course, which would be all the more vigorously followed, if internal resistance should fortify itself with alliances throughout the world. This is exactly the case now with the United States. "So, for obvious reasons, I refrain from argument to prove to the Government of Great Britain the assumed error of the position it has avowed. "First, argument from a party that maintains itself to be absolutely right, and resolved in no case to change its convictions, becomes merely controversial. Secondly, such argument would be only an indirect way of defending our own position, which is unchangeable. Thirdly, the position of Great Britain has been taken upon the assumption of a certain degree of probability of success by the insurgents in arms; and it must be sooner or later abandoned, as that probability shall diminish and ultimately cease, while in any case that circumstance does not affect our position or the policy which we have adopted. It must, therefore, be left to Great Britain to do what we have done, namely, survey the entire field, with the consequences of her course deemed by us to be erroneous, and determine as those consequences develop themselves how long that course shall be pursued. "While, however, thus waiving controversy on the main point, I am tempted by a sincere conviction that Great Britain really must desire, as we do, that the peace of the world may not be unnecessarily broken, to consider the attitude of the two powers, with a view to mutual forbearance, until reconciliation of conflicting systems shall have become in every event impossible. "The British Government will, I think, admit that so soon as its unexpected, and, as we regard it, injurious, position assumed in the Queen's proclamation became known to us, we took some pains to avert premature or unnecessary collision, if it could be done without sacrificing any part of the sovereignty which we had determined in every event to defend. We promptly renewed the proposition which, fortunately for both parties, we had tendered before that proclamation was |