In reply to the American proposal, the Government of Brazil did not concur therein and refuse its assent to Article 1 of the Declaration of Paris. On the contrary, it commended that article. But at the same time it eagerly joined with the United States in its efforts for the establishment of the complete immunity of private property in naval warfare.

Our declaration, contained in the note of the Brazilian Chancery to the French Legation, under date of March 18, 1857, was worded as follows:

Humanity and justice are indeed indebted to the Congress of Paris for a great improvement in the common law of States; but in behalf of the same principle we must further ask of the Powers signatory to the treaty of March 30, 1856, as a consequence of their work of peace and civilization, the beneficent consequence contained in the maxims therein proclaimed. This consequence is that all innocent private property, including merchant ships, must remain under the protection of maritime law against attack on the part of war cruisers.

The Imperial Government hereby adheres to the invitation of the United States of America and, in the hope of seeing the extension proposed by that Power of the first of the principles adopted by the Congress of Paris carried out, declares itself ready to accept it forthwith as the complete expression of the new international jurisprudence.1

In taking this stand, the Department of Foreign Affairs of Brazil hastened to inform the American Legation at Rio, by means of the note dated March 18, 1857, in which the Government of the Emperor stated: "Mr. TRONSDALE will see from the enclosed document, to which the undersigned refers, that the Imperial Government has considered it advisable to give its approval to the maxims proclaimed by the Congress of Paris, the more so because a large part of them were already sanctioned in the conventional law of the Empire. But the undersigned is extremely pleased to be able to add that Mr. TRONSDALE will see from the document itself that the Government of His Majesty the Emperor, in accepting these principles, has at the same time declared itself to be disposed to subscribe to the extension proposed by the United States of America as the necessary and salutary complement of the new international policy."

These memorable notes were both signed by Minister SILVA PARANHOS, later Viscount RIO BRANCO, whose name, celebrated especially as that of one of the protagonists in the emancipation of the slaves in Brazil, has found in his son, our present Minister of Foreign Affairs, a successor, whose mind and services recall those of his father; a happy coincidence which has placed, as it were, the stamp of personal identity upon the national continuity of our tradition.

In laying this evidence before you, gentlemen, I am happy to state to you now that neither the sentiments of my country nor those of its Government, which is bound to interpret them and whose instructions I follow, have changed in this respect in the past fifty years.

We are therefore merely preserving our ancient heritage in willingly adopt1856. De Boeck, De la propriété privée ennemie sous pavillon ennemi, pp. 117-118; Vidari, Del rispetto della proprieta privata fra gli Stati in guerra, 1867. p. 204. note 2; Lavaleye, Du respect de la propriété privée sur mer en temps de guerre (Académie Royale de Belgique. Extrait des Bulletins, 2d series, vol. 43, no 5, May, 1877), pp. 8-9.

1

Report of the Department of Foreign Affairs of Brazil for 1857, annex C, p. 16.

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lp make Fortum tances which demand of the Conference the Land kan krom obration of this important question. In the First Peace in feet to eulgeet was not included in the program, and being #mtbumabal of the United States Commission addressed to his Mrs Presided of that Conference, strongly urging its dhuc the Mammal was referred by him to the appropriate committee, bol Hout to commits did not consider itself competent to discuss

the subject, and that it was therefore not ready to consider the question upon its intrinsic merits; but that it had instructed its chairman to report in favor of a resolution to be adopted by the Conference expressing the hope that the whole subject would be included in the program of a future Conference. After the representatives of two of the great Powers had announced, that in the

absence of instructions from their Government they were obliged to abstain [751] from voting, the report of the committee was unanimously adopted, and accordingly in the Final Convention adopted on the 29th of July for the specific regulation of international conflicts it was unanimously voted, saving the abstentions referred to, as follows:

5. The Conference expresses the wish that the proposal which contemplates the declaration of the inviolability of private property in naval warfare may be referred to a subsequent Conference for consideration.

We are here therefore to-day, with our favorite proposition, as a matter of right, the same having been included in the original program for this Conference proposed by his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Russia and assented to by all the Powers, so that no nation can properly refuse to vote upon it on the plea of want of instructions.

We have said that the immunity of the private property of belligerents at sea has been the traditional policy of the United States from the formation of its Government, and as will appear it was so even before that date.

But at the outset, to avoid any misapprehension that might arise from this statement, I ought most frankly to concede that the United States has never been able to put this policy into practical operation, because other Powers, although sometimes resorting to it for temporary purposes or by special agreement, have never consented to make such immunity a permanent rule of international law. And as this could not be accomplished except by the general consent of all the nations, it has in practice in all its wars, following the usages of other nations, made use of the belligerent right of capture of enemy's private ships, and sometimes, as in the war of 1812, to a very large extent, and only very recently has it by statute abolished prize money, which has generally been regarded as a material incentive to such capture. We thus confess that our Government has heretofore acted without regard to the growing sentiment of our own citizens and of those of other nations in favor of immunity, and in this respect we claim to be no better than any other of our sister nations when acting as belligerents. It never would be possible or practicable for any belligerent to adopt the rule unless it becomes, as we hope it eventually will become, a positive rule acknowledged by every maritime Power.

But now, in the light of our own experience of the comparative advantages and disadvantages that have resulted in the past from the exercise of this belligerent right, and of its constantly decreasing value to belligerents, by reason of increased facilities of transportation by land from neutral ports and through neutral territories to belligerents, and because the great Powers are to-day concentrating their fleets for purely military operations looking to the control of the sea, and are only building vessels which are useful for combat, we think the time has come to appeal to the maritime nations of the world assembled in this Conference, to agree to desist from this antiquated and mischievous resort to the capture of enemy's ships, and to leave the high seas free for the