service of the Government to supply, extend, or confirm its authority, in the matter of international duty, and the means and agencies for its prompt, vigilant and adequate exercise. Parliament was in session at the time of the Queen's Proclamation, and took notice, at the moment, of the effects it had produced in the law of piracy, as applicable to the maritime violence it would. induce, as well as of the probable maritime instruments that the Rebel interests would press into their service. Parliament was in session, also, when the Florida and Alabama were in course of construction, when the Government was deliberating upon their detention, and when they actually escaped unimpeded The alacrity with which Parliament could respond with immediate and effective legislation at the call of the Government, and upon the occasion of opening war calling into exercise the fulfilment by Great Britain of its international duty of neutrality, is clearly shown by the debate and action of Parliament, in the passage of the new Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870. We refer again to Note B of the Appendix to this Argument.

Upon the whole, then, it is not to be gainsaid that the Government of Great Britain had at its command every means, in their nature and in their energy and scope, that any Power needs or possesses for the fulfilment of the obligations assigned to it, within the premises of this Arbitration, by the Treaty of Washington or the law of nations.

The Duty of Great Britain in its Treatment of the Offending Vessels, AFTER their first illegal outfit and escape from British Ports.

I. This subject, discussed at some length in the British Case and Counter-Case, may be disposed of by a few elementary propositions.

(a) It is undoubtedly consonant with principle and usage, that a public armed vessel of a sovereign Power should be accorded certain privileges in the ports and waters of other national jurisdictions, not accorded to private vessels. The substance of these privileges is, a limited concession of the character of continued territoriality of the State to which they belong, and a consequent exemption from the jurisdiction of the courts and process of the Nation whose ports or waters they visit. But the same reason which gives support fo this immunity, throws to them under the immediate political treatment of the hospitable State, as represented by its Executive head, in the conduct of this international, if subordinate, relation. How, under the circumstances of each case calling for Executive action, the vessels are to be dealt with, is determined, in the first instance, by the Government having occasion to exhibit the treatment. For its decision, and the execution of it, it is responsible, politically and internationally, and not otherwise, to the sovereign whose public ships have been so dealt with. That, ordinarily, the offence calling for remonstrance or intervention would not be made the subject of immediate and forcible correc

tion, applied to the vessel itself, but would be brought to the attention of its sovereign for correction or punishment and apology, or other amends, may be assumed. But all this is at the discretion of the power having occasion to exert control, seek redress, or exhibit resentment. The flagrancy or urgency of the case may dictate another course, to be justified to the sovereign affected upon such considerations.

(b) When, however, the anomalous vessels of a belligerent not recognised as a nation or as a sovereign, claim a public character in the port of hospitality, the only possible concession of such character must, in subtracting them from judicial control, subject them to immediate political regulation applied to the vessels themselves. There is behind them no sovereign to be dealt with, diplomatically or by force. The vessels themselves present and represent at once, whatever theoretical public relation exists or has been accepted. To hold otherwise would make the vessels wholly lawless and predominant over the complaisant sovereign, helplessly submissive to the manifold irresponsibilities the quasi public vessels assume to themselves.

(c) The necessary consequence is, that when the offending vessels of the non-sovereign belligerent have taken the seas only by defrauding or forcing the neutrality of the nation whose hospitality they now seek, such nation has the right, and, as towards the injured nation demanding its action upon the offending vessels, is under the obligation to execute its coercive, its repressive, its punitive control, over the vessels themselves. It cannot excuse itself to the injured nation for omission or neglect so to do, by exhibiting its resentment against,

or extorting redress from, any responsible sovereign behind the vessels; nor can it resort to such sovereign for indemnity against its own exposure to reprisals or hostilities, by the injured nation, or for the cost of averting them.

II. Upon these plain principles, it was the clear duty of Great Britain, in obedience to the international obligations insisted upon by the Treaty, and the supporting principles of the law of nations invoked by its requirement, to arrest these offending vessels as they fell under its power, to proscribe them from all hospitality or asylum, and thus to cut short and redress the injury against the United States which it had, for want of "due "diligence" in fulfilling its duty of neutrality, been involved in. The power, full and free, to take this course, is admitted by the British Government in its Case and Counter-Case. Whatever motives governed Great Britain in refusing to exercise this power, such refusal, as towards the United States, is without justification, and for the continued injuries inflicted by the offending vessels, Great Britain is responsible, and must make indemnity.

·Due Diligence as required by the Three Rules of the Treaty and the Principles of International Law not inconsistent therewith.

I. The subject of "due diligence, both in its nature and its measure, as an obligatory duty of Great Britain under the Three Rules of the Treaty, is much con

sidered, upon principle and authorities, in the Case of the United States, and is commented upon, with some fulness, in the British Case and Counter-Case. Neither a very technical nor a merely philosophical criticism of this definite and practical phrase, adopted by the High Contracting Parties and readily estimable by the Tribunal, can be of much service in this Argument. Some propositions and illustrations may aid the Arbitrators in applying the obligation, thus described, to the facts and circumstances under which its fulfilment, or failure therein, is to be decided by their award.

II. The foundation of the obligation of Great Britain to use" due diligence to prevent "certain acts and occurrences within its jurisdiction, as mentioned in the Three Rules, is, that those acts and occurrences within its jurisdiction, are offences against international law, and, being injurious to the United States, furnish just occasion for resentment on their part, and for reparation and indemnity by Great Britain, unless these offensive acts and occurrences sball be affirmatively shown to have proceeded from conduct and causes for which the Government of Great Britain is not responsible. But, by the law of nations, the State is responsible for all offences against international law arising within its jurisdiction, by which a foreign State suffers injury, unless the former can clear itself of responsibility by demonstrating its freedom from fault in the premises.

The High Contracting Parties, mindful as well of this principal proposition of responsibility of a State, as of this just limitation upon it, have assigned as the true criterion by which this responsibility is to be judged, in any case arising between nations, the exhibition or