however prevent the Prussian Cabinet from cooperating with Denmark in shutting the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser, against British commerce. The Danish troops occupied Hamburg and Lubeck, whilst Hanover and Bremen were seized by Prussia. In the meantime, the war commenced between the Baltic Powers and Great Britain by the battle of Copenhagen, April 2, 1801, the result of which produced an armistice with Denmark. The death of the Emperor Paul dissolved the confederacy which had been formed under his auspices. The armistice with Denmark was extended to Russia and Sweden and the Hanseatic towns were evacuated by the Danish and Prussian troops. The embargoes were raised on both sides, and a negotiation opened at St. Petersburg for regulating the points in controversy.

This negotiation resulted in the signature of a convention between Great Britain and Russia on the 5th/17th of June, 1801, the preamble of which stated that:

[Here follows the text of the treaty.]

The Court of Copenhagen acceded to this convention, on the 23d October, 1801, and that of Sweden, on the 18/30th March, 1802. The list of contraband inserted in the convention differed from that contained in the 11th article of the treaty of 1661 between Great Britain and Sweden, whilst the convention reserved the special stipulations of the contracting Parties with other Powers relating to contraband. In order to prevent a recurrence of the differences which had arisen relative to the 11th article of the treaty of 1661, a convention was signed at London on the 25th July, 1803, between Great Britain and Sweden, by which the list of contraband contained in the convention of 1801 was augmented with the addition of the articles. of coined money, horses, and the necessary equipments of cavalry, ships of war, and all manufactured articles serving immediately for their equipment, all which articles were subjected to confiscation. It was further stipulated, that all naval stores, the produce of either country, should be subject to the right of preemption by the belligerent, upon condition of paying an indemnity of ten per centum upon the invoice price, or current value, with demurrage and expenses. If bound to a neutral port, and detained upon suspicion of being bound to an enemy's port, the vessels were to receive an indemnity, unless the belligerent Government chose to exercise the right of preemption; in which case, the owners were to be entitled to receive the price

which the goods would have sold for at their destined port, with demurrage and expenses.1

We have thought it necessary to dwell thus minutely upon the circumstances which attended the formation of the convention of 1801, because it may justly be considered, not merely as forming a new conventional law between the contracting Parties, but as containing a recognition of universal preexisting rights, which could not justly be withheld by them from other States. The avowed object of the treaty was to fix and declare the law of nations upon the several points which had been so much contested; the three northern Powers yielding the point of free ships, free goods, and that of search subject to a modification, by which the exercise of the right was confined to public ships of war; and Great Britain yielding to all of them those relating to the colonial and coasting trade, to blockades, and to the mode of search; and yielding to Russia, moreover, the limitation of contraband to military stores. With respect to the question of convoys, a question not comprehended in the armed neutrality of 1780, a modification, satisfactory to the northern Powers, was yielded by Great Britain.

That this is the true interpretation of the convention of 1801, was made evident in the course of the debate, which took place in the British House of Lords on the 12th of November, 1801, on the production of the papers relating to that convention.

On this occasion Lord Grenville, who, together with his friend Mr. Pitt, had retired from the Ministry, leaving their successors to make peace with France and the northern Powers, declared his full conviction that the convention essentially impaired the system of maritime law which had been upheld by the British Government. He stated that the inadmissible pretensions of the Baltic Powers had been countenanced by the weak and temporizing policy, which Great Britain. had pursued towards them, in the last years of the war of the American revolution. At the commencement of the war of the French revolution, she had indeed obtained, by negotiation with all the principal Governments of Europe, a renunciation of claims, which had never been advanced but with purposes hostile to her. The principles in question were, indeed, within a few years after the armed neutrality of 1780, renounced by almost every State which had been a party

1Schoell, Histoire des Traités de Paix, vol. vi, pp. 60-105: Martens, Recueil de Traités, vol. 7, pp. 150-281, vol. 8, p. 91.

to that league; and in some of the official communications with the Baltic Powers, during the war with France, pretensions were advanced, both by the Empress Catharine and her successor, which went to the full extent of the ancient maritime law of Europe. The effects of this change of sentiment ensured to Great Britain, for several years, the undisturbed exercise of her maritime rights in those quarters where they were the most important, both to her own interests, and to those of the common cause in which she was engaged. But when caprice and groundless disgust were suffered to interrupt this well-considered system of policy at Petersburg, the former pretensions of the neutral Powers were soon renewed with increased hostility; and it last became manifest, upon the signature of the convention of armed neutrality of 1800, that unless Great Britain could then resolve to meet the necessity of the case, by bringing these questions to a distinct and final settlement, they would always be found to impede her operations, and embarrass her exertions in every future period of difficulty or danger.

The principal objection stated by Lord Grenville to the convention of 1801 was, that in the form and wording of its different articles, the two hostile conventions of armed neutrality had been followed, with a scrupulous and servile exactness, wherever they could be made to apply. Great Britain had, therefore, negotiated and concluded that treaty on the basis of the very same inadmissible conventions, which she actually went to war for the purpose of annulling. And she then stood in the face of Europe, no longer as resisting, but as acceding to the treaties of armed neutrality, with modifications indeed, and changes in some important points, but sanctioning, by that concession, the general weight and authority of transactions which she had before considered as gross violations of public law, as manifest indications of hostile purpose, and as sufficient grounds to justify, on her part. the extremities of war itself. Whatever principles of maritime law might thereafter be contested, they must be discussed with some regard

1By Russia, in her war with Turkey in 1787; by Sweden, in her war with Russia in 1789; by Russia, Prussia, Austria, Spain, Portugal and America, in their treaties with Great Britain during the first war of the French revolution; by Denmark and Sweden, in their instructions issued in 1793, when neutral; and in their treaty with each other in 1794; and by Prussia again in her treaty with America of 1799. (Note by Lord Grenville.)

2See Russian declaration to Sweden, July 30, 1793. Instructions to Admiral Tchatchagoff, July 24, 1793. See also Russian treaty of commerce 1797 with Great Britain, Article 10.

to the treaties of armed neutrality. Whatever words of doubtful interpretation were transferred from those treaties into the convention (and many such were transferred) must, according to one of the best rules of legitimate construction, be explained by a reference to the original instrument, where they were first introduced into the code of public law.

It was, therefore, under this impression that they must proceed to examine the convention of 1801, and to compare it with those claims, for which Great Britain determined, at the commencement of the year, that it was necessary, even under all the difficulties of that moment, to incur the additional dangers of a northern war. Those claims were included in five separate propositions or principles of maritime law, every one of which the neutral league of 1800, had bound the contracting parties in that engagement to resist by force: and every one of which their Lordships had agreed with the Ministry of that day, in considering as essentially necessary to be maintained for the preservation of the maritime strength of Great Britain, and, consequently for the means even of her domestic security.

The propositions were as follows:

1. That it is not lawful to neutral nations to carry on, in time of war, for the advantage, or on the behalf of one of the belligerent Powers, those branches of its commerce, from which they are excluded in time of peace.

2. That every belligerent Power may capture the property of its enemies, wherever it shall be met with on the high seas, and may, for that purpose, detain and bring into port neutral vessels laden wholly or in part with any such property.

3. That under the description of contraband of war, which neutrals are prohibited from carrying to the belligerent Powers, the law of nations (if not restrained by special treaty), includes all naval as well as all military stores; and generally all articles serving principally, according to the circumstances of the war, to afford to one belligerent Power the instruments and means of annoyance to be used against the other.

4. That it is lawful to naval Powers, when engaged in war, to blockade the ports of their enemies by cruising squadrons, bona fide allotted to that service, and fairly competent to its execution. That such blockade is valid and legitimate, although there be no design to attack or to reduce by force the port, fort, or arsenal to which it is applied.

And that the fact of the blockade, coupled with due notice thereof to the neutral Powers, shall affect, not only vessels actually intercepted in the attempt to enter the blockaded port, but those ships also, which shall elsewhere be met with, and shall be found to have been destined to such port, under the circumstances of the fact and notice of its blockade.

5. That the right of visiting and examining neutral vessels is a necessary consequence of these principles; and that by the law of nations (when unrestrained by treaty) this right is not in any manner affected by the presence of a neutral ship of war, having under its convoy merchant ships, either of its own nation or of any other country.

The first of these principles established the rule under which the belligerent refuses to neutrals the liberty of carrying on, during war, those parts of his enemy's trade from which they are usually excluded in time of peace. This rule had, in the British practice, been principally applied to the coasting and colonial trade of France. From both these branches of her trade, France had, in every period of peace, excluded all vessels but her own, with occasional exceptions only, such as more strongly proved her general principle of exclusion. But in. war she had always found it impossible to maintain these monopolies. Pressed, on the one hand, by the naval superiority of Great Britain, which had rendered the navigation of French ships unsafe, and unable, on the other hand, to forego the resources which depend entirely on these important branches of her commerce, France had frequently endeavored, under these special circumstances, to open both her colonial and her coasting trade to neutral vessels. The right to carry on unmolested both these branches of commerce was claimed by the northern Powers in the league of armed neutrality of 1780 and of 1800. The claim, which the confederates thus asserted, was, so far as related directly to the coasting trade, expressed in the 3d article. of the convention of 1800 as follows: "That neutral ships may navigate freely from port to port, and on the coasts of the belligerent Powers." The convention of 1801 had adopted very nearly the same. expressions. By the first section, of what there, also, stood as the third article, neutral ships are permitted "to navigate freely to the ports and upon the coasts of the belligerent Powers." And in the next section of the same article, corresponding also.(though with a variation respecting enemy's property) with a clause in the treaty of