86 LETTERS OF HISTORICUS ON M. HAUTEFEUILLE'S WORK.

sively confined to the copious and vituperative literature of the Armed Neutrality and the scribes of the empire, who at once supply him with vicious principles of reasoning, and furnish him with a store of inexhaustible malice against Great Britain. What, I ask, is the value of a work written in such a spirit and with such materials? What is the justice of an international libel which proceeds from such a critic?

These remarks have extended to a greater length than I intended, because it seemed to me desirable to establish, with some particularity, the grounds on which I have thought it right so strongly to condemn a work which appears to me both worthless and mischievous. M. Hautefeuille's work seems to me to combine every possible fault which can vitiate the utility and authority of a treatise on such a subject. It is avowedly wanting in that spirit of impartiality which can alone enable a publicist to approach the questions with which it deals in a temper of justice, candour, or truth. Aiming at the creation of a new system, rather than at an investigation of the law as it exists, the whole enquiry starts from erroneous assumptions, and is conducted on false principles. A standard of law is set up which is radically inapplicable to the subjectmatter of which it is made the criterion. The true sources of international law are either wholly disregarded or completely perverted. The exceptional provisions of treaties are erected into the general rule of law, whilst the course of legal decision is passed over as of no account. No one can wonder if the result of a scheme thus conceived and thus carried out, is nothing less than a flagrant outrage at once on the law of nations and the good sense of mankind. A really scientific treatise on the subject which M. Hautefeuille has assumed to treat, yet remains to be written. It will be the duty of anyone who is thought worthy to undertake such a task, to establish, upon far other principles, a doctrine which will be worthy of the acceptance of nations, exactly in proportion as it is the reverse of the conclusions which M. Hautefeuille has pretended to lay down.

TWO LETTERS

ON

THE LAW AND PRACTICE OF BLOCKADE.

89

I.

ENGLAND AND PAPER BLOCKADE.

THE question of blockade is one of such general interest, and the principles on which it is founded are likely to occupy so much public attention, that I shall make no apology for asking your permission to discuss certain views on that subject which have been recently propounded by a foreign jurist, and which seem to me, both from the singular errors which pervade his statements, and the remarkable hostility towards this country which characterises his tone, to deserve a serious refutation. M. Hautefeuille, as is probably known to most of your readers, published, towards the close of the past year, a pamphlet entitled Quelques Questions de Droit International Maritime. In the second section of his essay he discusses the law of blockade. I there find the following passages, to which a more recent publication of the same author has given a prominence and importance which induce me to trouble you with this letter::

Comment se fait-il donc que l'Angleterre, aujourd'hui puissance neutre, consente à reconnaître un investissement de cette nature? Ne serait-ce pas que cette nation, qui a toujours, et depuis plusieurs siècles, su tirer un part si avantageux pour elle des blocus sur papier-qui a si souvent et si odieusement abusé de ce moyen, contraire à toutes les lois divines et humaines, pour ruiner les neutres-n'est pas fâchée de se reserver cette immense ressource pour le moment, qu'elle prévoit toujours, où elle sera belligérante ? La manœuvre serait habile. Elle consiste à laisser aujourd'hui les Etats-Unis interpréter dans ce sens tous les traités existants, à accepter cette interprétation, à l'appliquer même à la déclaration du 16 avril 1856 — pour pouvoir se dire parfaitement fondée à suivre cette même jurisprudence lorsque la Grande-Bretagne sera elle-même engagée dans les hostilités. (P. 43.)

Depuis plus d'un siècle tous les peuples, un seul excepté le peuple anglais, ont reconnu ces principes fondamentaux du droit de blocus, et

notamment la nécessité de la réalité de l'investissement, par la présence continuée sur les lieux même des bâtiments chargés de le former. Les EtatsUnis d'Amérique, depuis leur origine, ont toujours formellement stipulé que le blocus devait être effectif. Tous leurs traités avec toutes les puissances maritimes contiennent une clause spéciale sur ce point. Elle se trouve même dans la Convention de 1794-1795 avec la Grande-Bretagne; c'est le seul traité de cette nature que l'Angleterre ait contracté jusqu'en 1856. A cette dernière époque elle consentit à se rallier aux règles reconnues par tous les autres peuples, et, par conséquent, à renoncer aux blocus fictifs, dont elle avait fait si souvent un odieux abus. (P. 35.)

Without stopping to remark on the singular, and, as I shall presently show, wholly unjustifiable asperity of tone which is here adopted towards England, I may be permitted to condense the propositions contained in these paragraphs. The argument is this: England has always held and practised the doctrine of paper blockades. Till the treaty of 1856, she always refused to acknowledge the principle that a blockade ought to be effective; and now, having nominally consented to admit the doctrine held by all other nations, she is seeking to evade the obligation into which she has entered, by recognising the ineffectual blockade of the American coast, and so assisting at the creation of a precedent which may hereafter be useful to her.'

I know, Sir, all the difficulty of persuading a Frenchman that la perfide Albion can ever be disinterested in an action or course of policy. As in the suppression of the slave trade, French politicians insisted on discovering some sinister and concealed designs on the part of England to compass the ruin of other Powers, so, I fear, it will be to the end of the chapter; and M. Hautefeuille's language is a clear proof that French publicists are infected by the same suspicions. It is endless to discuss the motives of men or of nations, but M. Hautefeuille has here raised issues of fact on which it is easy to confute him. Before I commence to do so, let me add this writer's dernier mot.

In a more recent publication in the Revue Contemporaine, the same author has expressed the same ideas in a still more definite form:

L'Angleterre n'a jamais voulu admettre ces principes dans la pratique. Dès qu'elle est en guerre, elle proclame le blocus de tels ou tels ports du