ure, and liable to be treated as a pirate by any nation, if she does any act of hostility to the property of a belligerent, as much as if she did it to that of a neutral. Such a trade in contraband a belligerent may cut off by cruising the seas and blockading his enemy's ports. But to protect himself against vessels sailing out of a neutral port to commit hostilities, it would be necessary for him to hover off the ports of the neutral; and, to do that effectually, he must maintain a kind of blockade to the neutral coast, which, as neutrals will not permit, they ought not to give occasion for." (Dana's Wheaton, p. 563, note.)

In the case of the United States v. Quincy, the question of the intent necessary to the completion of the crime of the Statute was directly passed upon by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the most definite, precise, and peremptory form, viz. in the instructions directed to be given to the jury to govern their finding of intent. The Court says,

"The second and third instructions, asked on the part of the defendant,

were,

"That if the jury believe that when the Bolivar was fitted and equipped at Baltimore, the owner and equipper intended to go to the West Indies in search of funds with which to arm and equip the said vessel, and had no present intention of using or employing the said vessel as a privateer, but intended, when he equipped her, to go to the West Indies to endeavor to raise funds to prepare her for a cruise, then the defendant is not guilty.

"Or, if the jury believe that when the Bolivar was equipped at Baltimore, and when she left the United States, the equipper had no fixed intention to employ her as a privateer, but had a wish so to employ her, the fulfilment of which wish depended on his ability to obtain funds in the West Indies, for the purpose of arming and preparing her for war, then the defendant is not guilty.

--

We think these instructions ought to be given. The offence consists principally in the intention with which the preparations were made. These preparations, according to the very terms of the act, must be made within the limits of the United States; and it is equally necessary that the intention with respect to the employment of the vessel should be formed before she leaves the United States. And this must be a fixed intention, not conditional or contingent, depending on some future arrangements. This intention is a question belonging exclusively to the jury to decide. It is the material point on which the legality or criminality of the act must turn; and decides whether the adventure is of a commercial or warlike character. The law does not prohibit armed vessels belonging to citizens of the United States from sailing out of our ports; it only requires the owners to give security (as was done in the present case), that such vessel shall not be employed by them to commit hostilities against foreign powers at peace with the United States.

"The collectors are not authorized to detain vessels, although manifestly built for warlike purposes, and about to depart from the United States, unless circumstances shall render it probable that such vessels are intended to be employed by

the owners to commit hostilities against some foreign power at peace with the United States.

"All the latitude, therefore, necessary for commercial purposes, is given to our citizens; and they are restrained only from such acts as are calculated to involve the country in war." (United States v. Quincy, 6 Peters, 465–6.)

Upon these principles, thus firmly and clearly laid down, the proofs respecting the owners' acts and purposes in the proposed voyage of the Meteor leave no possible ground for her inculpation for the government to stand upon, supposing, for the sake of the argument, that the acts of equipment and preparation of a warlike character, in view of her proposed voyage, had been shown.

MR. WEBSTER'S ARGUMENT.

IF IT PLEASE THE COURT, it has been my endeavor, by a careful review of the learned and elaborate argument of the counsel for the claimants (Mr. Evarts), to eliminate therefrom the propositions of law upon which he seemed to desire to rest this cause. It is not needed that I reannounce his argument; it is enough that I restate his positions, in, as near as may be, the terms in which they were originally propounded.

His earliest general assertion of doctrine, on the first day of his argument, was in these words : —

"Commerce is not to be trammelled in warlike materials or warlike ships, because there happens to be a war, for war is the only promoter of traffic in warlike materials and warlike ships."

On the second day, the legal thought announced on the first day was developed in the following form:

"If it does not appear affirmatively, on the part of the government, that the vessel is to sail from this port as an enlisted hostile ship of one belligerent, then there is no forfeiture, although it may be made to appear by indisputable proof, that she has been built, fitted, armed, and equipped as a ship of war, complete, and ready for action."

Again:

"The diplomatic discussions from the foundation of the government, the orders of the executive, everything shows that all our law undertakes, all that it will permit the supposed duty of neutrality to accomplish, is that there shall not be an enlisting in the cause of the belligerent within our ports, to the extent of having the vessel armed and equipped, or armed and equipped in a warlike manner with that intent."

Further on in the discussion, the distinguished counsel, rising to the height of his great argument, thus declares the measure of belligerent right, and the rule of neutral duty :

"Now, if your Honor please, to bring this matter down to some distinct tests, suppose that the Meteor, while she lay at the wharf, without any coals or provis

ions on board of her had been sold to the Chilian government, deliverable outside of this port, or deliverable in Chile, and that was proved by a written open contract, brought into court, will the prosecuting officer claim that that brings her within the statute against fitting out and arming with intent that she should be used by a belligerent? Where would be the single act attempted or initiated in respect to this vessel with the guilty intent? Manifestly nothing. What reason is there that a vessel, acquired by a belligerent, and thus not guilty up to the time of acquisition, should be prohibited from receiving, not warlike equipments, but receiving coals and provisions suitable? There really would be no violation of our Neutrality Act, it seems to me, if Chile had acquired by purchase a transfer of the title of this ship, and if, having acquired that title, she openly undertook to put coals and provisions on board, with a commercial crew, and took the vessel out to Chile; no violation of our Neutrality Act whatever. I hold it to be manifest that a ship, having, if you please, adaptability to be made into a war ship, and adaptability for use in commerce, may be acquired by any foreign government in our ports, by purchase, and if, after the acquisition, the only fitting-out and preparation for sea and egress from port, prepared or attempted, is with a commercial and peaceful crew, with coal for the use of her engines, and provisions for the support of a commercial and peaceful crew, there is not any infraction of our neutrality laws whatever. Nor is there anything technical or formal in this decision. It is essential. If it is competent for a foreign nation to buy a ship, it is competent for a foreign nation to take her out, omitting any warlike change or equipment."

Such are the propositions of law advanced by the claimants, and your Honor must decide whether they are the doctrines of international law, and municipal jurisprudence, which govern in the judicial tribunals of the United States.

It will not be seriously denied in this court, that we, in the United States, are subordinated to the general law of nations, in so far as that law applies to our intercourse with, and relation to, the rest of the world. The Constitution declares this, by the mere act of bringing us into the circle of independent civilized States. It is the condition of our national existence to be subject to that code. No nation can be so great as to be exempt from the power, or so little as not to feel the care of that ample and boundless jurisprudence" whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose voice the harmony of the world." We cannot escape it if we would, for to escape it we must fly from ourselves, and spurn our own national

nature.

It is a familiar doctrine of this grand jurisprudence, that a neutral must so retain his attitude of impartiality, in the face of other warring nations, as not to incline to, or aid, either belligerent.

Recognized international obligations not only prohibit the enlisting of soldiers, or sailors, in the territory of a neutral, for service in the interest of either belligerent, but they also forbid the beginning, setting on foot, providing, or preparing, in the dominions of a neutral, the means for any naval enterprise whatsoever. All this is clear. The fifth and seventh volumes of Wheaton's Supreme Court Reports are replete with decisions announcing this primary principle of neutrality. The act of 1818, in its sixth section, explicitly declares it. No incipient step in war is allowed, by the law of nations, to begin on neutral ground. (Twee Gebroeders, 3 Robinson's Rep. 162.) No act of hostility can have its commencement there. A neutral cannot permit one belligerent to have a station in, and make a vantage-ground of, his country, to procure material with which to injure the other belligerent. Such is public law, as accepted by jurists everywhere.

Now, if the Court please, the neutrality act of 1818 consecrates these tenets and determinations of international jurisprudence. It aims to repress and prevent all naval enterprises, set on foot in the United States as a point of departure. Its fifth section punishes with fine and imprisonment any person who, in this country, increases or augments the force of any armed vessel of either belligerent, whether by adding to the number of its equipments, or "by the addition thereto of any equipment solely applicable to war." So that if a cruiser of Chile, for example, be lying in the port of New York to-day, it is very clear that our merchants cannot supply her with shot, shells, guns, or ammunition, so long as war exists between that nation and Spain, and the United States are at peace with both. Its sixth section also punishes by fine and imprisonment any person who shall provide the means for any military enterprise against nations with whom we are at peace. Its tenth section requires that owners of armed ships shall give bonds in double the value of the ship, that she shall not cruise, or commit hostilities, against nations with whom we are at peace. Its eleventh section authorizes collectors to detain vessels, " manifestly built for warlike purposes, and about to depart, of which the cargo shall consist of arms and munitions of war."

What, I pray to know, are those restrictions of positive law, if not trammels upon commerce in "warlike materials or warlike ships?" How can it be said, with such legislation staring us in