Chap. XI. perfect and absolute neutrality; and that it would be inconsistent with this to admit the ships of one belligerent

"The Sumter is not a private vessel; is not the private property of unconnected individuals-of private ship-owners. She, therefore, cannot be a privateer;' she can only be a ship-of-war or ship of the State armed for cruising. Thus the Sumter is designated, in the extract annexed from Harper's Weekly, under the name of 'rebel shipof-war.'

'Thirdly. It cannot be held, as you propose in your despatch of the 9th of this month, that all vessels carrying the Confederate flag are, without distinction, to be considered as privateers, because the principles of the law of nations, as well as the examples of history, require that the rights of war be accorded to those States.

"The Government of the United States holds that it should consider the States of the South as rebels.

"It does not pertain to the King's Government to pronounce upon the subject of a question which is entirely within the domain of the internal regulation of the United States; neither has it to inquire whether, in virtue of the Constitution which rules that Republic, the States of the South can separate from the Central Government, and whether they ought then, aye or no, to be reputed as rebels during the first period of the difficulties.

"But I deem it my duty to observe to you, Sir, that according to the doctrines of the best publicists, such as Vattel, lib. iii, cap. 18, sec. 292, and M. de Rayneval, Droits de la Nature et des Gens, vol. i, p. 161, there is a notable difference between rebellion and civil war. 'When,' says Vattel, a party is formed in the State, which no longer obeys its Sovereign, and is strong enough to make head against him, or in a Republic, when the nation divides into two opposing parties, and on one side and the other take up arms, then it is a civil war.' It is, therefore, the latter which now agitates the great American Republic.

"But, in this case, the rights of war must be accorded to the two parties.

"Let me be allowed to cite here only two passages; the one from Vattel (lib. ii, cap. 4, sec. 56), which reads: "Whenever affairs reach to civil war the ties of political association are broken, or at least suspended, between the Sovereign and his people. They may be considered as two distinct Powers; and, since one and the other are independent of any foreign authority, no one has the right to judge between them. Each of them may be right. It follows, then, that the two parties may act as having equal right.' The other passage is taken from the work of a former minister, himself belonging to the United States, Mr. Wheaton, who, in his Elements of International Law, chap. i, p. 35 (Am. ed., part 1, p. 32), thus expresses himself: 'If the foreign State would observe

and exclude those of the other. He reminded Mr. Seward Chap. XI. that the United Provinces had in 1779 refused, on the

absolute neutrality in face of the dissensions which disturb another State, it must accord to both belligerent parties all the rights which war accords to public enemies, such as the right of blockade, and the right of intercepting merchandize contraband of war.'

"As for historic evidence, it will suffice to call to mind from ancient times the struggle of the United Provinces with Spain, and from modern date the war between the Hispano-American Colonies and the mother country since 1810, the war of independence of Greece from Turkey since 1821, &c.

“It will doubtless be useless to recollect [unnecessary to remind you?], on this occasion, that the principle to see only insurgents in the States of the South having neither sovereignty nor rights of war, nor of peace, was put forward by England, at the breaking out of the War of Independence of the Anglo-American Colonies, in the vindicatory memoir published by the British Court in 1778 in answer to the exposition of the motives for the conduct of France, which had lately signed, on the 6th day of February of that year, a Treaty with the United States, in which they were regarded as an independent nation.

"But the Court of Versailles set out from other principles, which she developed in 'Observations on the Vindicatory Memoir of the Court of London,' saying, among other things: It is sufficient to the justification of his Majesty that the Colonies had established their independence not merely by a solemn declaration, but also in fact, and had maintained it against the efforts of the mother-country.'

66

'Existing circumstances seem to present the same characteristics: and if it is desired to treat the States of the South as rebels, and accuse them of felony, there might here be cited as applicable to the actual conduct of the United States towards the Confederates the following remark of the Court of Versailles: 'In advancing this proposition (that the possession of independence, of which the French cabinet said the Americans were in the enjoyment in 1778, was a veritable felony), the English Minister had, without doubt, forgotten the course he had himself taken towards the Americans from the publication of the Declaration of Independence. It is remembered that the creatures of the Court constantly called upon the rebellion vengeance and destruction. However, notwithstanding all their clamours, the English Minister abstained, after the Declaration of Independence, from prosecuting the Americans as rebels; he observed, and still observes towards them, the rules of war usual among independent nations. American prisoners have been exchanged through cartels,' &c.

"The rights of war cannot, then, in the opinion of the King's Government, be refused to the Confederate States; but I hasten to add

S

Chap. XI. demand of England, to release the prizes which had been carried into the Texel by Paul Jones, and that the English

that the recognition of these rights does not import in favour of such States recognition of their sovereignty.

"Foreign nations,' says M. Martens (Précis du Droit des Gens, lib. viii, cap. 3, sec. 264), 'cannot refuse to consider as lawful enemies those who are empowered by their actual government, whatever that may be. This is not recognition of its legitimacy.'

"This last recognition can only spring from express and official declaration, which no one of the cabinets of Europe has thus far made. "Finally, and in the last place, I permit myself here to cite the example of the American privateer, Paul Jones (sic).

"This vessel, considered as a pirate by England, had captured two of His Britannic Majesty's ships in October 1779. She took them into the Texel, and remained there more than two months, notwithstanding the representations of Mr. Yorke, Ambassador of Great Britain at the Hague, who considered the asylum accorded to such privateer (pirate as he called it in his memoir to the States-General of 21st March, 1780) as directly contrary to Treaties, and even to the ordinances of the Government of the Republic.

"Mr. Yorke demanded that the English vessels should be released.

"The States-General refused the restitution of the prizes.

"The United States, whose belligerent rights were not recognized by England, enjoyed at that period the same treatment in the ports of the Republic of the United Provinces as the Netherlands authorities have now accorded to the Confederated States.

"If the Cabinet of the Hague cannot, therefore, by force of the preceding, class all the vessels of the Confederated States armed for war in the category of privateers, much less can it treat them as pirates (as you call them in your despatch of the 12th of this month), or consider the Sumter as engaged in a filibustering expedition-'engaged in a piratical expedition against the commerce of the United States'-as it reads in your communication of the 2nd of September.

"Here again historic antecedents militate in favour of the opinion of the Netherlands Government.

"Is there need, in fact, to remind you that at the outset of the War of American Independence in 1778, the English refused to recognize American privateers as lawful enemies, under the pretence that the letters of marque which they bore did not emanate from the Sovereign, but from revolted subjects?

"But Great Britain soon had to desist from this pretension, and to accord international treatment to the colonists in arms against the mother-country.

'The frankness with which the King's Government has expressed

Minister then resident at the Hague had insisted that Chap. XI. Jones was a pirate for exactly the same reasons for which

its convictions in relation to the course to be taken towards the States of the South will, without doubt, be estimated at its just value by the Government of the United States.

"It will perceive therein the well-settled intention to preserve in safety the rights of neutrality; to lay down for itself and to follow a line of conduct equally distant from feebleness as from too great adventurousness, but suitable for maintaining intact the dignity of the

State.

"The Government of the Netherlands desires to observe, on the occasion of existing affairs in America, a perfect and absolute neutrality, and to abstain therefore from the slightest act of partiality.

"According to Hubner (Saisie de Bâtiments Neutres), 'neutrality consists in absolute inaction relative to war, and in exact and perfect impartiality manifested by facts in regard to the belligerents, as far as this impartiality has relation to the war, and to the direct and immediate measures of its prosecution.'

"Neutrality,' says Azuni (Droits Maritimes), 'is the continuation in a state of peace of a power which, when war is kindled between two or more nations, absolutely abstains from taking any part in the contest.'

"But if the proposition be admitted that all the vessels of the Confederate States armed for war should be considered primâ facie as privateers, would there not be a flagrant inequality between the treatment and the favours accorded to vessels of war of the United States and the vessels of the Confederate States, which have not for the moment a navy properly so called?

"This evidently would be giving proof of partiality incompatible with real duties of neutrality. The only question is to determine with exactitude the distinctive characteristics between a privateer and a shipof-war, although this may be difficult of execution. Thus is ignored

that which Count Reventlow, Envoy of the King of Denmark at Madrid, drew attention to in 1782, that there exists among the maritime powers regulations or conventions between sovereigns, which oblige them to equip their vessels in a certain manner, that they may be held veritably armed for war.

"You express also, in your despatch of September 2, the hope that the Netherlands Government will do justice to your reclamation, grounding yourself on the tenor of Treaties existing between the Netherlands and the United States, on the principles of the law of nations, and, finally, upon the assurances you have received from the King's Government.

"Amidst all the European powers there are few who have better defended the rights of neutrals, and have suffered more in this noble

Chap. XI, the same description was now applied to Semmes. "The United States, whose belligerent rights were not then

cause than Denmark; and one of her greatest statesmen of the close of the last century, Count Bernstorff, has been able to declare with justice, in his memoir of July 28, 1793, a document that will long continue to be celebrated, 'a neutral power fulfils all its duties by never departing from the most strict impartiality, nor from the avowed meaning of its Treaties.'

"I have endeavoured, Sir, to show, in what precedes, that the Government of the Netherlands has fulfilled conscientiously its first duty, and will adhere faithfully thereto.

"The Cabinet of the Hague does not observe, and will not observe, less religiously the tenor of Treaties.

"The Treaty of the 19th of January, 1839, and the additional Convention of the 26th of August, 1852, only relate to commerce and navigation; the only Treaties that can be invoked in the present case are those of the 8th of October, 1782.

"I do not think it my duty to enter here upon a discussion of principles on the question of deciding whether these Treaties can still be considered as actually in force, and I will not take advantage of the circumstance that the Cabinet of Washington has implicitly recognized, by the very reclamation which is the object of your despatches, that the Treaties of 1782 cannot any longer be invoked as the basis of international relations between the Netherlands and the United States.

"I will only take the liberty of observing to you, Sir, that the execution of the stipulations included in those diplomatic acts would be far, in the present circumstances, from being favourable to the Government of the Republic.

"In fact, we should, in this case, admit to our ports privateers with their prizes, which could even be sold there by virtue of Article 5 of the before-cited Convention of 1782, on rescues.

"It would, perhaps, be objected that the Treaty of 1782, having been concluded with the United States of America, could not be invoked by a part of the Union which had seceded from the central Government, and I do not dissent from the opinion that this thorny question of public law would give rise, should the case occur, to very serious difficulties.

"But we cannot lose sight of the fact that the Treaty spoken of was concluded, even before the recognition of the United States by England, in 1783, with the oldest members of the Republic, among others, to wit, with Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and that those States actually figure among the Secessionists.

"In 1782 the Republic of North America was only a simple con