tions and the base of their operations." We had no neutrality act when, in the administration of General Washington, we effectually interposed to prevent French privateers being fitted out in our ports to cruise against English commerce, and made compensation in those cases in which it was not in our power to restore the illegal prizes. The gist of the matter is using the neutral territory as the basis of a hostile expedition, and in that respect, where the ship was built or to whom it belongs is immaterial. It falls within the same category as carrying on hostilities in neutral waters, or using them in order to watch for the enemy. The distinction to which I allude is well traced in the case referred to on the trial of the Alexandra, though the controlling portion of Judge Story's judgment does not appear in any report of the Chief Baron's opinion which I have seen. Judge Story, after stating that the capturing vessel had been sent from Baltimore to Buenos Ayres as American property, which he deemed a commercial adventure and not illegal, and there sold to the government of that country, by which she was made a public ship of war, restored the property in question, which had been captured on a subsequent cruise, to the Spanish claimants. The decision was founded on the fact that after the Santissima Trinidad had become an acknowledged public vessel of Buenos Ayres, she had, preparatory to the cruise in which the goods were taken, enlisted an additional crew and strengthened her armament by the purchase of a tender in the port of Baltimore. (Wheaton's Reports, vol. vii. p. 340-The Santissima Trinidad.) In the same volume is the case of the Gran Para: p. 487. There the property, though the capturing vessel was not commissioned as a privateer till her arrival in the Rio de la Plata, continued in the same party who had purchased her in Baltimore; and the court were of opinion that she was armed and manned there for a cruise.

The most delicate question, if not the most difficult, to which the late prize cases have given rise, concerns the right of capture of a vessel going to a neutral port with the intent

to sail from thence to a blockaded port, or resorting to a neutral port with the intention of using it for the introduction of contraband into the enemy's country. The decisions on these points have not, as far as I am aware, received in reference to the cases arising during this war the adjudication of the Supreme Court. In referring to the books, I find that Wildman, as well as our American authors Duer and Halleck, pronounce more emphatically than the cases would seem to warrant against the neutral cruiser. I appreciate your criticisms as to those cases which relate to the indirect trade of a citizen of the belligerent country with the enemy. They fall within the general interdict of all intercourse of that nature.

The other cases from the English reports generally relate to a violation of British orders in council of questionable validity, or to infraction of the rule of 1756, which, during the wars growing out of the French revolution, was a source of constant difficulty between the United States and England. The rule which at one time was understood to be agreed on between the two Governments, was to consider the continuity of the voyage broken by the cargoes being landed and the duties paid on them.

It is somewhat extraordinary that the Congress of Paris, in touching on the matters included in the declaration, should have omitted a definition of contraband, as to which of all matters connected with the subject the most doubt existed. On this point, I presume that we are to consider, as the authoritative exposition by your Government, the note of Earl Russell to Lord Lyons, of January 23rd, 1862, and which, omitting the suppressed clause from Bynkershoek, confines contraband to arms, munitions of war, and soldiers; -the rule as adopted on the continent. (See Lawrence's Wheaton, p. 801.) The suggestion in my letter of last year was made with the endeavour to render unnecessary the visitation and search, in time of war, of neutral vessels; and for which, if the declaration of Paris as to enemy's property in neutral vessels, and neutral property in enemy's vessels, be universally adopted, there would no longer be any pretext. Your objections I find are to any enlargement of the law of blockade, or to any apology for its extension. Should your views prevail and blockade be confined to places besieged, it seems to me that it would perfect the system of commercial freedom to abrogate the whole doctrine of contraband. This is a subject which I should be glad to discuss further, did not my watch remind me that, if I expect to write to you by this week's mail, my letter must be at once despatched to the post-office.

I will only venture to add that the importance of the questions of maritime law, now the subjects of debate, points out the necessity, with the view of diminishing the causes of future wars, of their authoritative settlement by the general concurrence of nations. Associations such as yours may mature the public mind for an international congress, for the assembling of which a proposition was introduced into the House of Representatives in 1861-2.

John Westlake, Esq.

I am, my dear Sir,

Yours very truly,

W. B. LAWRENCE.

ART. VIII.-ON LEGAL PROCEDURE.*

LEGAL Procedure has at first sight little attraction for any but lawyers; but, correctly viewed, it ought, I think, to interest not only the legal profession, but all other persons who, by education and reflection, are concerned in, and capable of appreciating the right administration of the law; and I have chosen it as my subject, feeling convinced that as a social question bearing on the economy of the law, it is, when

* A paper read at Edinburgh, before the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, by Robert Stuart, Esq., Barrister-at-Law.

rightly considered, not only of the greatest practical importance, but has at the present time special claims to attention. I here particularly refer to two important public documentsthe Lord Advocate's Bill for consolidating and amending the Procedure of the Court of Session, and the Report of the Royal Commissioners appointed to inquire into the practice of the Courts of Law and Equity in England and Ireland, and which was laid before Parliament towards the end of last Session. The fact that the different systems of procedure in the Courts of Justice in the United Kingdom are at present under the anxious consideration of the Crown and Government, may of itself be allowed to be a sufficient reason for taking cognizance of so grave a matter on this occasion.

But even if not suggested as it is at this time by the action of the great public and constitutional authorities referred to, the subject is intrinsically of too much importance to require any apology for its public-even its popular-discussion. For, if this is a matter which not so much concerns the principle or policy of the law, it is one which relates to that which is of not less consequence to a free country; namely, to that system of actual procedure and practice by which the business of the Courts is regulated and controlled; by which the law is practically brought home to the people in regard to their rights, liberties, and duties; by which their rights are vindicated, their wrongs redressed, their persons and property protected, and their conduct socially and individually determined. Such being the real character and object of legal procedure, its importance cannot be over-estimated. It is indeed that which gives real value to the laws, and no system of jurisprudence, however excellent, philosophic, or true, can secure any practical advantage to those who owe it allegiance, unless it be assisted and applied by accurate forms of administration. It otherwise becomes a dead letter.

Of the two, indeed, I would rather have a bad system of laws well and justly administered, than the finest jurisprudence erroneously or even inefficiently practised. There was a time

when the lawyers of England claimed the benefit of that sentiment, when taking a comparative view of the English and Scotch systems, admitting, as they at the same time did, that the jurisprudence of Scotland was more excellent than their

own.

"The law of England," they said, "is a bad system; but it is well and justly administered; the Scotch law is an admirable system, but it is badly administered." And in this saying there can be no doubt there was much truth. And there are other European countries where we might easily find illustrations of the vital character of procedure, and be made to understand and feel, that whether the laws themselves be good or bad, their practical administration may either on the one hand be made the handmaid of liberty or the instrument of the despot. The finest, the most learned, the most scientific writers on jurisprudence, have been and are Frenchmen and Germans. I shall say nothing of their respective judicial practice. There was a time, too, when the Neapolitan school of law was the most enlightened of its age. Need I say anything of the Courts of Naples? In these countries, justice was a theory, and not a fact, and the people were in so many words told that the laws were not so much intended for them as for the whim and caprice of the lawgiver.

Perhaps I should not be far wrong were I to suggest, that however unfavourably the law of England may contrast with other systems of jurisprudence, the comparative purity and independence of its administration, by which it has ever commended itself to the respect and confidence of the English people, may be attributed in a great measure to that rigid and unbending technicality by which its forensic regulations have been from time immemorial, and may be said still to be distinguished, in other words, that if not the system of English special pleading, that, at least, the principle on which that pleading is founded has afforded to the suitors in the English courts of law the best security for justice; and that the ignorant unpopularity, as I must call it, of what no doubt may be regarded as the most subtle and crafty of the English