proceedings of the Haytian authorities were in clear violation of the express terms of the treaty, and wholly improper and inadmissible. Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Preston, Haytian min., Nov. 28, 1888, "13. This right should be exercised with tact and consideration, and in strict conformity with treaty provisions, wherever they exist. The following directions are given, subject to any special treaty stipulations: After firing a blank charge, and causing the vessel to lie to, the cruiser should send a small boat, no larger than a whaleboat, with an officer to conduct the search. There may be arms in the boat, but the men should not wear them on their persons. The officer wearing only his side arms, and accompanied on board by not more than two men of his boat's crew, unarmed, should first examine the vessel's papers to ascertain her nationality and her ports of departure and destination. If she is neutral, and trading between neutral ports, the examination goes no further. If she is neutral, and bound to an enemy's port not blockaded, the papers which indicate the character of her cargo should be examined. If these show contraband of war, the vessel should be seized; if not, she should be set free, unless, by reason of strong grounds of suspicion, a further search should seem to be requisite." U. S. Instructions to Blockading Vessels and Cruisers, General Orders, As to the exercise of visit and search by Spanish cruisers, see War 3. MAIL STEAMERS AND MAILS. § 1201. In the postal treaty between the United States and Great Britain of 1848 it was provided that in case of war between the two nations the mail packets should be unmolested for six weeks after notice by either Government that the mail service was to be discontinued, in which case they should have safe conduct to return. 9 Stat. 969. "During the Mexican war, British mail steamers were allowed by the United States forces to pass in and out of Vera Cruz." (Dana's Wheaton, § 504, note 228, p. 659.) "The Trent, though she carried mails, was a contract, or merchant vessel, a common carrier for hire. Maritime law knows only three classes of vessels-vessels of war, revenue vessels, and merchant vessels. The Trent falls within the latter class. Whatever disputes have existed concerning a right of visitation or search in time of peace, none, it is supposed, has existed in modern times about the right of a belligerent in time of war to capture contraband in neutral and even friendly merchant vessels, and of the right of visitation and search in order to determine whether they are neutral and are documented as such according to the law of nations." Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons, Dec. 26, 1861, 55 Br. & For. State Papers 627, 631. 'Lushington (Naval Prize Law, Introd., p. xii) says, that to give up altogether the right to search mail steamers and bags, when destined to a hostile port, is a sacrifice which can hardly be expected from belligerents; citing Desp. of Earl Russell to Mr. Stuart, November 20, 1862, Parliamentary Papers, No. Amer., Nov. 5, 1863." Field, Int. Code, § 862. "The right of search is to be exercised with strict regard for the rights of neutrals, and the voyages of mail steamers are not to be interfered with except on the clearest grounds of suspicion of a violation of law in respect of contraband or blockade." Proclamation of the President, Apr. 26, 1898, Proclamations and Decrees during the War with Spain, 77, 78. At the time of the breaking out of the recent war with Spain, a Spanish mail steamship was on a voyage from New York to Havana, carrying a general cargo, passengers, and mails, and having mounted on board two breech-loading Hontoria guns of 9 centimeter bore, and one Maxim rapid-firing gun, and having also on board twenty Remington rifles and ten Mauser rifles, with ammunition for all the guns and rifles, and thirty or forty cutlasses. Her armament had been put on board more than a year before for her own defense, as required by her owner's mail contract with the Spanish Government, which also provided that in case of war that Government might take possession of the vessel with her equipment, increase her armament, and use her as a war vessel, and in these and other provisions contemplated her use for hostile purposes in time of war. Held, that she was not exempt from capture as prize of war by the fourth clause of the President's proclamation of April 26, 1898. The Panama (1900), 176 U. S. 535. Fourthly. That, to avoid difficulty and error in relation to papers which strictly belong to the captured vessel, and mails that are carried, or parcels under official seals, you will, in the words of the law, 'preserve all the papers and writings found on board and transmit the whole of the originals unmutilated to the judge of the district to which such prize is ordered to proceed;' but official seals, or locks, or fastenings of foreign authorities, are in no case, nor on any pretext, to be broken, or parcels covered by them read by any naval authorities, but all bags or other things covering such parcels, and duly seized and fastened by foreign authorities, will be, in the discretion of the United States officer to whom they may come, delivered to the consul, commanding naval officer, or legation of the foreign government, to be opened, upon the understanding that whatever is contraband or important as evidence concerning the character of a captured vessel will be remitted to the prize court, or to the Secretary of State at Washington, or such sealed bag or parcels may be at once forwarded to this Department, to the end that the proper authorities of the foreign government may receive the same without delay." Instructions issued by the Secretary of the Navy, Aug. 18, 1862, to naval officers of the United States, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, Ser. I., vol. 1, pp. 417, 418. The foregoing instructions were based on a letter of Mr. Seward to Mr. Welles of August 8, 1862. On October 31, 1862, as the result of discussions with the British legation at Washington, Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Welles saying that it had been thought expedient, where merchant vessels were captured, that "the public mails of any friendly or neutral power. duly certified or authenticated as such, shall not be searched or opened, but be put as speedily as may be convenient on the way to their designated destinations." Mr. Seward added, however, that this was not to protect "simulated mails verified by forged certificates or counterfeited seals." A copy of this letter was communicated by Mr. Seward to the British legation, but Mr. Welles took no notice of it. In April, 1863, Lord Lyons claimed that the course laid down in Mr. Seward's letter should be observed in the case of mails captured on the British vessel Peterhoff. On the 13th of April Mr. Welles wrote to Mr. Seward declining to comply with the request. It appears that when the Peterhoff was brought in, the court at first directed the mails found on board to be opened in the presence of the British consul, who was to select such letters as seemed to him to relate to the culpability of the cargo, and to reserve the rest to be forwarded to its destination. The British consul refused to take such action, protesting that the mail should be forwarded unopened. It was at this juncture that Lord Lyons appealed to Mr. Seward. As Mr. Welles refused to yield to Mr. Seward's wishes, the latter appealed to the President, who addressed a series of interrogatories to each of the two officials. They both responded, but it seems that Mr. Welles was not advised of the contents of Mr. Seward's answer. But on April 21, 1863, Mr. Seward wrote to Mr. Adams at London that the Peterhoff's mail would be forwarded unopened, and at the same time set forth his views as to the desirableness of "arriving at some regulation that would at once save the mails of neutrals from unnecessary interruption and exposure and at the same time prevent them from being made use of as auxiliaries to unlawful designs of irresponsible persons seeking to embroil friendly states in the calamities of war. Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welles, Sec. of Navy, Oct. 31, 1862, Dip. For Mr. Seward's letter to Mr. Welles of Aug. 8, 1862, see Blue Book, "With very great deference for your views, I must confess that I remain of the opinion that there is no recognized sanction of the principle that a bona fide authenticated and sealed public mail of a friendly or neutral power, found on board of a commercial vessel navigating between two neutral ports, can be violated lawfully either by a naval officer or a prize court, merely because the vessel on which it is found is searched and seized as contraband; that the general terms in which the act of Congress is couched do not contemplate bona fide authenticated public government mails, among the papers which are directed to be delivered to the prize court and opened by them; that it is an unfavorable time to raise new questions or pretensions under the belligerent right of search, and that to insist upon opening the mails of the Peterhoff would be to raise such a question irritating to an extreme degree, not only in reference to the British Government but to all neutral commercial states. I think farther that the reservation in my note to you of the 31st of October, in regard to simulated or forged mails, is sufficient for ample protection to the rights of the United States, and that it would be inexpedient and injurious to the public welfare to search the mails of the Peterhoff unless there is reason to believe that they are spurious and simulated. "I have therefore, to recommend that in this case, if the district attorney has any evidence to show that the mails are simulated and not genuine, it shall be submitted to the court. If there be no reasonable grounds for that belief, then, that they be put on their way to their original destination." Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welles, Sec. of Navy, April 15, 1863, 60 "In reply to your note of the 18th instant on the subject of the mails of the Peterhoff, it seems proper for me to say that when the question of detaining the public mails found on board of vessels visited and searched by the blockading forces of the United States was presented to this Department last year, I took the instructions of the President thereupon. Not only the note which I addressed to you on the 8th day of August last, but also the note which I addressed to you on the 31st of October last, concerning this question was written with the approval and under the direction of the President. The views therein expressed were then communicated to the British Government by authority of the President, as defining the course of proceedings which would be pursued when such cases should occur thereafter. On receiving your note of the 13th instant, intimating a view of the policy to be pursued differing from what had thus been determined by the President on the 31st of October last, I submitted to him that note together with all the previous correspondence bearing upon the subject, together with the act of Congress to which you have called my attention. I then asked his instructions in the case of the mails of the Peterhoff. The note which I addressed to you on the 15th was the result of these instructions and, having been read and approved by him, it was transmitted to you by his direction. I was also directed to communicate the contents thereof to the district attorney of the United States for the southern district of New York, and also to announce to Lord Lyons, for the information of the British Government, that the mails of the Peterhoff would be forwarded to their destination. I was also directed by the President to make some special representations to the British Government on the general subject of the mails of neutrals which are now in preparation. I need hardly to say, that no part of my note of the 15th instant was intended or was understood by me as imputing to you the having raised or being disposed to raise new questions. What was said on that subject, was said by way of showing that a course of proceedings, different from what I was recommending, would involve, on the part of this Government, the raising of a question which had been waived by it in my correspondence with the British Government in October last." Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welles, Sec. of Navy, April 20, 1863, 60 "I have the honor to acquaint you that, by the President's direction, I have had a conference with Lord Lyons, Her Britannic Majesty's minister accredited to this Government, on the subject of public mails found on board of vessels captured for a breach of the blockade. In the course of the interview, by the authority of the President, I informed his lordship that, until notice should be given after further experience, such mails would not be opened, but would be forwarded to their destination. The President consequently di |