sideration to the question of the termination of a voyage, and says that, "if the voyage from the place of lading be not really ended, it matters not by what acts the party may have evinced his desire of making it appear to have ended." 2

The British doctrine of continuous voyage was gradually extended. As originally enunciated it was intended to apply to comparatively slow-moving sailing vessels. The aim of the rule was to prevent the giving of aid to a belligerent by a neutral. It is undoubtedly proper for one belligerent to take measures which will prevent a neutral from aiding his opponent in his warlike undertaking. Therefore it is generally held that he may capture and confiscate contraband having a belligerent destination or seize vessel and goods bound for a blockaded port. The question of destination becomes one of great importance. It is undeniable that neutral commerce in

2 What, with reference to this subject, is to be considered a direct voyage from one place to another? Nobody has ever supposed that a mere deviation from the straightest and a shortest course in which the voyage could be performed would change its destination and make it cease to be a direct one within the intendment of the instructions. Nothing can depend on the degree or the direction of the deviation, whether it be of more or fewer leagues, whether toward the coast of Africa or toward that of America. Neither will it be contended that the point from which the commencement of a voyage is to be reckoned changes as often as the ship stops in the course of it. Nor will it the more change because a party may choose arbitrarily, by the ship's papers or otherwise, to give the name of a distinct voyage to each stage of a ship's progress. The act of shifting the cargo from the ship to the shore and from the shore back again to the ship does not necessarily amount to the termination of one voyage and the commencement of another. It may be wholly unconnected with any purpose of importation into the place where it is done. Supposing the landing to be merely for the purpose of airing or drying the goods, or of repairing the ship, would any man think of describing the voyage as beginning at the place where it happened to become necessary to go through such a process? Again, let it be supposed that the party has a motive for desiring to make the voyage appear to begin at some other place than that of the original lading, and that he therefore lands the cargo purely and solely for the purpose of enabling himself to affirm that it was at such other place that the goods were taken on board, would this contrivance at all alter the truth of the fact? Would not the real voyage still be from the place of the original shipment, notwithstanding the attempt to give

goods of whatever kind, if bona fide commerce between neutral ports, cannot be interrupted.

The destination of the vessel is usually evident from the ship's papers, and should always be thus shown. If the port of ultimate destination and all intermediate ports of call are neutral, there can be no question that the destination is neutral. If any port, an intermediate or ultimate port, is belligerent, the destination is considered belligerent.

As a general rule the destination of the cargo is held to follow the destination of the vessel. This might be said to be almost the sole rule for determining the destination of cargo before the American Civil War. At that time new positions began to be taken. These positions referred back to English practice in the war with France for support. The new doctrine separates vessel and cargo, and considers that a vessel

it the appearance of having begun from a different place? The truth may not always be discernible; but, when it is discovered, it is according to the truth, and not according to the fiction, that we are to give to the transaction its character and denomination. If the voyage from the place of lading be not really ended, it matters not by what acts the party may have evinced his desire of making it appear to have ended. That those acts have been attended with trouble and expense cannot alter their quality or their effect. The trouble and expense may weigh as circumstances of evidence to show the purpose for which the acts were done; but, if the evasive purpose be admitted or proved, we can never be bound to accept, as a substitute for the observance of the law, the means, however operose, which have been employed to cover a breach of it. Between the actual importation by which a voyage is really ended, and the colorable importation which is to give it the appearance of being ended, there must necessarily be a great resemblance. The acts to be done must be almost entirely the same; but there is this difference between them: The landing of the cargo, the entry at the custom house, and the payment of such duties as the law of the place requires, are necessary ingredients in a genuine importation. The true purpose of the owner cannot be effected without them. But in a fictitious importation they are mere voluntary ceremonies, which have no natural connection whatever with the purpose of sending on the cargo to another market, and which, therefore, would never be resorted to by a person entertaining that purpose, except with a view of giving to the voyage, which he has resolved to continue, the appearance of being broken by an importation which he has resolved not really to make. The William, 5 C. Rob. 387.

may have a neutral destination, while the cargo may have a belligerent destination, or that the cargo may be bound for a blockaded port, while the vessel upon which it is for the time being has a neutral destination.

During the American Civil War the Supreme Court, referring to the precedents in the opinions of Lord Stowell, gave further new interpretations to the principles and a decided extension to the doctrine of continuous voyage. While Lord Stowell had applied the doctrine to vessels of one of the belligerents carrying on forbidden trade with the enemy, the United States courts extended the doctrine to neutral vessels and cargo sailing from neutral ports with intent to violate blockade, even if a neutral port should be the immediate point toward which the vessel was bound with the intent of there interrupting the voyage. Under the ordinary rules of war of the time the vessel and cargo would be liable to capture when bound directly for the blockaded port. The new interpretation extended the liability to capture to the voyage between the port of departure and the neutral port of call, provided the intent to proceed to the blockaded port could be proven to exist during the earlier stage of the voyage.

In the case of The Circassian, decided in 1864, it was affirmed that:

"A vessel sailing from a neutral port with intent to violate a blockade is liable to capture and condemnation as a prize from the time of sailing, though she intend to call at another neutral port, not reached at time of capture, before proceeding to her ulterior destination." 8

The case of The Springbok, decided in the United States Supreme Court in 1866, gave full extension to the doctrine of continuous voyage. This vessel sailed from London December 8, 1862, on a voyage ostensibly for Nassau. The vessel was captured before reaching that port, and brought into New York, where she was libeled as prize. The District Court condemned the vessel and cargo as prize of war. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed the decree as to the vessel, and affirmed the decree as to the cargo.

The summary of the case shows that, when goods destined

82 Wall. 135, 17 L. Ed. 796.

for a belligerent are in transit between neutral ports in a neutral ship, the ship is liable to seizure in order to secure the condemnation of the goods, but itself may not be condemned as prize.

In regard to the cargo, Mr. Chief Justice Chase gave the opinion of the court that:

"Upon the whole case we cannot doubt that the cargo was originally shipped with the intent to violate the blockade; that the owners of the cargo intended that it should be transshipped at Nassau into some vessel more likely to succeed in reaching a blockaded port than the Springbok; that the voyage from London to the blockaded port was, as to the cargo, both in law and in intent of the parties, one voyage; and that the liability to condemnation, if captured during any part of the voyage, attached to the cargo from the time of sailing."

The decisions of the United States courts relating to continuous voyage of vessels or cargo have met with much adverse criticism."

45 Wall. 1, 18 L. Ed. 480. See, also, The Stephen Hart, 3 Wall. 559, 18 L. Ed. 220; The Peterhoff, 5 Wall. 28, 18 L. Ed. 564; The Bermuda, 3 Wall. 514, 18 L. Ed. 200.

5 Wharton, in an editorial note (3 Digest of Int. Law of the United States, p. 405), says of the Springbok Case: "The decision cannot be accepted without discarding those rules as to neutral rights for which the United States made war in 1812, and which, except in The Springbok and cognate cases, the executive department of the United States government, when stating the law, has since then consistently vindicated. The first of these is that blockades must be of specific ports. The second is that there can be no confiscation of noncontraband goods owned by neutrals and in neutral ships, on the ground that it is probable that such goods may be, at one or more intermediate ports, transhipped or retranshipped, and then find their way to a port blockaded by the party seizing."

Hall says of the decision: "By the American courts this idea of continuous voyage was seized upon and applied to cases of contraband and blockade. Vessels were captured while on their voyage from one neutral port to another, and were then condemned as carriers of contraband or for intent to break blockade. They were thus condemned, not for an act-for the act done was in itself innocent, and no previous act existed with which it could be connected, so as to form a noxious whole-but on mere suspicion of intention to do an act. Between the grounds upon which these and the English cases were decided there was, of course, no analogy. The American deci

The British Manual of Naval Prize Law (1888) states: "The ostensible destination of the vessel is sometimes a neutral port, while she is in reality intended, after touching, and even landing and colorably delivering over her cargo there, to proceed with the same cargo to an enemy port. In such a case the voyage is held to be 'continuous,' and the destination is held to be hostile throughout." The same manual also provided that, "if the destination of the vessel be neutral, then the destination of the goods on board should be considered neutral, notwithstanding it may appear from the papers or otherwise that the goods themselves have an ulterior hostile destination, to be attained by transshipment, overland conveyance, or otherwise." This section of the Naval Prize Law was brought to a test by the seizure during the South African War, in December, 1899, and January, 1900, of three German vessels, the Herzog, the General, and the Bundesrath. These vessels were carrying supplies to the neutral port of Lourenço Marquez on Delagoa Bay, which was connected by rail with the South African Republic. Great Britain asserted the right to visit and search these vessels. The German government protested "that, whatever there may have been on board the Bundesrath, there could have been no contraband of war, since, according to the recognized principles of international law, there cannot be contraband of war in trade between neutral ports," and called attention to the section of the Manual

sions have been universally reprobated outside the United States, and would probably now find no defenders in their own country." Int. Law (5th Ed.) p. 669.

A committee of the Institute of International Law said:

"That the theory in question must be regarded as a serious inroad upon the rights of neutral nations, inasmuch as the fact of the destination of a neutral vessel to a neutral port would no longer suffice of itself to prevent the capture of goods noncontraband on board. "That, furthermore, the result would be that, as regards blockade, every neutral port to which a neutral vessel might be carrying a neutral cargo would become constructively a blockaded port, if there were the slightest ground for suspecting that the cargo, after being unladen in such neutral port, was intended to be forwarded in some other vessel to some port actually blockaded."

For this and other extended discussion, see 7 Moore, §§ 1256–1262. 6 No. 71, p. 22.