states not engaged in the war. The foundation of the principle is clear, and rooted in justice; for interference with neutral commerce at all is only justified by the right which war confers of molesting the enemy, all relations of trade being by war itself suspended. To this principle I entirely accede; and I should regret to think if any authority could be cited from the decisions of any British court administering the law of nations, which could be with truth asserted to maintain a contrary doctrine."

The learned judge, after discussing the question how far licences to enter blockaded ports would invalidate a blockade, and pointing out the important distinctions between blockades according to the ordinary law of nations, and the blockades introduced during the last war by the Berlin and Milan decrees on the one hand, and the British Orders in Council on the other, and between special licences granted for a particular occasion and licences granted indiscriminately, proceeds, "I think that if the relaxation of a blockade be, as to belligerents, entire, the blockade cannot lawfully subsist; if it be partial, and such as to exceed special occasion, that, to the extent of such partial relaxation, neutrals are entitled to a similar benefit." And he concludes his able discussion of this part of the case, in these words: "With respect to the present question I, therefore, have come to the conclusion, that as Russian vessels might have left the ports of Courland up to the 15th of May, the subjects of neutral states ought to be entitled to the same advantages, and if there be any vessel so circumstanced I should hold her entitled to restitution. I think the remedy should be commensurate with the grievance." The learned judge holds that such relaxation does not affect the general validity of the blockade.

In order to judge how far this conclusion can be maintained, it is necessary to consider upon what principles the right of a belligerent to exclude neutrals from a blockaded port rests. That right is founded, not on any general unlimited right to cripple the enemy's commerce with neutrals by all means effectual for that purpose, for it is admitted on all hands that a neutral has a right to carry on with each of two belligerents during war all the trade that was open to him in times of peace, subject to the exceptions of trade in contraband goods and trade with blockaded ports. Both these exceptions seem founded on the same reason, namely, that a neutral has no right to interfere with the military operations of a belligerent either by supplying his enemy with materials of war, or by holding intercourse with a place which he has besieged or blockaded.

Grotius expresses himself upon the subject in these terms:-"Si juris mei executionem rerum subvectio impedierit, idque scire potuerit, qui advexit, ut si oppidum obsessum tenebam, si portus clausos, et jam deditio aut pax expectabatur, tenebitur ille mihi de damno culpâ dato." De Jure Belli ac Pacis, lib. III, c. I, s. V.

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Bynkershoek's commentary on this passage is to the effect that it is unlawful to carry anything, whether contraband or not, to a place thus circumstanced, since those who are within may be compelled to surrender, not merely by the direct application of force, but also by the want of provisions and other necessaries. "Sola obsidio in causâ est, cur nihil obsessis subvehere liceat, sive contrabandum sit, sive non sit, nam obsessi non tantum vi coguntur ad deditionem, sed et fame, et alia aliarum rerum penuria." Quæ. Jur. Pub., lib. I. c. 11.

Wheaton in his Elements of International Law, Vol. II, p. 228-230, justly observes that this passage in Bynkershoek goes too far, and that a blockade is not confined to the case where there is a siege or blockade with a view to the capture of a place or the expectation of peace. But these passages seem to point to the reason on which this interference with the ordinary rights of neutrals was originally justified.

Vattel lays down the same doctrine: "Quand je tiens une place assiégée, ou seulement bloquée, je suis en droit d'empêcher que personne n'y entre, et de traiter en ennemi quiconque entreprend d'y entrer sans ma permission, ou d'y porter quoi que ce soit; car il s'oppose à mon entreprise, il peut contribuer à la faire échouer, et par là me faire tomber dans tous les maux d'une guerre malheureuse." B. III, c. VII, s. 1, 17.

These passages refer only to ingress and the importation of goods, but it is clear that the operations of the siege or blockade may be interrupted by any communication of the blockaded or besieged place with foreigners; and Lord Stowell, when he defines a blockade, always speaks of it as the exclusion of the blockaded place from all commerce, whether by egress or ingress. In The Frederick Molke, 1 Rob. 87, he says: "What is the object of a blockade? not merely to prevent an importation of supplies; but to prevent export as well as import; and to cut off all communication of commerce with the blockaded place." In The Betsey, 1 Rob. 93: "After the commencement of a blockade a neutral cannot, I conceive, be allowed to interpose in any way to assist the exportation of the property of the enemy." In the Vrouw Judith, 1 Rob. 151: "A blockade is a sort of circumvallation round a place by which all foreign connection and correspondence is, as far as human force can effect it, to be entirely cut off. It is intended to suspend the entire commerce of that place; and a neutral is no more at liberty to assist the traffic of exportation than of importation." In The Rolla, 6 Rob. 372: "What is a blockade but a uniform universal exclusion of all vessels not privileged by law?" In The Success, 1 Dods. 134: "The measure which has been resorted to, being in the nature of a blockade, must operate to the entire exclusion of British as well as of neutral ships; for it would be a gross violation of neutral rights, to prohibit their trade, and to permit the subjects of this

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country to carry on an unrestricted commerce at the very same ports from which neutrals are excluded."

It is contended that the objection of a neutral to the validity of a blockade, on the ground of its relaxation by a belligerent in his own favour, is removed if a court of admiralty allows to the neutral the same indulgence which the belligerent has reserved to himself or granted to his enemy. But their lordships have great difficulty in assenting to this proposition. In the first place, the particular relaxation, which may be of the greatest value to the belligerents, may be of little or no value to the neutral. In the instance now before the court it may have been of the utmost importance to Great Britain that there should be brought into her ports cargoes which, at the institution of the blockade, were in Riga; and it may have been for her advantage, with that view, to relax the blockade. But a relaxation of the blockade to that extent, and a permission to neutrals to bring such cargoes to British ports may have been of little or no value to neutrals.

The counsel on both sides at their Lordships' bar understood that the learned judge in this case intended thus to limit the rights of neutrals, and to place neutral vessels only in the same situation as Russians, under the Order in Council. Their Lordships would be inclined to give a more liberal interpretation to the language of the judgment; yet if this be done, the allowance of a general freedom of commerce, by way of export, to all vessels and to all places from a blockaded port, seems hardly consistent with the existence of any blockade at all.

Again, it is not easy to answer the objections a neutral might make, that the condition of things which alone authorizes any interference with his commerce does not exist, namely, the necessity of interdicting all communication by way of commerce with the place in question; that a belligerent, if he inflicts upon neutrals the inconvenience of exclusion from commerce with such place, must submit to the same inconvenience himself; and that if he is to be at liberty to select particular points in which it suits his purpose that the blockade should be violated with immunity, each neutral, in order to be placed on equal terms with the belligerent, should be at liberty to make such selection for himself.

But the ambiguity in which all these questions are left by the Order in Council of the 15th of April; the doubt whether the liberty accorded to enemies' vessels extends to neutrals, and, if so, whether such liberty is subject to the same restrictions, or to any other and what restrictions, affords, in the opinion of their Lordships, another strong argument against the legality of the blockade in this case. If a partial, modified blockade is to be enforced against neutrals, justice seems to require that the modifications intended to be introduced should be notified to neutral states, and that they should be fully apprized what acts their subjects may or may not do. They cannot reasonably be

exposed to the hardship of either abstaining from all commerce with a place in such a state of uncertain blockade, or of having their ships seized and sent to the country of the belligerent, in order to learn there, from the decision of its Court of Admiralty, whether the conduct they have pursued is, or is not, protected by an equitable interpretation of an instrument in which they are not expressly included.

If these views of the law be correct, this ship cannot be considered to have had notice of any blockade of Riga at the time when she sailed for that port; for, in truth, no legal blockade was then in existence, and it would be hard to require a neutral to speculate on the probability, however great, of a legal blockade de facto being established at a future time, when he is not permitted to speculate on the chance of its discontinuance after he has once had notice of its existence. **

Supposing, however, the blockade in this case to be open to no objections in point of law during the interval between the 15th of April and the 15th of May, it remains to be inquired whether the notice which this ship received of its existence was of such a character as to subject her to the penalty of confiscation for disregarding it. Notice has been imputed to the claimant in the court below from the alleged notoriety of the blockade on the 14th of May, at Elsinore, where the ship touched, and at Copenhagen, where the owner resided.

It is contended by the appellant that in a case of ingress of a port subject to a blockade only de facto of which there has not been any official notification, guilty knowledge cannot be inferred in an individual from general notoriety, and that a ship is always entitled under such circumstances to warning from the blockading squadron before she is exposed to seizure.

To this proposition their Lordships are unable to accede. If a blockade de facto be good in law without notification, and a wilful violation of a known legal blockade be punishable with confiscation-propositions which are free from doubt-the mode in which the knowledge has been acquired by the offender, if it be clearly proved to exist, cannot be of importance. Nor does there seem for this purpose to be much difference between ingress, in which a warning is said to be indispensable, and egress, in which it is admitted to be unnecessary.

The fact of knowledge is capable of much easier proof in the one case than in the other; but when once the fact is clearly proved, the consequences must be the same. The reasoning of the learned judge of the court below in this case, and the language of Lord Stowell in The Adelaide, reported in the note to The Neptunus, 2 Rob. 111, and The Hurtig Hane, 3 Rob. 324, are conclusive upon this point.

But while their Lordships are quite prepared to hold that the existence and extent of a blockade may be so well and so generally known, that knowledge of it in an individual may be presumed without distinct proof of personal knowledge, and that knowledge so acquired may supply the place of a direct communication from the blockading squadron,

yet the fact, with notice of which the individual is so to be fixed, must be one which admits of no reasonable doubt. "Any communication which brings it to the knowledge of the party," to use the language of Lord Stowell in The Rolla, 6 Rob. 367, "in a way which could leave no doubt in his mind as to the authenticity of the information."

Again, the notice to be inferred from general notoriety, must be of such a character that if conveyed by a distinct intimation from a competent authority it would have been binding. The notice cannot be more effectual because its existence is presumed, than it would be if it were directly established in evidence. The notice to be inferred from the acts of a belligerent, which is to supply the place of a public notification, or of a particular warning, must be such as, if given in the form of a public notification or of a particular warning, would have been legal and effectual.

For this purpose the notice of the blockade must not be more extensive than the blockade itself. A belligerent cannot be allowed to proclaim that he has instituted a blockade of several ports of the enemy, when in truth he has only blockaded one; such a course would introduce all the evils of what is termed a paper blockade, and would be attended with the grossest injustice to the commerce of neutrals. Accordingly a neutral is at liberty to disregard such a notice, and is not liable to the penalties attending a breach of blockade, for afterwards attempting to enter the port which really is blockaded.

This was distinctly laid down by Lord Stowell in the case of The Henrick and Maria, 1 Rob. 148, where an officer of the blockading squadron had informed a neutral that all the Dutch ports were in a state of blockade, whereas the blockade was confined to Amsterdam. The ship was afterwards captured for an alleged attempt to enter Amsterdam, and Lord Stowell, in decreeing restitution, observed: "The notice is, I think, in point of authority, illegal; at the time when it was given there was no blockade which extended to all Dutch ports. A declaration of blockade is a high act of sovereignty; and a commander of a king's ship is not to extend it. The notice is, also, I think, as illegal in effect as in authority: it cannot be said that such a notice, though bad for other ports, is good for Amsterdam. It takes from the neutral all power of election as to what other port of Holland he should go, when he found the port of his destination under blockade. A commander of a ship must not reduce a neutral to this kind of distress; and I am of opinion, that if the neutral had contravened the notice, he would not have been subject to condemnation."

The authority of this case is fully recognized by Dr. Lushington in the present case, who observes that such an administration of the law, in protecting the party misled, was most just.

Applying these principles to the evidence before them, their Lordships can have no doubt that the master and owner in this case are to be fixed with notice of all that was publicly known at Copenhagen on