had arisen in America? Was an English merchantman, sailing peaceably in pursuance of his ordinary trade, to be left in ignorance whether an armed vessel which overhauled and captured him was regarded by his own government in the light of a pirate committing a robbery on the high seas, or whether it was a lawful belligerent exercising the recognized rights of war? What was to be the position of the English navy, who are posted in every corner of the habitable globe, to protect, by their presence, and if necessary to vindicate by their arms, the security of our mercantile. marine? Were they or were they not to be informed whether they were to" sink, burn and destroy" as pirates or to respect as lawful belligerents the cruisers of either party who exercised against our merchantmen those acts of force which the rights of war alone could justify? No wonder that Lord Lyons thought it necessary to strain every nerve to give Sir A. Milne the earliest intelligence of the state of affairs. I am in the judgment of every man, whether he be in England or in America, who deserves the name of a statesman or of a jurist, whether the English Government, which, after the receipt of the despatch of Lord Lyons, should have interposed an instant's unnecessary delay in declaring to the subjects of the Queen their rights and their liabilities arising out of the conflict in America, would not have been guilty of the most grave dereliction of the duty which they owe to the Crown and to the country?

The English Government knew their duty, and they did it. Accordingly, on the 13th of May, 1861, the Queen's proclamation was issued. If there is anything to be regretted, it is only that the forms necessary for publishing such a document should have made a delay of three days necessary, otherwise it ought to have been issued the very day that Lord Lyon's despatch was received; and if the Atlantic telegraph had been complete it should have been issued on April 19, the day on which President Lincoln's proclamation of blockade was put forth.

Now, what was the purport of the Queen's proclamation of May 13, 1861? I will venture to say that Mr. Bright has never read it, or if he has, he has certainly not understood it. The Queen's proclamation was neither more nor less than a warning to her sub

jects that a state of things had arisen which seriously affected their interests, and which altered their existing rights and their liabilities, and directed them how to act thereupon. It began by stating, "Whereas we are happily at peace with all Sovereigns, States, and Powers." It then proceeded, "Whereas hostilities have unhappily commenced between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves the Confederate States of America; "a statement precisely in accordance with the proclamation of President Lincoln, which had issued these words previously, and which assumed the belligerent right of blockade. It goes on," Whereas we being at peace with the Government of the United States, have declared our royal determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending parties." Then it recites the foreign enlistment act, which is only operative in the event of hostilities existing abroad, and warns the subjects of the realm to observe its prohibitions and avoid its penalties; and it concludes by advertising the Queen's subjects that if they engage in breaking a blockade established by either party, or by carrying contraband to either party, they will be abandoned to the penal consequences imposed by the law of nations, and will forfeit all right to the protection of the

crown.

Such is the purport of the Queen's proclamation. It will be seen that in its nature it is nothing more nor less than a domestic document affecting the position of the Queen's subjects alone, and not in any way interfering with the affairs of other nations. It is of the highest importance clearly to understand the true character of this document. In loose and inaccurate parlance we hear it said that in the proclamation of neutrality the Queen's Government conferred upon or conceded to the Confederate States belligerent rights. It did nothing at all of the sort. The Confederate States had belligerent rights by the mere fact of being at war. They acquired these rights immediately that a state of hostilities arose by the North going to war with them; or their going to war with the North. Their title to belligerent rights was derived, not from the concession of any foreign power, but from the established code of the law of nations. We did not confer upon, or concede

to, them the right to go to war. They went to war of their own will and pleasure, and from the moment they did so the enjoyment of belligerent rights accrued to them as a matter of course. They were rights which we had neither the power to confer nor to withhold. We had no option or election in the matter at all. All that the proclamation of neutrality did was to inform the subjects of the Queen what were the consequeuces to them of a condition of things over which the English Government had no sort of control.

To make this perfectly clear, let us just consider what would have been the state of things if the English Government had not issued the proclamation of neutrality. The state of hostilities in America would have existed just the same; either party would have claimed and exercised the rights of war against the other and against neutral governments none the less. The North would have searched our vessels, enforced the blockade, and captured contraband. The Southern cruisers would have done the same. Their rights in these respects were not created by the Queen's proclamation, and would not have been lessened by its absence. What were we then to do? Were we to hide our heads in the sand, like the ostrich, and not recognize a state of things which existed, and would continue to exist, whether we recognized it or not?

Suppose the proclamation of neutrality not to have issued, what would have been the consequence? A Confederate cruiser captures an English merchant vessel laden with arms destined for New York; in what light is the cruiser to be regarded, and how is she to be treated by our government and our courts? An armed vessel exercising force against the ship of a foreign State on the high seas must be one of three things - an enemy, a pirate, or a lawful belligerent. Was the Southern cruiser to be treated by the English Government as an enemy? On that supposition we should have been at war with the South. Is that what Mr. Bright desires? But, if she was not an enemy, was she a pirate? I will not condescend to argue such a question. It has been settled for more than three centuries. A people in revolt are entitled to all the rights of war against the sovereign, and, if to the rights of war against him, a fortiori against others. This matter and the rea

sons of it are admirably expounded in the well-known chapter of Vattel (B. III., cap. 18, § 287-293). Humanity and policy alike revolt at the idea of treating rebellion as piracy. The passions and folly of enraged and baffled governments may induce them to employ such menaces, but they cannot and dare not execute them. In that great landmark of English politics and English literature, Mr. Burke's letter to the sheriffs of Bristol, will be found the following passage, instinct with all the profound philosophy of a great political intellect :

"The persons who make a naval warfare upon us in consequence of the present troubles may be rebels; but to treat and call them piracies is confounding not only the natural distinction of things, but the order of crimes, which, whether by putting them from a higher part of the scale to the lower or from the lower to the higher, is never done without dangerously disordering the whole frame of jurisprudence. The general sense of mankind tells me that these offences, which may possibly arise from mistaken virtue, are not in the class of infamous actions. If Lord Balmerino in the last rebellion had driven off the cattle of twenty clans I should have thought it would have been scandalous and low juggle utterly unworthy of the manliness of our English judicature to have tried him for felony as a stealer of cows."

The Northern Government, it is true, threatened in the first instance to treat the Southern privateers as pirates; but, even in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, he does not venture to assert that they can be so treated under the law of nations, but only under the municipal laws of the United States. The case was brought to the test in the instance of the crew of the Savannah privateer, who were tried at New York in 1862, for piracy. The arguments are published at length in a report of the trial, for a copy of which I am indebted to the eminent lawyer, Mr. Evarts, who represented the United States' Government on that occasion. The judge charged the jury that the ship could not be regarded as a pirate under the law of nations. And the government could not get a jury to convict on a municipal statute.

In such a question the courts of law follow the action of the government. It is necessary for this, as well as for other reasons, that the government should declare its view to guide the courts of law. But the view of a government of a foreign country on such

a question can only be governed by the law of nations, and we have the authority of the American judges in this very conflict that by the law of nations a Southern privateer could not be treated as a pirate when exercising force against us. Well, then, if the Southern cruisers could not be regarded as enemies, and could not be treated as pirates, we could only treat them as lawful belligerents. But if our government and our courts of law could only treat them as such, was it not of the most pressing and imminent importance that all the subjects of the realm should know that they were clothed not by an act, but by the law of nations with the rights against neutrals which belong to such a character.

But then, says Mr. Bright, "I don't dispute that you are right in acknowledging the South as belligerents, but you did it in too great a hurry-you might have waited a little longer." But why, in the name of common sense why wait a single instant in a matter so urgently affecting the rights of every subject of the Crown? Why were the English merchantmen to wait to know whether they were to submit to be searched and captured alike by the Southern and the Northern cruisers? Why were they to wait to know whether they might or might not carry arms and munitions of war in safety to New York or to New Orleans? Why were they to wait to know whether there was or was not a lawful blockade, and whether they might or might not sail in safety for Charleston or Mobile? Why were English shipbuilders to wait to know whether they might or might not enter into contracts for the building of ships of war without exposing themselves to fine and imprisonment? Why were the courts of law to wait to know in what light they were to regard vessels or crews arraigned before them for forcible seizures at sea? Why were the Admirals on all our stations abroad to wait to know in what manner they were to treat the cruisers of the North and of the South-whether they were to regard the ships of the former as marine trespassers exercising rights over our merchantmen which could only be justified by a state of war, and whether they were to attack and destroy the Southern privateers as pirates, or to respect them as lawful belligerents? And on what pretence, I should like to ask, were questions to us of such momentous importance to be kept in suspense?