PROBLEMS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 519 



lecting the authorities upon the subject, 1 and he also shows that in 

 1806 President Madison so held in protesting against the destruction 

 of a French ship L'Impetueux, disabled by a gale and destroyed by 

 the Melampus and two other British ships on the coast of North 

 Carolina. The present was, moreover, hardly a case of fresh pur- 

 suit, the Russian vessel having eluded her pursuers and having been 

 later found in the Chinese port. 



The practice of powerful belligerents, and especially England, 

 was formerly to pay little, if any, attention to the sanctity of a neu- 

 tral port, yet the practice seems never to have been deemed lawful. 



Here are some of the old precedents involving hostile meetings 

 of war-vessels in neutral waters. During the second Punic war, 

 Scipio, with two Roman galleys, entered the port of Syphax, king 

 of Numidia, to seek his alliance. There he found Hasdrubal upon 

 a like errand with seven Carthaginian galleys, but they "durst not 

 attack him in the king's haven." The Venetians and Genoese 

 being at war, their fleets met in the harbor of Tyre, " and would 

 have engaged in the very haven, but were interdicted by the gov- 

 ernor," and therefore went to sea and fought in the open. 3 



In 1604 James the First of England forbade acts of belligerency 

 in certain waters near the English coast; but in 1605 the Dutch and 

 Spanish fleets fought in Dover Harbor. The English castle was silent 

 until the victorious Dutch bound their prisoners two by two and 

 threw them into the sea; then at last the castle battery fired upon 

 the inhuman victors 4 . England here tardily resisted a breach of the 

 neutrality of a British port. However, a year later, the Dutch East 

 India fleet was attacked by the British in Bergen Harbor. The gov- 

 ernor of the town fired upon the attacking fleet. 5 



Four French ships of war which fled to Lagos after conflict with 

 the English off Cadiz, in 1759, were destroyed in that harbor by the 

 English. Portugal made complaint to England. Pitt was civil and 

 an apology was duly made by the Earl of Kinoul as special ambassa- 

 dor extraordinary, who promised that the British would be more 

 careful in the future, but there was no restitution or compensation. 6 



Phillimore declares this " a clear and unquestionable violation 

 of the neutral rights of Portugal, and it was one of the causes of 

 war by France against Portugal. 7 



In 1781 an English squadron in Porto Praya, in the Cape Verde 



1 Moore's International Arbitration, p. 1120. 



2 Moore's International Arbitration, p. 1116, quoting tl 3 incident from Livy. 



3 Moore's International Arbitration, p. 1117, quoting Molloy, DC Jure Maritime 

 (5th ed.), p. 12. 



4 Walker's International Law, pp. 169, 170; Grotius' Hist. vol. xiv, p. 794. 



5 Vattel, bk. in, chap, vn, sec. 132. 



6 Dana's Notes to Wheaton, sec. 430; Moore's International Arbitration, p. 1127. 



7 Phillimore's International Law, sec. 373. 



