526 INTERNATIONA!, LAW 



sought to be enforced by the Russian authorities and recognized 

 by the Vladivostock court, is more just and reasonable, namely, 

 that if, for good and sufficient cause, such neutral prize cannot be 

 brought in, there is no obligation to allow her to go free, to rein- 

 force the enemy with her cargo, but as a rule of necessity, to prevent 

 the delivery of the cargo, she may be destroyed exactly as a bellig- 

 erent, the crew and papers being preserved, and the question of prize 

 or no prize being adjudicated as if she had been brought in. It 

 seems too much to expect the other rule to be observed where the 

 cargo is plainly contraband and important to the enemy. The ob- 

 jection by England to the destruction of this ship, M. de la Peyre 

 declared recently, does not rest on a solid foundation, and that 

 of the United States, he says, is even less permissible, since during 

 the War of Secession the two parties systematically sank all the 

 prizes. 



M. de la Peyre is under a mistake. The Federal cruisers habitually 

 brought in and submitted to the prize courts their captures. No 

 such course was open to the Confederate cruisers, since all the ports 

 of the Confederacy were blockaded and the ports of no other country 

 were open to them for such use. 



Captain Semmes, of the Confederate cruiser Alabama, habitually 

 burned his captures, 1 but he seized only vessels belonging to Ameri- 

 can citizens and carefully avoided neutral ships or cargoes. His 

 practice is therefore no precedent as to the right to destroy a neutral 

 vessel without condemnation. 



His situation was, however, such that if he had the full rights of 

 a belligerent it would seem that he had as a matter of necessity the 

 right to destroy contraband of war even without the intervention 

 of a prize court. Suppose an armed British ship, fitted for bellig- 

 erent use, had been met on her way to a Federal port, evidently 

 designed for sale and likely to be bought by the Federal Government. 

 Would Captain Semmes have been bound by international law to 

 leave her unmolested since he could not bring her into port for 

 condemnation? The suggestion that such is the law, because of Sir 

 William Scott's dictum and the echo of it by the writers, cannot be 

 concurred in. 



It must be admitted that a neutral, carrying contraband, is not 

 exposed by that act alone to condemnation of the ship, but Sir 

 William Scott himself recognized that " the ancient practice was 

 otherwise," and said: " It cannot be denied that it was perfectly 

 defensible on every principle of justice." 2 He shows that modern 

 policy has introduced -a relaxation on this point, but that circum- 



1 Records United States and Confederate Navies, vol. i, where conduct of both 

 navies is set out at length and in detail, with records and correspondence. 



2 The Neutralitet, 3 C. Robinson, 295. 



