30 MOORE— CONTRABAND OF WAR. [February 2, 



tended their provisions to all the nations at war. This treaty was 

 concluded June 20, 1766. With the "single exception" of certain 

 enumerated articles, which were " accounted ammunition or military 

 stores," it was agreed that the subjects of the one party might trans- 

 port " all sorts of commodities " to places belonging to the enemy of 

 the other that were not " actually blocked up, or besieged, as well by 

 sea as by land."^** 



Such was the condition of things when the wars growing out of 

 the French Revolution began. The enthusiastic devotion of the 

 French on the one hand to the principles which they had espoused, 

 and the frenzied resistance of monarchical governments on the other 

 hand to what they regarded as an anarchical propagandism threat- 

 ening thrones everywhere by force of example if not by force of 

 arms, imparted to these struggles a peculiarly intense and lawless 

 character. Three months after the war between France and Great 

 Britain was declared, the National Convention, May 9, 1793, there 

 being a scarcity of food in France, adopted a decree authorizing the 

 seizure of vessels laden wholly or in part with provisions, which, if 

 found to be neutral property, were to be paid for at the price which 

 they would have fetched at the port of destination, together with an 

 allowance for freight and for the vessel's detention. This was a 

 claim not of contraband but of preemption. Nevertheless, the 

 United States protested against it, and it was not uniformly enforced 

 against American vessels. Great Britain on the other hand, wishing 

 not only to supply her own wants but to increase the pressure on 

 France, advanced a claim compounded of contraband and preemp- 

 tion. By an order in council of June 8, 1793, which was commu- 

 nicated to the Admiralty on the 28th of the same month, the com- 

 manders of British ships of war and privateers were authorized to 

 seize all vessels laden wholly or in part with corn ( i. c, cereals gen- 

 erally, as wheat, barley, rye and oats, but more especially wheat), 

 flour, or meal, bound to any port in France, or any port occupied by 

 the armies of France, in order that such provisions might be pur- 

 chased on behalf of the government, with an allowance to the vessel 

 for freight, or in order that the master might be required to give 



'" Note E, infra, p. 44. 



