118 CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



nations. Since the Declaration of tlie Congress of Vienna, 

 that the Slave Trade was repugnant to the principles of 

 humanity and of universal morality, traHic in shives must 

 be considered a crime, and it was the right and duty of 

 every nation to prevent the commission of crime. On the 

 whole, he submitted that the "Le Louis," having been 

 engaged in a traffic prohibited by the laws of her own 

 country, and contrary to tlie general laws of humanity and 

 justice, ought not to be restored to tlie claimarit. 



LOKD STOWELL'S JUDGMENT. SEIZURE NOT .lUSTIEIEI). 



Sir William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, in the Brit- 

 ish High Court of Admiralty, held, liowever, that trading 

 in slaves was not a crime by universal law of nations. He 

 observed : 



S<^*^. Dortson'a Neithei" this Court nor any other can carry its private apprehensions, 

 v<ll irp 249'"**'^' independent of law, into 'its public judgments on the (juality of 

 actions. It must conform to tlie. iu(l<i;nient of the hiw upon that sub- 

 ject; an<l actinj;' as a Court in the administration of law, it can not 

 attribute criminality to an act where the law imputes none. It must 

 look to the legal standard of n.orality; and upon a (luestiou of this 

 nature, that standard must be found in the law of nations as tixed and 

 evidenced by general and ancient aiul adnutted ])ractice, by Treaties 

 and by the general tenour of the laws and ordinances and the formal 

 transactions of civilized States. 

 Ibid, i>. 2r.2. _ _ _ Much stress is laid upon a solemn declaration of very emi- 



nent persons assembled in Congress, whose rank, high as it is, is by 

 no means the most respectable fouiulatioii of the weight of their opin- 

 ion that this traffic is contrary to all religion and morality. Great as 

 the reverence due to such authorities may be, they can not I think be 

 admitted to have the force of overruling the established course of the 

 general law of nations. 



* ^ M * *s 



See Dodsoii's 155 It is next said that every country has a right to enforce its 



viVirp 252 ^*^''' ^^" navigation laws; and so it certainly lias, so far as it does 



not interfere with the rights of others. But it has no right, in con- 

 sequence, to visit and search all the apparent vessels of other coun- 

 tries on the high seas. 



lUiil.,11. 2r)0. It is said, and with just concern, that if not permitted in time of 



peace it will be extremely difticult to suppress the Traffic. It will be 

 so, and no man can deny that the suppression, however desirable, and 

 however sought, is attended with enormous difficulties; difficulties 

 which have bafHed the most zealous endeavours for many years. To 

 every man itmust have been evident that without a general and sincere 

 concurrence of all the maritime States, in the principle and in the 

 proper modes of ]>iir8uiiig it, comparatively but little of ])Ositive good 

 could be ac(iuircd ; so far at least, as the interests of the victims of this 

 commerce were concerned in it: and to every man who looks to the 

 rival claims of these States, to their established habits of trade, to 

 their real or pretended wants, to their ditf'erent modes of thinking, 

 and to their real mode of acting upon this ]iarticular subject, it must 

 be eciually evident that such a concurrence was matter of very difficult 

 attainment. But the difticulty of tlie attainment will not legalize 

 measures that are otlu^'wise illegal. To i»ress forward to a great prin- 

 ciple by breaking through every other great priiici)tle that stands in 

 the way of its establisliment; to force the way to the liberation of 

 Africa by trami)ling on the independence of other States in Europe; in 

 short, to procure an eminent good by means ihatart^ unlawful; is as 

 little consonant to private morality as to jmblic justice. Obtain the 

 concurrence of other nations, if you can by ai)plicatiou, by remon- 

 strance, by example, by every peaceable instrument which man can 

 employ to attract the consent of man. But a nation is not jnstihed in 



