162 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



That it (the British Government) still maintains, and would exercise 

 when necessary its own right to ascertain the genuineness of any flag 

 which a suspected vessel might bear; that if in the exercise of this 

 right, either from in voluntary error or in spite of every precaution, loss 

 or injury should be sustained, a prompt reparation would be afforded; 

 but that it should entertain for a single instant the notion of abandon- 

 ing the right itself would be quite impossible. (Webster s Works, vol. 

 6, p. 334.) 



Mr. Webster disputes this right, but has to admit that it does exist 

 when specially necessary. He says: 



That there is no right to visit in time of peace except in the execution 

 of revenue laws or other municipal regulations, in which cases the right 

 is usually exercised near the coast or within the marine league, or 

 where the vessel is justly suspected of violating the law of nations by 

 piratical aggression; but, wherever exercised, it is a right of search. 

 (Webster's Works, vol.vi , p. 330.) 



The principle that thus subordinates private right to national neces- 

 sity, is well stated by Mr. Manning (Int. Law, chap. 3, p. 252) : 



The greatest liberty which law should allow in civil government, is 

 the power of doing every thing that does not injure any other person, 

 and the greatest liberty which justice among nations demands, is that 

 every state may do anything that does not injure another state with 

 which it is at amity. The freedom of commerce and the rights of war, 

 both undoubted as long as no injustice results from them, become ques- 

 tionable as soon as their exercise is grievously injurious to any inde- 

 pendent state, but the great. difference of the interest concerned makes 

 the trivial nature of the restriction that can justly be placed upon 

 neutrals appear inconsiderable, when balanced against the magnitude 

 of the national enterprises which unrestricted neutral trade might com- 

 promise. That some interference is justifiable, will be obvious on the con- 

 sideration that if a neutral had the power of unrestricted commerce, he 

 might carry to a port blockaded and on the point of surrendering, pro- 

 visions which should enable it to hold out and so change the whole 

 issue of a war; and thus the vital interests of a nation might be sacri- 

 ficed to augment the riches of a single individual. 



Azuni carries the principle still further, and holds that even national 

 rights should yield to the rights of another nation, when the conse- 

 quences to the latter are the more important. He remarks (part II, 

 chap, in, art. 2, sec. 4, p. 178) : 



When the perfect right of one nation clashes with the perfect right 

 ot another, reason, justice, and humanity require that in such case the 

 one that will experience the least damage should yield to the other. 



And Paley, in a striking passage, applies the same principle even to 

 the obligation to observe treaties, one of the highest obligations known 

 to international law. (Moral Philosophy, book 6, chap. 12.) 



