182 ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



because the belligerent 1ms a right to prevent the injury done to him- 

 self by the assistance intended tor lis enemy. So, too, a nation has a 

 right to prohibit any commerce with its colonies. Any attempt to 

 violate the laws made to protect this right is an injury to itself which 

 it may prevent, and it has a right to use the means necessary for its 

 prevention. These means do not appear to be limited within any cer- 

 tain marked boundaries, which remain the same at all times and in all 

 situations. If they are such as unnecessarily to vex and harass foreign 

 lawful commerce, foreign nations will resist their exercise. If they are 

 such as are reasonable and necessary to secure their laws from violation, 

 they will be submitted to. 



In different seas and on different coasts a wider or more contracted 

 range in which to exercise the vigilance of the Government will be as- 

 sented to. Thus in the Channel, where a very great part of the com- 

 merce to and from all the north of Europe passes through a very nar- 

 row sea, the seizure of vessels on suspicion of attempting an illicit 

 trade must necessarily be restricted to very narrow limits; but on the 

 coast of South America, seldom frequented by vessels but for the pur- 

 pose of illicit trade, the vigilance of the Government may be extended 

 somewhat farther, and foreign nations submit to such regulations as 

 are reasonable in themselves and are really necessary to secure that 

 monopoly of colonial commerce, which is claimed by all nations holding 

 distant possessions. 



If this right be extended too far, the exercise of it will be resisted. 

 It has occasioned long and frequent contests which have sometimes 

 ended in open war. The English, it will be well recollected, complained 

 of the right claimed by Spain to search their vessels on the high seas, 

 which was carried so far that the Guarda Costas of that nation seized 

 vessels not in the neighborhood of their coasts. This practice was the 

 subject of long and fruitless negotiations, and at length of open war. 

 The right of the Spaniards was supposed to be exercised unreasonably 

 and vexatiously, but it never was contended that it could only be ex- 

 ercised within the range of the cannon from their batteries. 



Indeed, the right given to our own revenue cutters to visit vessels 

 four leagues from our coasts is a declaration that in the opinion of the 

 American Government no such principle as that contended for has a 

 real existence. Nothing, then, is to be drawn from the laws of the 

 usages of nations, which gives to this part of the contract before the 

 court the very limited construction which the plaintiff insists on, or 

 which proves that the seizure of the Aurora by the Portuguese gov- 

 ernor was an act of lawless violence. 



[NOTE 1, PAGE 150. OPINION OF JUDGE JOHNSON IN ROSE VS. IIIMELY, 4 CR. 241.] 



I am of opinion that the evidence before us plainly makes out a case 

 of belligerent capture, and though not so, that the capture may be 

 justified, although for the breach of a municipal law. In support of 

 my latter position, both principle and the practice of Great Britain and 

 our own Government may be appealed to. The ocean is the common 

 jurisdiction of all sovereign powers; from which it does not result that 

 their powers upon the ocean exist in a state of suspension or equipoise, 

 but that every power is at liberty upon the ocean to exercise its sov- 

 ereign right, provided it does not act inconsistent with that general 

 equality of nations which exists upon the ocean. 



The seizure of a ship upon the high ueas, after she has committed an 

 act of forfeiture within a territory, is not inconsistent with the sever- 



