244 AVES ISLAND. 



are as different as is tlie "right of visit" from the pretended "right 

 of search." 



I. In the exposition of the jus gentium, it is a great misfortune that 

 so much difficulty is encountered in meeting in many works, loose, 

 general theories, advanced by authors who seem wanting in the faculty 

 of analysis and power of discriminationj and devoid of that experience 

 necessary to perceive the true results and effects of their visionary 

 Utopian theories. For instance, certain modern writers (rather con- 

 troversal essayists than jurisconsults) and some military or naval 

 officers, who deem themselves competent to expound the principles of 

 international law — but who seem to have a superficial idea of the law 

 of reprisals, " ordinary" or "extraordinary," "special" or "gen- 

 eral," and confounding them as before observed — have denounced them 

 both as quasi acts of war, or as tending to war, and as remedies 'of an 

 "obsolete" character, and more in harmony with the jus gentium as 

 it prevailed in ancient times, than as ameliorated and improved by 

 modern progress. As it relates to extraordinary or general reprisals, 

 we concede that they are often acts that tend to war, and are "a kind 

 of imperfect war," but with reference to special or ordinary letters of 

 reprisal, in their character, objects, and effects, they are emphatically 

 preventives of war ; and because they are such preventives is it that 

 the right to issue them should be maintained, and in proper cases en- 

 forced, Witheut them, if diplomatic negotiation fails to effect repa- 

 ration for wrong, war is the only alternative. 



Special, or ordinary letters of reprisal, are the appropriate remedy 

 for a wrong to the individual subjects of a State to effect redress. 



General or extraordinary commissions, or letters of marque and re- 

 prisal, are the appropriate remedies for an assault or wrong to a State, 

 other than those committed against a State through its citizens. 



Several theoretic writers upon the continent of Europe refer to the 

 law of reprisals, special and general, as existing anterior to the era of 

 Eoman power ; but the distinction between such special and general 

 reprisals was not, in ancient times, so clearly defined as in later days, 

 and for the reason that, in those times, the power of governments and 

 the rights of feudal leaders were not so definitely limited and estab- 

 lished, and often the latter exercised the attributes of sovereignty since 

 acknowledged to belong only to established governments. 



It is, however, a gratification to advert, on this subject, to the writ- 

 ings of the ancient sages of the common law of England. So early 

 as the eleventh century, the principles upon which the law of special, 

 as well as of general reprisals, are founded, and the formula for the 

 execution of that law, are all distinctly and forcibly set forth in the 

 records ef English jurisprudence which have come down to us ; nay, 

 in the great charter these principles are announced as among those, 

 adherence to which was assured by the King in that compact, (vide C. 

 29, 2 and C. 30, 2.) and the reference to the "ancient" and established 

 customs and laws of the realm therein made, including the custom and 

 law of special reprisals. 



The remedy of special reprisals in behalf of a subject who has sus- 

 tained wrong from a foreign State is in the nature of an attachment or 

 distress warrant, or capias ad Withernam against the property of an 



