PROBLEMS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 511 



miral in command, asking instructions as to the disposition of persons 

 " taken out of vessels seized as a prize for violating the blockade. 

 To send them north in the vessel would require a much larger prize 

 crew than the exigency of the fleet will permit. They are generally 

 a daring set of men, and the compensation to them would be the 

 strongest inducement to attempt a recapture." * The rear-admiral 

 instructed him in reply to send those known, or for good cause sus- 

 pected, to be citizens of the United States, north to the commandant 

 of the navy yard to which the vessel conveying them might be 

 bound. " Those against whom no such proof or suspicion is enter- 

 tained, if they are not needed as witnesses in the adjudication, Mail 

 be released from the blockading vessel as soon as practicable/' 2 



Certain of the crew of the captured British blockade-runner 

 Adeline were released on signing an engagement not to be again 

 employed in like proceedings. Secretary Welles instructed the flag 

 officer of the blockading squadron that the Secretary of State held 

 this not warranted by public law and that the crew could not be held 

 as prisoners of war and that they were absolved from the obligation. 3 



On July 25, 1863, President Lincoln instructed the Secretary of 

 the Navy as follows: 



" You will not in any case detain the crew of a captured neutral 

 vessel or any other subject of a neutral power on board such vessel, 

 as prisoners of war or otherwise, except the small number necessary 

 as witnesses in the prize court. 



" NOTE. The practice here forbidden is also charged to exist, 

 which, if true, is disapproved and must cease. [The President adds:] 

 What I propose is in strict accordance with international law, while 

 if it do no other good, it will contribute to sustain a considerable por- 

 tion of the present British Ministry in their places, who, if displaced, 

 are sure to be replaced by others more unfavorable to us. 

 " Your obedient servant, 



"ABRAHAM LINCOLN." 



The right as a reasonable precaution to place the captured crew 

 in irons lest they rise and overpower the prize crew was maintained 

 in an elaborate letter of Secretary Seward to Lord Lyons in 1861. 4 



The crew of the Emily St. Pierre, taken off Charleston, did retake 

 the ship, gagging and putting in irons the prize officers and crew. 5 



In January, 1864, the Department of State sent to the Secretary 

 of the Navy intercepted correspondence showing that vessels oper- 



1 Official Eec. U. S. and Confed. Navies, series i, vol. vm, p. 625. 



2 Ibid. vol. vm, p. 804. 



3 Ibid. vol. xii, p. 462. 



4 Ibid. vol. xii, p. 407 et seq. 

 6 Ibid. vol. xn, p. 814. 



