512 INTERNATIONAL LAW 



ated by the Confederacy in blockade-running were under orders to 

 conceal their nationality, and suggesting that it would be proper 

 to direct that henceforth British blockade-runners be detained in 

 custody and not released as heretofore. Secretary Welles ordered 

 accordingly and countermanded inconsistent orders, 1 but this was 

 in turn revoked by the Secretary of the Navy May 16, 1864, and full 

 instructions issued in accord with the views of President Lincoln, 

 before expressed, 2 exempting bona fide neutrals on neutral ships from 

 treatment as prisoners of war, and holding them " entitled to imme- 

 diate release." 3 



The modern doctrine that neutral blockade-runners on a neutral 

 ship are not subject to bodily punishment is not contravened, it is 

 submitted, by the ultimate practice of the United States in its 

 blockade of the Confederate coast, by all odds the greatest blockade 

 known to history. It is believed that it is sustained by the text- 

 writers generally. 4 



In the second great blockade of the past eighty or ninety years, 

 that of the Cuban coast, the Instructions of Blockading Vessels and 

 Cruisers, issued by the Secretary of the Navy of the United States 

 in 1898, and prepared by the State Department, expressly declare : 

 " 9. The crews of blockade-runners are not enemies and should 

 be treated not as prisoners of war, but with every consider- 

 ation." 



The whole subject is most admirably reviewed by Calvo. The 

 older practice is shown and that of the United States in the war with 

 the Confederacy, and at the close he justly observes : "The usage 

 concerning the non-infliction of bodily punishment on persons 

 guilty of violation of blockade has become uniform enough so that 

 we can consider confiscation of the property captured as now the 

 sole punishment." 5 



The consul-general of the United States at Yokohama, by letter 

 of July 27, 1904, kindly advises me that in the present Russo- 

 Japanese war the Japanese have treated neutrals captured in attempt- 

 ing to run the blockade at Port Arthur in the same way, holding 

 them as witnesses, it might be, but not as prisoners of war. That 

 is, however, not strictly a blockade. The legation of Japan at 

 Washington, under date of August 13, 1904, advises me of like 

 practice by Japan as to officers and crews of neutral ships recently 

 captured while carrying contraband, which is comparable to breach 



1 Official Rec. U. S. and Confed. Navies, series I, vol. ix, p. 285. 



2 Ibid. vol. ix, p. 405. 



3 Ibid. vol. x, pp. 60, 61. 



4 Gaulaudet on Inter. L. (condensed from Calvo), p. 298; T. J. Lawrence, Prin. 

 Inter. L, p. 502; Walker's Inter. L., p. 525; Woolsey, Inter. L. (1899), p. 351; 

 Hairs Inter. L. (1904), p. 710; 3 Phillimore's Inter. L., p. 506 et seq. 



1 Calvo, Le Droit International, tome v, sec. 2899. 



