THE DECISION AND AWARD. 277 



the construction, equipment, and armament of a vessel are not done away with 

 by any commission which the Government of the belligerent Power benefited 

 by the violation of neutrality may afterward have granted to that vessel : and 

 the ultimate step, by which the offense is completed, can not be admissible as 

 a ground for the absolution of the offender ; nor can the consummation of his 

 fraud become the means of establishing his innocence ; 



And whereas the privilege of exterritoriality accorded to vessels of war has 

 been admitted into the law of nations, not as an absolute right, but solely as a 

 proceeding founded on the principle of courtesy and mutual deference between 

 different nations, and therefore can never be appealed to for the protection of 

 acts done in violation of neutrality ; 



And whereas the absence of a previous notice can not be regarded as a fail 

 ure in any consideration required by the law of nations in those cases in which 

 a vessel carries with it its own condemnation ; 



And whereas, in order to impart to any supplies of coal a character incon 

 sistent with the second Rule, prohibiting the use of neutral ports or waters as a 

 base of naval operations for a belligerent, it is necessary that the said supplies 

 should be connected with special circumstances of time, of persons, or of place, 

 which may combine to give them such character ; 



And whereas, with respect to the vessel called the Alabama, it clearly results 

 from all the facts relative to the construction of the ship at first designated by 

 the &quot;No. 290&quot; in the port of Liverpool, and its equipment and armament in 

 the vicinity of Terceira, through the agency of the vessels called the Agrippina 

 and the Bahama dispatched from Great Britain to that end, that the British 

 Government failed to use due diligence in the performance of its neutral obli 

 gations ; and especially that it omitted, notwithstanding the warnings and offi 

 cial representations made by the diplomatic agents of the United States during 

 the construction of the said &quot;No. 290,&quot; to take in due time any effective meas 

 ures of prevention, and that those orders which it did give at last for the deten 

 tion of the vessel were issued so late that their execution was not practicable ; 



And whereas, after the escape of that vessel, the measures taken for its pursuit 

 and arrest were so imperfect as to lead to no result, and therefore can not be con 

 sidered sufficient to release Great Britain from the responsibility already incurred ; 



And whereas, in despite of the violations of the neutrality of Great Britain 

 committed by the &quot;290,&quot; this same vessel, later known as the Confederate cruiser 

 Alabama, was on several occasions freely admitted into the ports of Colonies of 

 Great Britain, instead of being proceeded against as it ought to have been in any 

 and every port within British jurisdiction in which it might have been found ; 



And whereas the Government of Her Britannic Majesty can not justify itself 

 for a failure in due diligence on the plea of the insufficiency of the legal means 

 of action which it possessed ; 



Four of the Arbitrators, for the reasons above assigned, and the fifth for rea 

 sons separately assigned by him, are of opinion, 



That Great Britain has in this case failed, bv omission, to fulfill the duties 



