29a 



^' nients, the treaty of Utrecht would, m that case, be completely 

 '' annulled." Hansard'* s Parliamentary History, vol. 23, p. 1 1 17. 



In the year 1686, a treaty was concluded between Louis the 14th 

 and James the second, regulating the commercial intercourse be- 

 tween the respective subjects and possessions of France and Great 

 Britain in America, It was known by the denomination of the 

 Treaty of Neutrality. Two years after its conclusion, occurred the 

 revolution by which James was expelled from the British throne 

 and a war between the two nations, which terminated in 1695, by 

 the peace of Ryswick. At the commencement of the next cen= 

 tury, broke out the war of the Spanish succession, which, after 

 raging twelve years, closed in 1714, by the treaty of Utrecht. Thf; 

 treaty of neutrality had not been specifically renewed or named, 

 cither by the treaty of Ryswick or by that of Utrecht : yet on the 

 3d of June, 1728, the attorney and solicitor general, Yorkc and 

 Talbot, gave their official opinion that the treaty of neutrality was 

 still in force, and instructions, founded upon its validity, were given 

 to the governors of the British colonies in America. 



In 1741, commenced the war of the Pragmatic Sanction, or for the 

 Austrian succession, which finished in 1748, by the peace of Aix 

 la Chapelle — five years after which, the attorney and solicitor gen- 

 eral, sir Dudley Ryder, and Murray, afterwards lord Mansfiejd, 

 gave it as their official opinion that the treaty of neutrality of 1686, 

 was then yet in force. 



The same question occurred in 3765, after the close of the se- 

 Ten years' war, when the attorney and solicitor general, Norton and 

 De Grey, gave it as their opinion that the treaty of neutrality was 

 970^ then in force; but the advocate general, sir James Marriott, 

 gave it as his opinion that it was, and supported his opinion by an 

 elaborate, ingenious, and forcible argument. 



These opinions are all to be found in the second volume of Chal- 

 mers's Collection of Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, pp. 339 — 356 ; 

 and as the result of the whole, Chitty, in his Treatise on the Laws 

 of Commerce and Manufactures, a work published in 1820, says ; 

 *' It has been considered that a general commercial treat}^ not lim- 

 " ited by its terms to a particular time, is only suspended by a war^ 

 " and, that upon the return of peace, it will tacitly revive, by 

 " implication, unless there be an express declaration to the con- 

 ^'trary." Chitty, p. 45.* 



By the concurrent testimony, therefore of the writers upon the 

 laws of nations, and of the most eminent British statesmen and 

 lawyers of the present age, the genera! position that war abrogates 

 all treaties, and the particular inference from it, that by the abro 

 Ration of treaties, the rights or liberties stipulated in them are con 



■^ For the references to these British authorities, relative to the effect of wai\ 

 upon treaties, and treaty stipulations, I have to acknowledge my obligations 

 to a learned and ingenious friend, a member of the Senatf; of the I'nited 

 States. 



