but a sale of goods made on Sunday, which is not made in the exercise of the ordinarg calling of the vendor, is not void under the statute, 1 Taunt. 131. And the price of goods bought on Sunday has been held recoverable, the defendant having kept them, and subsequently promised to pay for them, 6 Bing. 653.

By 1 & 2 W. 4, c. 32, s. 3, no person shall, on Sunday, or Christmas day, kill any game, or use any gun, dog, net, or engine, for that purpose, on pain of forfeiting any sum not exceeding £5, together with the full costs of conviction.

The 21 G. 3, c. 49, was passed to restrain a practice very prevalent at the time in London and Westminster: it enacts that if a house, room, or place be opened on Sunday for any public entertainment, or for debating upon any subject, to which persons are admitted by money or tickets, the keepers of it shall forfeit £200 to any person who will prosecute; the manager or president £100, and the receiver of the money or tickets, £50, and every person printing an advertisement of such meeting forfeits £50.

By 34 & 35 V. c. 87, no prosecutions for offences under 29 Car. 2, c. 7, are to be instituted, except with the consent, in writing, of the chief officer of police of the district, or of two justices of the peace, or a stipendiary magistrate having jurisdiction in the place where the offence was committed. No such prosecution can be heard before the magistrate by whom or with whose consent it has been instituted.

By 34 & 35 V. c. 19, Jews are exempted from penalties for working in a workshop (as defined by the Workshops Regulation Act, 1867) on Sunday.

CHAPTER II.

Offences against the Law of Nations.

Neutrals.

Duty of

THE law of nations, or international law, as it was first termed by Mr. Bentham, consists of a system of rules, deduced from usage and the principles of natural justice, intended for the regulation of the mutual intercourse of nations in peace and war. International law is founded, or intended so to be, on the principle that the different nations ought to do to each other in the time of peace as much good, and in time of war as little harm, as may be possible without injuring their own proper interests; and such law in its entire extent comprehends the principles of national independence, the privileges of ambassadors, consuls, and inferior ministers; the commerce of the subjects of each state with those of others; the grounds of just war and the mode of conducting it; the mutual duties of belligerents and neutrals in regard to search, blockade,

the treatment of prisoners, and other incidents pending hostilities; the rights of conquest; the force of an armistice, of safe-conducts and passports; the nature of alliances, and the obligations and construction of treaties.

The chief offences, however, of which the English laws take cognizance, and that fall within our notice, are limited to four kinds,-1. Violation of safe-conducts; 2. Infringement of the rights of ambassadors; 3. Piracy; and, 4. Acts tending to produce war.

As to the first, violations of safe-conducts, or passports, it was enacted by 31 H. 6, c. 4, that if any of the King's subjects molest, spoil, or rob any foreigner in amity, league, or truce, or under safe-conduct, the lord chancellor, with any of the justices of either the King's Bench or Common Pleas, may cause full restitution and amends to be made to the party injured. But this act is now repealed.

In consequence of the gradual increase of international commerce and intercourse, the use of passports in time of peace has been mostly discontinued by European States.

The rights of ambassadors are fully protected by the 7 Anne, c. 12, which enacts, that "an ambassador or other public minister, or his domestics, registered in the secretary of state's office, are not to be arrested; if they are, the process is void, and the persons suing out and executing it shall suffer such penalties and corporal punishment as the lord chancellor or either of the chief justices think fit." Neither can the goods of an ambassador or his servant be distrained, whether a foreigner or British subject, provided he is not a merchant or trader within the bankrupt laws.

A resident merchant, who acts as consul to a foreign prince, is not a public minister entitled to the privileges of an ambassador, 3 M. & S. 284.

The third offence against international law is PIRACY; which is a robbery on the high seas, and not in any creek or arm of the sea, such being within the jurisdiction of the adjoining country. The piracy must be on persons in amity with this country and without the authority of any state. Intent is an ingredient in this as in almost every other offence; for a person accused of piracy may show that he captured the vessel, or took the goods, thinking that they Lelonged to a state at war with England.

All acts of robbery and depredation on the high seas, which on land would have amounted to felony, are deemed piracies. Boarding a merchant-vessel, though without carrying her off, or seizing any of her goods; or the assisting, trading with, or combining with known pirates, are equally acts of piracy.

Piracy is punishable by 1 V. c. 88, which repeals or amends former statutes from Henry VIII. to George II. When murder is attempted, or any wound is inflicted dangerous to life, either at the time, before, or after the commission of the offence, the punish

ment is death; but for simple piracy the punishment is mitigated to transportation for life, or not less than fifteen years, or imprisonment for three years.

Persons engaged or assisting in the African slave trade are guilty of piracy, subject to transportation (now penal servitude), or imprisonment, 5 G. 4, c. 113; 1 V. c. 91.

There are provisions for rewarding seamen who act bravely in capturing or resisting piratical vessels, and commanders who are cowardly are punishable by the forfeiture of their wages and six months' imprisonment.

The 6 G. 4, c. 49, for encouraging the capture of piratical vessels, provides that the officers, seamen, marines, and others actually on board any King's ship at the taking or destroying any piratical vessels shall receive the sum of £20 for each pirate taken or killed during the attack, and the sum of £5 for every other man of the crew, not taken or killed, who shall have been alive on board the pirate ship at the beginning of the engagement. But this act is amended by 13 & 14 V. c. 26, in respect of rewards for the capture of pirates, the courts of Admiralty being empowered to determine whether the persons attacked or engaged as pirates were pirates; also the number of pirates and piratical vessels. Property found in possession of pirates belonging to British subjects is to be restored on payment of one-eighth part of its value. Piracies are triable at the Central Criminal Court, or by commission in any county in England.

It will be convenient to mention here of what the territory of a state consists, i.e. over what portion of the world the sovereign authority of a state has power. The territory of a state includes all that portion of terra firma lying within its boundaries, and also all waters wholly contained within its limits, and the mouths of rivers, bays, and estuaries furnishing access to the land, and also the coast sea for a marine league (about 34 statute miles), though, according to the usage prevailing in Great Britain and the United States, foreign goods cannot be shipped within four miles of the shore without the payment of duties. Vessels also have some of the attributes of territory, whether they belong to private citizens of a state, or are public ships belonging to the state itself. In the latter case they are exempt from local jurisdiction, even in foreign ports, but in the former case they cease to be regarded as territory (unless otherwise provided by treaty) when in a foreign port. Moreover, a private ship can be confiscated in a foreign port for piracy, or for violation of the customs or laws of the foreign state, and it may be attached by the owner's creditor, and if a crime has been committed in port, a vessel can be chased into the high seas and arrested.

These few remarks will help the reader to understand the proper attitude to be assumed by neutrals towards belligerent states, which it is our next object to explain so far as is possible where we

have to deal with a subject in such an unsettled condition as this is.

The property of individual subjects of a hostile state is liable to seizure at sea, though not on shore; but the property of private citizens in an invaded country can be taken to supply the wants of the invading army by authorized persons, at a fair value. A ship of war belonging to a belligerent power may, when in distress, run into a neutral port, and a defeated army may cross the frontier into neutral territory, where enemies cannot follow; but in this case it is submitted that it is the duty of the neutral state to compel such army to lay down its arms. If the army refuse to do so, it seems that the enemy would be justified in pursuing it in order to prevent its having the power of recommencing hostilities. Belligerent cruisers may enter neutral ports in order to obtain provisions, but no munitions of war may be taken on board at such time. Α neutral state may not lend money, or supply troops, or open harbours for a hostile expedition against a friendly state; nor can it allow its subjects to aid in preparing any hostile expedition, or to build, arm, or man vessels of war to be used against a friendly state.

A private person may, if unforbidden by the laws of his own country, enter as a soldier into the service of a state at war with a state at peace with his own country, but the municipal institutes of England seem to forbid the practice. On the 22nd of March, 1861, they were thus propounded in the House of Commons by Sir George C. Lewis, in the debate on the Kossuth's Notes:-"I could not help remembering the opinions that were expressed some years ago in the House of Lords, particularly by Lord Lyndhurst, in 1853, when he generalized the legal doctrine he laid down in the case of The King v. Peltier, that any person who, by any single act or any combined act, tended to embroil this country with any government in amity with her Majesty, is guilty of misdemeanour. That doctrine was laid down in broad terms by Lord Lyndburst on the 4th March, 1853, and was assented to by several other learned lords."

By the Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870 (33 & 34 V. c. 90), any British subject who, without the license of her Majesty, enlists in the service of any foreign state at war with any friendly state, or induces any other person to do so, or who leaves or goes on board ship with the view of leaving her Majesty's dominions in order to enlist in such service, or who embarks persons under false representations in order to induce such persons to enlist in such service, is guilty of an offence punishable by fine and imprisonment, with or without hard labour. The master or owner of any ship who takes illegally enlisted persons on board, is guilty of an offence punishable by fine and imprisonment, with or without hard labour, and the ship can be detained until the trial and conviction, or acquittal, of such master or owner, or until the penalties inflicted have been paid, or security for the payment given. A similar

penalty can be inflicted on any one who, without her Majesty's leave, builds or agrees to build any ship for the service of a foreign state at war with a friendly state, or who issues any commission for any ship to be employed against such friendly state, or, with like intent, equips or dispatches any ship, and the ship and her equipment are to be forfeited. The act regulates the proceeding in such cases and gives special power in certain cases to the secretary of state to detain ships and to grant search warrants, and also indemnifies against civil or criminal proceedings any officer acting under the act, and also the secretary of state or chief executive authority.

By 1 V. c. 29, the Queen may grant to any officer, not being a natural-born subject, but who, at the time of passing the act held the Queen's commission in any other regiment, and was allowed to retain the same, the rank of colonel, major-general, or general; and the Queen may also grant that aliens may enlist in her Majesty's service; but the number of foreigners serving together at any one time in any regiment not to exceed one for every fifty natural-born subjects; and no such soldier to be capable of holding any higher rank than that of non-commissioned officer.

Trade with a state at war with a friendly state in contraband of war, is excepted from the general principle of unrestricted trade between belligerents and neutrals. Contraband of war has been defined as including all warlike instruments, or materials by their own nature fit to be used in war. A neutral vessel, carrying contraband of war or transporting troops for the benefit of a belligerent, is subject to confiscation, if captured.

Another exception to the general freedom of neutral commerce is, when a port or coast-line is blockaded by the enemy.

The jurisprudence in respect to the blockade of seaports in time of war, forms among states a rather unsettled division of international law. In England, it has been always held that a blockade to be valid must be effective; that is, there must be a force of ships stationed off the port, or sufficiently near, to cause danger to a vessel attempting to enter. The Americans have followed in this course, and their highest legal authorities have laid down those international laws on a similar basis to that used by Lord Stowell. On the Continent they hold a different opinion, for the principle they laid down and acted upon during the war was that the ships should be stationed off the port, and sufficiently near to cause danger. There was only one word different between the two principles, but it was important-it was the substitution of the word "and" for "or." We contend that we may have a fleet cruising along a coast and blockading several ports, but the French interpretation was, that the vessels should be stationary off the port, and sufficiently near to cause danger. The French also thought that each ship attempting to run the blockade should be first