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Le navire de guerre portant en son sein une partie de la puissance publique de l'état auquel il appartient, un corps organisé de fonctionnaires et d'agents de cette puissance dans l'ordre administratif et dans l'ordre militaire, soumettre ce navire et le corps organisé qu'il porte aux lois et aux autorités du pays dans les eaux duquel il entre, ce serait vraiment soumettre l'une de ces puissances à l'autre; ce serait vouloir rendre impossibles les relations maritimes d'une nation à l'autre par bâtiments de l'état. Il faut ou renoncer à ces relations, ou les admettre avec les conditions indispensables pour maintenir à chaque état souverain son indépendance.

L'état propriétaire du port ou de la rade peut, sans doute, à l'égard des bâtiments de guerre pour lesquels il aurait des motifs de sortir des règles ordinaires et pacifiques du droit des gens, leur interdire l'entrée de ses eaux, les y surveiller s'il croit leur présence dangereuse, ou leur enjoindre d'en sortir, de même qu'il est libre, quand ils sont dans la mer territoriale, d'employer à leur égard les moyens de sureté que leur voisinage peut rendre nécessaires; sauf à répondre, envers l'état auquel ces vaisseaux appartiennent, de toutes ces mesures qui pourront être, suivant les événements qui les auront motivées ou la manière dont elles auront été exécutées, des actes de défense ou de précaution légitime, ou des actes de méfiance, ou des offenses graves, ou même des causes de guerre; mais tant qu'il les reçoit, il doit respecter en eux la souveraineté étrangère dont ils sont une émanation; il ne peut avoir, par conséquent, la prétension de régir les personnes qui se trouvent et les faits qui se passent à leur bord, ni de faire sur ce bord acte de puissance et de souveraineté.

C'est ainsi que le conflit se trouve sagement réglé, et que l'indépendance de chaque état souverain est maintenue.

Les conséquences de cette pratique, que M. Pinheiro-Ferreira relève comme les plus dénuées de raison, savoir, celles relatives à l'asile que les malfaiteurs du pays trouveraient à bord, appartiennent à une matière qui reviendra plus loin, et dont nous traiterons en détail. Mais nous pouvons, dès-à-présent, faire observer que jamais le commandant d'un navire de guerre n'appliquera le bénéfice de l'exterritorialité de son navire en faveur des malfaiteurs du pays, pas plus que l'ambassadeur l'exterritorialité de son hôtel et de ces équipages; et que, dans le cas où certains criminels seraient parvenus à se réfugier à son bord, il existe des règles internationales relativement à leur expulsion du navire ou à leur extradition.

En un mot, l'inviolabilité qui est due en tous lieux aux navires de guerre comme à une forteresse flottante de l'état qui les a armés, renfermant un corps organisé de la puissance publique de cet état, cette inviolabilité n'entraîne pas l'irresponsabilité des officiers qui commandent ces navires. Mais tous les actes qui s'y réfèrent, soit de la part de l'état dans les eaux duquel sont mouillés les navires à l'égard de ces navires, soit réciproquement, tous ces actes sont actes de relations internationales, et les conséquences ou réparations, s'il y a lieu, doivent en être poursuivies par voie diplomatique. Cette inviolabilité ne diminue en rien, du reste, le droit qu'a toute nation, si le navire de guerre vient à commettre contre elle des actes d'aggression, d'hostilité, ou de violence quelconques, de prendre immédiatement toutes les mesures et d'employer tous les moyens nécessaires à une légitime défense.

Elle n'empêche pas non plus que les navires de guerre soient soumis à l'observation des règlements sanitaires du pays où ils veulent aborder. Les épreuves imposés par ces règlements sont des conditions mises à l'admission des navires dans les eaux de ce pays; elles ne sont nullement en contradiction avec le droit d'exterritorialité dont jouissent les bâtiments de guerre entrés dans ces eaux.

Il résulte de tout ce qui précède que, loin de désapprouver, au point de vue de la pure raison, la coutume du droit international positif à l'égard des navires de guerre, il faut tenir cette coutume pour bonne et pour digne d'être maintenue en théorie comme en pratique.1

The principle laid down in the preceding extract is clear, and the consequences which flow from it are equally clear. A vessel commissioned as a public ship of war, entering a foreign port, is a portion of the naval force of the government by which she is commissioned, commanded by its officers, and displaying the ensigns of its authority. Any act of force directed against her (unless to prevent or repel aggression, or compel her to depart after having been required to do so by competent authority) would be directed against her government, and would at the same time, if done without previous warning, be an infraction of a recognized understanding, on the faith of which she entered, and on the observance of which she had a right to rely. If, while in neutral waters, she commits any violation of neutrality or other offense against the neutral, force may undoubtedly be employed in any way

1 Règles internationales et diplomatie de la mer (4th edition,) vol. i, p. 190.

which may be necessary in order to prevent or arrest the unlawful act and to compel her departure. But redress ought not to be sought against the ship herself; it should be sought, if needful, against her government. A fortiori, this is true if the offense were committed before she arrived at the neutral port. Thus, of the violations of neutrality committed during the war, the grossest and most flagrant [20] by far was that *perpetrated by the Wachusett in the harbor of

Bahia. The Brazilian authorities would have been amply justi fied in firing on that vessel while engaged in the act, and sinking her if necessary. If she had afterward presented herself in a Brazilian port, they would, doubtless, have refused her admission; but they would have rightly abstained, even on such provocation, from seizing and detaining her. A multo fortiori, the same proposition holds good if the act complained of were done before the offending ship came into the possession of the commissioning government, or before she was incorporated into its naval service.

These principles are recognized by publicists and sanctioned by usage. There is not a maritime power in the world which would not resent any violation of them; and it would be the duty of any naval officer to resist such a violation, unless it were supported by manifestly superior force. They do not extend to prizes brought into neutral ports. by the belligerent vessel, if captured within the waters of the neutral, or by a vessel unlawfully armed within her jurisdiction and during the cruise immediately following such armament. These the neutral mayrestore, and it may be his duty to do so, on the application of the orig inal owners or their government.

As to the nature of the proof which may be required that a vessel claiming the character of a public ship of war is really such, M. Ortolan observes:

Les preuves de la nationalité et du caractère d'un bâtiment de guerre sont dans le pavillon et dans la flamme qu'il fait battre à sa corne et au haut de ses mâts; dans. Fattestation de son commandant donnée, au besoin, sur sa parole d'honneur; dans la commission de ce commandant, et dans les ordres qu'il a reçus de son souverain.

Le pavillon et la flamme sont indices visibles; mais, dans certains cas, on n'est tenu d'y ajouter foi que lorsqu'ils ont été appuyés d'un coup de canon. L'attestation du commandant peut être exigible; les autres preuves doivent se présumer, et, soit en pleine mer, soit ailleurs, aucune puissance étrangère n'a le droit d'en obtenir l'exhibi

tion.

He refers also to the answer returned by the government of the Netherlands to that of the United States respecting the reception of the Sumter at Curaçoa, and to the opinion pronounced, in 1782, by the government of Russia in the matter of the Danish corvette St. John, seized in Spanish waters, notwithstanding the display of her pendant and the declaration of her commanding officer:

La Russie fut plus explicite. Elle jugea dans sa réponse:

1. Qu'il est conforme aux principes du droit des gens qu'un bâtiment autorisé, selon les usages de la cour ou de la nation à laquelle il appartient, à porter pavillon militaire, doit être envisagé dès lors comme un bâtiment ariné en guerre.

"2. Que ni la forme de ce bâtiment, ni sa destination antérieure, ni le nombre d'individus qui en composent l'équipage, ne peuvent plus altérer en lui cette qualité inhérente, pourvu que l'officier commandant soit de marine militaire."

Il n'existe, que nous sachions, aucun traité, ni aucun acte public dans lesquels ce principe proclamé par la Russie ait été sanctionné depuis; mais il l'est incontestablement par la coutumie générale.1

The established practice of maritime nations, including the United Règles internationales et diplomatie de la mer, (4th edition,) vol. i, pp. 181, 185. H. Ex. 324- -3

States and Great Britain, accords with the foregoing statements of Ortolan.1

[21]

ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES.-"WHAT IS DUE DILI-
GENCE?"

What is due dili gence?

Passing from the question, what classes of acts a neutral power is bound to use due diligence to prevent, to the further question, what is due diligence, Her Majesty's government finds that "these words are not regarded by the United States as changing, in any respect, the obligations of a neutral regarding the matters referred to in the rules, as those obligations were imposed by the principles of international law existing before the conclusion of the treaty." Her Majesty's government concurs with that of the United States in holding that the words "due diligence" introduce no new or additional obligation. They exact from the neutral, in the discharge of the duties imposed on him, that measure of care, and no other, which is required by the ordinary principles of international jurisprudence, and the absence of which constitutes negligence.

Her Majesty's government will not follow the Government of the United States through the observations which it has presented to the arbitrators on the nature and degrees of negligence, but will notice only the definition which, at the close of those observations, it has attempted to supply:

The United States understand that the diligence which is called for by the rules of the treaty of Washington is a due diligence; that is, a diligence proportioned to the magnitude of the subject, and to the dignity and strength of the power which is to exercise it; a diligence which shall, by the use of active vigilance, and of all the other means in the power of the neutral, through all stages of the transaction, prevent its soil from being violated; a diligence that shall in like manner deter designing men from committing acts of war upon the soil of the neutral against its will, and thus possibly dragging it into a war which it would avoid; a diligence which prompts the

The general immunity of public ships of war from any foreign jurisdiction, civil or criminal, is thus stated in a work of acknowledged authority, (Kent's Commentaries on American Law, vol. I, p. 155:) "This right of search is confined to private merchantvessels, and does not apply to public ships of war. Their immunity from the exercise of any civil or criminal jurisdiction but that of the sovereign power to which they belong is uniformly asserted, claimed, and conceded. A contrary doctrine is not to be found in any jurist or writer on the law of nations, or admitted in any treaty, and every act to the contrary has been promptly met and condemned." So Wheaton, Elements of International Law, p. 151, ed. 1836: "If there be no express prohibition, the ports of a friendly state are considered as open to the public armed and commissioned ships belonging to another nation with whom that state is at peace. Such ships are exempt from the jurisdiction of the local tribunals and authorities, whether they enter the ports under the license implied from the absence of any prohibition, or under an express permission stipulated by treaty." The principle of the rule was laid down by Chief Justice Marshall, delivering the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the Exchange, a vessel belonging to an American citizen, which had been seized in a Spanish port by the French government and converted into a public ship of war, and which her original owner afterward attempted to reclaim on her arrival at Philadelphia. After observing that private persons entering a foreign country are not exempt from the local jurisdiction, the Chief Justice proceeded: "But the situation of a public ship is in many respects different. She constitutes a part of the military force of her nation, acts under the immediate and direct command of her sovereign, is employed by him in national objects. He has many and powerful motives for preventing those objects from being defeated by the interference of a foreign state. Such interference cannot take place without seriously affecting his power and dignity. The implied license, therefore, under which such vessel enters a friendly port may reasonably be construed, and, it seems to the court, ought to be construed as containing an exemption from the jurisdiction of the sovereign within whose territory she claims the rites of hospitality." (Cranch's Reports, vol. vii, p. 135.) The rule was also affirmed by Mr. Justice Story, one of the greatest jurists who ever adorned the United States, in the case of the Santissima Trinidad. It is assumed in Mr. Cushing's opinion referred to above, (p. 16,) in the case of the Sitka.

2 Case of the United States, p. 21.

neutral to the most energetic measures to discover any purpose of doing the acts forbidden by its good faith as a neutral, and imposes upon it the obligation, when it receives the knowledge of an intention to commit such acts, to use all the means in its power to prevent it.'

Her Majesty's government has been unable to collect from this definition the information which it is doubtless intended to convey. It may readily be conceded that the care exerted by a government to prevent violations of its neutrality should bear some proportion to the probable consequences of such offenses. It may be conceded also that the responsibility incurred by failing to prevent an offense must materially depend on the power which the government possessed of preventing it. So far as this, the British government concurs with the Government of the United States. But Her Majesty's government cannot admit that the measure of diligence due from neutral powers ought to be proportioned in any way to their relative degrees of dignity; it knows of no distinction between more dignified and less dignified powers; it regards all sovereign states as enjoying equal rights and equally subject to all ordinary international obligations; and it is firmly persuaded that there is no state in Europe or America which would be willing to claim or accept any immunity in this respect on the ground of its inferiority to others in extent, military force, or population. In truth, the arbitrators will have clearly perceived, from this statement already presented to them on the part of Great Britain, that in a country which, with free ⚫ institutions, possesses a large commercial marine and a very extensive ship-building trade, the difficulty of preventing enterprises of this nåture is, instead of being less, far greater than in countries which are not so populous and where these conditions are not united; and just allowance ought to be made for this difficulty. The assertion that due diligence means a diligence which shall prevent the acts in question, and shall deter men from committing them, if taken literally, can only signify that no government can be held to have done its duty which has not been completely successful. Of all the powers in the world, such a test would most severely condemn the Government of the United States. If not taken literally, it can contribute nothing to a serious discussion. It has been shown, by ample evidence, in the case presented on the part of Great Britain, that the measures adopted by the British government did prevent and deter men from enterprises which would have violated or imperilled her neutrality; all that the United States have to complain of is, that these measures proved ineffectual to prevent or deter,

in a very small number of cases, in which the agents contrived [22] to escape observation, *or the difficulty of obtaining evidence

was great. That due diligence requires a government to use all the means in its power, is a proposition true in one sense, false in another: true, if it means that the government is bound to exert honestly and with reasonable care and activity the means at its disposal; false, impracticable, and absurd, if it means that a liability arises whenever it is possible to show that an hour has been lost which might have been gained, or an accidental delay incurred which might, by the utmost foresight, have been prevented; that an expedient which might have succeeded has not been tried; that means of obtaining informamation which are deemed unworthy or improper have not been resorted to; or that the exertions of an officer or servant of government have not been taxed to the utmost limit of his physical capacity.

Nor can we fail to observe that, in proportion as we extend the duty of prevention incumbent on neutral governments, from hostile enterprises which are open and flagrant to acts of a more doubtful character which

1 Case of the United States, p. 158.

border on the line betwixt the lawful and the unlawful, it becomes more and more difficult to exact from the neutral, in the performance of that duty, peculiar and extraordinary vigilance and activity. The duty of preventing the open assembling within neutral territory of an armed hostile expedition against a neighboring country is plain and obvious, and requires only a prompt exercise of adequate force. But it is otherwise when we come to acts of a different class, the criminality of which depends on a latent intention; such, for example, as the mere procuring for belligerent purposes from the yards of a neutral ship-builder, whose ordinary business it is to build ships of all kinds for customers of all nations, a vessel with some special adaptation for war. There is nothing in the relation of a neutral to a belligerent to cast on the former the duty of exercising, within his own territory, a constant and minute espionage over ordinary transactions of commerce for the protection of the latter. This relation, always onerous to the neutral, is, at the same time, it must be remembered, purely involuntary on his part. It is forced on him by the quarrels of his neighbors, in which he has no concern, or by their internal discords, when those discords break out into civil war.

Her Majesty's government has not attempted a task which has baffled, as it believes, the ingenuity of jurists of all times and countriesthat of defining with any approach to precision, apart from the circumstances of any particular case, what shall be deemed due diligence or reasonable care. In its case, already presented to the tribunal, it has stated some general propositions, which it believes to be consonant with justice, and supported by such analogies as may be fairly drawn from the private law of Europe and America. It leaves it, however, to the arbitrators, who know what are the ordinary powers of governments, what the difficulties they labor under, and what may reasonably and wisely be expected from them, to determine, upon a careful consideration of the facts, and on the same principles by which the states to which they themselves belong would be willing to be judged, whether on the part of Great Britain there has or has not been that want of due care or diligence which makes reparation a duty.2

On the question, in what cases and within what limits compensation in money may reasonably be deemed due from a neutral nation for injuries occasioned by such a want of care, Her Majesty's government will here only say, that the position of Great Britain appears to be misapprehended by the United States, and that the two decisions of an American court cited in the case have no bearing upon it.3 Such a question, it is evident, is not within the cognizance of any municipal tribunal, however respectable; and no municipal tribunal has attempted to pronounce judgment on it. The Supreme Court of the United States, in the cases cited, decided only that of two armed vessels one had been unlawfully fitted out, while the other had received an unlawful augmentation of force, within the jurisdiction of the United States, and that prizes taken by each and brought within the jurisdiction of the United States ought to be restored.

The arbitrators will now be in a situation to judge what value to attribute to the assertion, "that the principles for which the United States

1Case of Great Britain, p. 24, propositions 9, 10, 11; and pp. 166, 167.

2" Du reste," says a distinguished French jurist, treating of this subject in connection with private law, "du reste, soit qu'il s'agisse d'une obligation de donner ou de faire, la protestation des fautes est, dans la pratique, à peine une question de droit. Le point de fait y est toujours dominant, quand il n'y est pas tout."-Larombière, Théorie et pratique des obligations, vol. i, p. 417.

The Santissima Trinidad and the Gran Para. Case of the United States, p. 206.

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