Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

176 APPENDIX II.

sent on by sea or by inland transport is no ground for condemnation.”

In support of this announcement you referred to several decisions of British Prize Courts, among which an early one of 1801 held that goods shipped from London to Emden, thence inland or by canal to Amsterdam, then blockaded by sea, were not subject to condemnation for breach of blockade. (Jonge Peter, 4 C.R. 79.) This has been the rule for a century, so that it is scarcely necessary to recall that the Matamoras cases, well known to the British Government, support the same rule, that neutral ports may not be blockaded, though “ trade with unrestricted inland commerce between such a port and the enemy’s territory impairs undoubtedly, and very seriously impairs, the value of a blockade of the enemy’s coast.”

22. Without mentioning the other customary elements of a regularly imposed blockade, such as notification of the particular coast-line invested, the imposition of the penalty of confiscation, etc., which are lacking in the present British “ blockade ” policy, it need only be pointed out that, measured by the three universally conceded tests above set forth, the present British measures cannot be regarded as constituting a blockade in law, in practice, or in effect.

23. It is incumbent upon the United States Government, therefore, to give His Britannic Majesty’s Government notice that the blockade which they claim to have instituted under the Order in Council of the rrth March cannot be recognized as a legal blockade by the United States.

24. Since the Government of Great Britain has laid much emphasis on the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Springbok case, that goods of contraband character seized while going to the neutral port of Nassau, though actually bound for the blockaded ports of the South, were subject to condemnation, it is not inappropriate to direct attention to the British view of this case in England prior to the present war, as expressed by you in your instruc-