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

APPENDIX II. 179

This principle, the note adds, has recently been announced and adhered to by the British Prize Court in the case of the Zamora. It is manifest, therefore, that if Prize Courts are bound by the laws and regulations under which seizures and detentions are made, and which claimants allege are in contravention of the law of nations, those Courts are powerless to pass upon the real ground of complaint, or to give redress for wrongs of this nature. Nevertheless, it is seriously suggested that claimants are free to request the Prize Court to rule upon a claim of conflict between an Order in Council and a rule of international law. How can a tribunal fettered in its jurisdiction and procedure by municipal enactments declare itself emancipated from their restrictions, and at liberty to apply the rules of international law with freedom ? The very laws and regulations which bind the Court are now matters of dispute between the Government of the United States and that of His Britannic Majesty. If Great Britain followed, as she declares that she did, the course of first referring claimants to local remedies in cases arising out of American wars, it is presumed that she did so because of her knowledge or understanding that the United States had not sought to limit the jurisdiction of its Courts of Prize by instructions and regulations violative of the law and practice of nations, or open to such objection.

27. Your note of the Toth February states that His Majesty’s Government in the American Civil War :—

“In spite of remonstrances from many quarters, placed full reliance on the American Prize Courts to grant redress to the parties interested in cases of alleged wrongful capture by American ships of war, and put forward no claim until the opportunity for redress in those Courts had been exhausted.”

The Government of the United States recalls that, during the progress of that war, Great Britain in several instances demanded, through diplomatic channels, damages for seizures and detentions of British ships alleged to have been made