District of Pennsylvania, to wit: ****** BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the eighth day of * Seal. October, in the thirty fifth year of the Independence of So the United States of America, A. D. 1810, Farrand and

Nicholas, of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors in the words following, to wit:

“A Treatise on the Law of War. Translated from the original

Latin of Cornelius Van Bynkershoek. Being the first book of
his Quæstiones Juris Publici. With Notes, by Peter Stephen
Du Ponceau, Counsellor at Law in the Supreme Court of the
United States of America. Ne fortior omnia possit.

Ovid ” In conformity to the act of the congress of the United States, intituled, “An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned.” And also to the act, entitled “An act supplementary to an act, entitled “ An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned," and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etehing historical and other prints."

D. CALDWELL,
Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania.

- TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Page

PREFACE ................ v

An account of the life and writings of the author ... xiji

A brief alphabetical notice of the several writers and works

on the civil law and the law of nations, not generally

known, and which are quoted or referred to in this book xxiii

2ņētiņ2ti2ÂòÂÂ 2Ò2Â?Â2âÒâm2/2 /2/2/\22\ti\/2/2/2/2/2/tititi?

in the notes . . . . . . .

XXXI

Table of reference, to enable the reader to find the pas-

sages quoted from the text of the civil law ... xxxiii

CHAPTER I.

Of War in general . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER II.

Of a declaration of war ............ 6

CHAPTER III.

Of War, considered as between enemies .......

CHAPTER IV.

Of the capture of movable property, and particularly of ships 27

CHAPTER V.

Of the recapture of movable property ....... 36

CHAPTER VI.

Of the possession of immovables taken in war ..45

CHAPTER VII.

Of the confiscation of the enemy's actions and credits .. 51

CHAPTER VIII.

Of hostilities in a neutral port or territory . . . . . . 58

CHAPTER IX.

Of Neutrality . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER X.

Of Contraband ................

CHAPTER XI.

Of Trade with blockaded and besieged places . . . . . 82

ta

Page

CHAPTER XII.

Of the mixture of lawful with contraband goods . . . . 93

CHAPTER XIII.

Of neutral goods found on board of the ships of enemies . 100

CHAPTER XIV.

Of enemy's goods found on board of neutral ships ... 106

CHAPTER XV.

Of the right of Postliminy on neutral territory .... 113

CHAPTER XVI.

Of the right of Postliminy, as applied to cities and states 122

CHAPTER XVII.

Of Pirates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of Privateers

Of Privateers ..

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

. CHAPTER XIX.

Of the responsibility of owners of privateers . . . . . 147

CHAPTER XX.

Of captures made by vessels not commissioned . ii155

CHAPTER XXI. .

Of insuring enemy's property ....... .. 163

CHAPTER XXII.

Of enlisting men in foreign countries, and incidentally, of

expatriation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

CHAPTER XXIII.

Of the right of the several provinces of the United Nether.

lands, to declare and make war . . . . . . . . 181

CHAPTER XXIV.

Of Reprisals ...... · · · ·

CHAPTER XXV.

Miscellaneous maxims and observations . . . .

-

PREFACÉ.

I HE following translation was made several years ago for my own private use, and without any intention of ever publishing it. But Mr. Hall, the editor of the American Law Journal, having expressed a wish to insert it in that valuable periodical work, I freely consented to it, having no other idea at the time but that it should appear there as an anonymous performance. The manuscript was accordingly handed over to the printers of the Journal, and the first ten chapters were printed off, without undergoing any other corrections but such as occurred in revising the proof sheets, to which I subjoined a few short notes as I went along. .

But while I was engaged in that occupation, I felt my ancient attachment to a favourite author revive; the subject grew upon me; I gave an attentive revisal to the remainder of the manuscript, and added to it a more copi. ous body of notes; and I now, with diffidence, venture to present the result of my labours in my name to my brethren of the American bar. It is, according to its first destination, published in and for the American Law Journal, and will be delivered to its subscribers as the third number of the third volume of that publication; but a sufficient number of copies will also be struck

off for such as may wish to possess it as a separate work.

I need not explain to those who are conversant with the works of my author, that his Quæstiones Juris Publici are divided into two parts, entirely distinct from and unconnected with each other, otherwise than by being published together under one title, and by their general relation to subjects of public law. The first part, De Re. bus Bellicis, treats exclusively of the law of war, and forms of itself a complete treatise on that particular subject. I have thought it best, therefore, to translate and publish it separately, under its appropriate title, A Treatise on the Law of War.

To expatiate on the merits of this excellent work would be useless. It is known and admired wherever the law of nations is acknowledged to have a binding force. Its authority is confessed in the cabinets of princes, as well as in the halls of courts of justice: to be unacquainted with it, is a disgrace to the lawyer and to the statesman. It ranks its author among the great masters of the law of nature and nations, with Grotius, Puffendorff, Wolffius, and Vattel. His range is not indeed so extensive as that of his illustrious colleagues; but he has more profoundly investigated and more copiously discussed than any of them the particular branch which he assigned to himself. .

It is extraordinary that a treatise, the merit of which is so generally acknowledged, has not as yet been translated into any of the modern languages (the Low Dutch excepted), and that the English, particularly, who profess to admire it so much, have not favoured the world with a good translation of it into our common idiom. For we cannot consider as such the incorrect and incompletę version which in the year 1759 was, by the help