on the coast of the United States had 26 armed ships which preyed on Portuguese commerce, and a week ago three armed ships of this kind were in that port waiting for a favorable occasion for sailing on a cruise.' "In June, 1820, the Portuguese minister complains that a Portuguese prize had been sold by auction at Baltimore to Captain Chase, (a notorious privateersman,) and was to be immediately fitted out as a privateer to cruise against the Portuguese Indiamen. "In July of the same year, the Portuguese minister sends a list of 'the names and value of 19 Portuguese ships and their cargoes, taken by private armed ships, fitted in the ports of the Union, by citizens of those States. His Sovereign wishes the affair to be treated with that candor and conciliating dignified spirit which becomes two powers who feel a mutual esteem and have a proper sense of their moral integrity. In this spirit I have the honor to propose to this government to appoint commissioners on their side, with full powers to confer and agree with his Majesty's ministers on what reason and justice demand.' "In December, 1820, the Chevalier Amado Grehon transmitted to Mr. Adams a copy of 12 claims, with the value of the ships, desiring him to add them to the list furnished by the Chevalier Correa de Serra. "In April, 1822, the same minister repeats the proposal made in July, 1820, 'of having recourse to commissaries chosen by both governments for the purpose of arranging the indemnities justly due to Portuguese citizens for the damage which they have sustained by reason of piracies supported by the capital and the means of citizens of the United States; an essential condition which, in this way repairing the past, secures also the future.' "On the 25th of May, 1850, the chargé d'affaires of Portugal, writing to the Secretary of State of the United States, declares, 'The undersigned is authorized to come to an understanding with the new Secretary of State upon the subject, and to submit the voluminous documents and papers in his possession to the joint examination and decision of the commissioners or arbitrators appointed by the American government on the one part, and the undersigned on behalf of her Majesty's government on the other,' &c. "Having thus related the complaints of the Portuguese government during the years which elapsed from 1816 to 1822, and from 1822 to 1850, I will now give from the organs of the United States the answers which that government gave to these solemn and reiterated complaints. "In March, 1817, the Secretary of State transmitted to the Portuguese minister at Washington an act of Congress, passed on the 3d of that month, to preserve more effectually the neutral relations of the United States. On the 14th of March, 1818, in answer to a letter complaining of the capture of three Portuguese ships by privateers, Mr. Adams says: "The government of the United States having used all the means in its power to prevent the fitting out and arming of vessels in their ports to cruise against any nation with whom they are at peace, and having faithfully carried into execution the laws enacted to preserve inviolate the neutral and pacific obligations of this Union, cannot consider itself bound to indemnify individual foreigners for losses by captures, over which the United States have neither control nor jurisdiction. For such events no nation can in principle, nor does in practice, hold itself responsible. A decisive reason for this, if there were no other, is the inability to provide à tribunal before which the facts can be proved. "The documents to which you refer must of course be ex parte statements, which in Portugal or in Brazil, as well as in this country, could only serve as a foundation for actions in damages, or for the prosecution and trial of the persons supposed to have committed the depredations and outrages alleged in them. Should the parties come within the jurisdiction of the United States, there are courts of admiralty competent to ascertain the facts upon litigation between them, to punish the outrages which may be duly proved, and to restore the property to its rightful owners should it also be brought within our jurisdiction, and found, upon judicial inquiry, to have been taken in the manner represented by your letter. By the universal law of nations the obligations of the American government extend no further.' "The Secretary of State in subsequent letters promises to prosecute in the United States courts persons chargeable with a violation of the laws of the United States in fitting out and arming a vessel within the United States for the purpose of cruising against the subjects of the Queen of Portugal. "To the proposal to appoint commissioners, made in July, 1820, the United States Secretary of State, on the 30th of September of the same year, replies as follows: "The proposal contained in your note of the 16th of July last has been considered by the President of the United States with all the deliberation due to the friendly relations subsisting between the United States and Portugal, and with the disposition to manifest the undeviating principle of justice by which this government is animated in its intercourse with all foreign governments, and particularly with yours. I am directed by him to inform you that the appointment of commissioners to confer and agree with the ministers of his most faithful Majesty upon the subject to which your letter relates, would not be consistent either with the Constitution of the United States nor with any practice usual among civilized nations.' "He proceeds to say: "If any Portuguese subject has suffered wrong by the act of any citizen of the United States within their jurisdiction, it is before those tribunals that the remedy is to be sought and obtained. For any acts of citizens of the United States committed out of their jurisdiction and beyond their control, the government of the United States is not responsible. To the war in South America, to which Portugal has for several years been a party, the duty and the policy of the United States has been to observe a perfect and impartial neutrality.' The same reply is again given to Chevalier Amado Grehon in a letter dated the 30th of April, 1822: "I am at the same time directed to state that the proposition of the Chevalier Correa de Serra, in his note of the 16th of July, 1820, for the appointment of commissaries chosen by both governments to arrange indemnities claimed by Portuguese citizens for damages stated by them to have been sustained by reason of piracies supported by the capital and means of citizens of the United States, cannot be acceded to. It is a prineiple well known and well understood that no nation is responsible to another for the acts of its citizens, committed without its jurisdiction and out of the reach of its control.' "The policy of the United States is further explained in a dispatch of Mr. Secretary Adams to General Dearborn, dated the 25th of June, 1822. It is there set forth that in the critical state of the relations of the two countries it is necessary to employ the agency of a person fully qualified to represent the interests of the United States. It is affirmed that whenever Portuguese captured vessels have been brought within the jurisdiction of the United States, decrees of restitution have been pronounced. "In referring, however, to the list of captures, and the demand of a joint commission to determine and assess the damages to be paid by the United States, the former refusal was thus repeated: As there was no precedent for the appointment of such a commission under such circumstances, and as not a single capture had been alleged for which the United States were justly responsible, this proposal was of course denied; and nothing further was heard upon the subject until the 1st of April last, when a note was received from the present chargé d'affaires of Portugal, leading to a correspondence, copies of which are now furnished you.' "The correspondence seems not to have been resumed till 1850, when, as has been shown, the demand for a commission was repeated. The Secretary of State of the United States thereupon gave this summary and final answer, dated May 30, 1850: "The undersigned is surprised at the reappearance of these absolute reclamations, accompanied by the renewal of the ancient proposition to appoint a joint commission to determine and assess damages, a proposition which was rejected at the time upon substantial grounds; and without the minister's assurance to that effect, the undersigned would not have supposed it credible that Portugal seriously cherished any intention to revive them. In reply, therefore, to the note which the minister of her most faithful Majesty has presented in the name of his government, the undersigned must now, by the President's order, inform him that he declines reopening the proffered disenssion.' "This dispatch is signed 'John M. Clayton.' "A long and able dispatch of the Portuguese minister at Washington, recapitulating all the grievances of Portugal, dated November 7, 1850, does not appear to have received an answer." After the close of the war between Spain and Portugal, Brazil and the South American provinces, the foreign enlistment act seems not to have been called into requisition in any prominent case until 1848, when the United States prohibited a ship of war, purchased for the German fleet during the war with Denmark, from sailing from New York except under the bond required by the act of 1818. Annual Register, In 1850 a remarkable instance was afforded of the manner in which the foreign enlistment act could openly be defied, when the sympathies of the American people were in favor of the offenders, in the expedition against Cuba under Lopez. Lopez had been for some time preparing an expedition for the invasion of Cuba, and on the 7th of May, 1850, left New Orleans in a steamer 1850. with about 500 men, accompanied by two other vessels, and on the 17th landed at Cardenas, a small town on the northwest side of the island. Lopez occupied the town; but shortly afterwards troops arrived from Havana, and he was compelled to re-embark, and escaped to Savannah. On the 27th of May Lopez was arrested, (see Judge Betts's charge in Memoir of Lopez the Times of the 13th of June, 1850,) but "no delay being granted by in the New York the district judge to procure evidence against him, he was discharged, Herald, quoted in ber, 1851. the Chronicle of amid the cheers of a large crowd. On the 15th of July, 42 of the connthe 23d of Septem- try prisoners (passengers) were liberated by the Spanish authorities, and were taken to Pensacola by the United States ship Albany. Ten of them were retained for trial. On the 21st of July the grand jury of the United States district court at New Orleans found a true bill against Lopez and 15 others for violating the act of 1818. The government failed in making out its case against one or two of the parties, and finally abandoned the prosecution." 1851. 1851. * * * President's mes Undeterred by the failure of the first expedition, Lopez at once set to sage, December 1, work to organize another, in which he was "countenanced, aided, and joined by citizens of the United States." "Very early in the Annual Register, morning of the 3d of August, 1851, a steamer called the Pampero departed from New Orleans for Cuba, having on board upwards of 400 armed men, with evident intentions to make war upon the authorities of that island." The United States government having received intelligence that such designs were entertained, had issued a proclamation warning American citizens of their unlawful character, and had also given instructions to the proper officers of the United States. However, in spite of these measures, the steamer in which the fillibusters were embarked "left New Orleans stealthily and without a clearance, and, after touching at Key West, proceeded to the coast of Cuba." The expedition landed in Cuba on the 12th of August, and proved an entire failure. The Spanish troops defeated the invaders without difficulty, and either took prisoner or dispersed the whole body. Fifty of the prisoners were shot, and Lopez publicly executed at Havana. The intelligence of the execution of Lopez and the prisoners, 40 of whom are stated to have been Americans, produced a great excitement in the United States. A riot took place at New Orleans, in which the Spanish consulate was sacked; mass meetings were held at the principal cities for the purpose of denouncing the conduct of the Cuban authorities, and further expeditions projected. The Spanish government, however, released and sent back to the United States a number of prisoners, who complained bitterly of having been deceived by Lopez by exaggerated accounts of the condition of affairs in Cuba; and the public feeling in the United States gradually cooled down, without any more attempts being made against the island. In 1855 the Maury was detained at New York on the information of her Majesty's consul that she was intended for a Russian privateer. The evidence, however, failed, and Sir Joseph Crampton, her Majesty's minister, withdrawing the charge against her, the Maury sailed, and nothing more was heard of the matter. It was supposed that she really was intended for a privateer to act in the China seas, but that the peace of 1856 prevented her from being thus used. The expeditions of Miranda in 1806, and of Lopez in 1850 and 1851, were rivaled in flagrant violation of the foreign enlistment act by the proceedings of Walker and the Central American fillibusters in 1857, 1858, 1859. The disturbed state of the Central American republics, especially Nicaragua, rendered them a tempting prey to such adventurers, and in November, 1857, it was notorious that Walker was fitting out a fillibustering expedition. On the 10th of that month he was arrested at New Orleans and held to bail in $2,000 (about £400) to appear on the 11th for examination, on a charge of infringing the act of 1818. On the morning of the 11th, however, he embarked with 300 unarmed followers for Mobile, where the party were met by a steamer called the Fashion, with 50 recruits on board, and set sail, as was supposed, for Central America. The United States government gave orders for them to be pursued, and Commodore Paulding succeeded in arresting Walker. In reporting these occurrences, Lord Napier, then her Majesty's minParliamentary Paper correspond. ister at Washington, states, "I believe that the President and General ence respecting Cass sincerely deprecate and regret the present attempt to invade the Central America, peace of Central America." (Lord Napier to the Earl of Clarendon, No1856-60. Present- vember 16, 1857.) ed 1860, page 67. It does not appear whether Walker was brought to trial for this offense, but if so the proceedings could not have been very efficacious, as in the following year he renewed his preparations for an expedition on a larger scale, and on the 30th of October, 1858, President Buchanan issued a proclamation: "Whereas Ibid., p. 136. information has reached me, from sources which I cannot disregard, that certain persons, in violation of the neutrality laws of the United States, are making a third attempt to set on foot a military expedition within their territory against Nicaragua, a foreign state with which they are at peace." "From these circum stances the inference is irresistible that persons engaged in this expedition will leave the United States with hostile purposes against Nicaragua. They cannot, under the guise which they have assumed that they are peaceful emigrants, conceal their real intentions, and especially when they know, in advance, that their landing will be resisted, and can only be accomplished by an overpowering force. This expedient was successfully resorted to previous to the last expedition, and the vessel in which those composing it were conveyed to Nicaragua obtained a clearance from the collector of the port of Mobile. Although, after a careful examination, no arms or munitions of war were discovered, yet, when they arrived in Nicaragua, they were found to be armed and equipped, and immediately commenced hostilities. "The leaders of former illegal expeditions of the same character have openly expressed their intention to renew hostilities against Nicaragua One of them, who has already been twice expelled from Nicaragua, has invited, through the public newspapers, American citizens to emigrate to that republic, and has designated Mobile as the place of rendezvous and departure, and San Juan del Norte as the port to which they are bound. This person, who has renounced his allegiance to the United States, and claims to be President of Nicaragua, has given notice to the master of the port of Mobile that 200 or 300 of these emigrants will be prepared to embark from that port about the middle of November," &c., &c. Notwithstanding this proclamation, the fillibusters succeeded in sailing Ibid., p. 163. from Mobile on the 7th of December, 1858, in the "Susan," without a clearance. A revenue cutter attempted to stop her, but was forcibly resisted. Two other vessels, the "Fashion" and the "Washington," with military stores, afterwards joined the "Susan," but the expedition broke down in consequence of the "Susan" being wrecked. Walker and his followers then proceeded to California by the Isthmus of Panama, whence they intended to make a descent on Punta Arenas. This attempt was not carried into execution, and Walker returned to Louisiana and organized a further expedition. The United States governmeut gave directions to stop it, and concerted measures with the British and French governments to prevent any such expeditions landing on the coasts of Central America. Moreover, 150 of the men concerned in the last attempt were arrested at New Orleans. Nevertheless, Walker eluded the vigilance of the authorities, and again Ibid., pp. 296, 297. escaped without a clearance in the "Fashion" from Mobile, in Novem ber, 1859, having deceived the collector of customs by applying for a clearance, which the collector refused, for another steamer called the "Philadelphia." At the same time a large force of fillibusters are stated to have got away from Charleston, Mobile, and other ports, by means of false papers and other similar devices. In June, 1860, Walker, with a party of American fillibusters, is reported Ibid., p. 328. to have arrived at the Bay islands in the "John A. Taylor." Walker's career was eventually brought to a close by his being shot at Truxillo, September, 1860. On the 6th of June, 1866, the President published a proclamation warning United States citizens against engaging in an apprehended expedition against Canada, (the Fenian raid,) and on the 5th of June the Attorney General instructed the district attorneys and marshals to arrest "all prominent, leading, or conspicuous persons called 'Fenians' whom they had probable cause to believe have been or may be guilty of violations of the neutrality laws." Some prosecutions were subsequently instituted against certain of the Fenian leaders, but abandoned. In 1866 a resolution was adopted by the House of Representatives which resulted in an inquiry by the Committee of Foreign Affairs into the operation of the foreign enlistment act of 1818; and in July, General Banks presented the report of the committee, with a draft of a bill by which it was proposed to alter the provisions of that act. The principal alterations proposed were the omission of sec- Mr. Bemis's tion 4, (the clause forbidding the fitting out of privateers in foreign ports pamphlet "Amer to cruise against American commerce,) sections 6, and part of 8, (giving 1866. ican Neutrality," the President power to stop military expeditions,) and sections 10 and 11, the bonding clauses. The intention of this draft bill was to make the American act correspond with the British act, or, as was said at the time, to "scale down" the one to the proportions of the other. The report of the committee called forth a pamphlet by Mr. Bemis, in which he shows how inexpedient and impolitic the proposed alterations would have been, and compares the amended act with the British statute. Copies of this pamphlet have been circulated among the commissioners. Congress adjourned shortly after this report was presented and had been referred to the Senate, and in March, 1867, the Senate Committee of Foreign Affairs were "discharged from further consideration" of the bill. In the mean while, a case had been brought before the district court New York Herat New York, in which the act of 1818 was enforced against a vessel ald, March 1, 1867. alleged to be intended for the Chilian service in the war between Chili and Spain. This vessel, the Meteor, had been built as a ship of war for sale to the United States government, but the civil war having terminated, the sale was not effected. She was acknowledged to have been built to carry 11 or 12 guns, and the negotiations of the agent of the owners for her sale to the Chilian government were shown by conclusive evidence. "The World," The vessel was libeled in the district court in February, 1866, but ber. vember 30, 1866. In the elaborate judgment then delivered, the standard decisions of the Supreme Court are reviewed at length. The following are some of the more important passages: "The crime denounced is fitting-out or arming. "It was strenuously urged by the counsel for the claimant, on the hearing, that the only crime created by the third section of the act of 1818 is the crime of fitting-out and arming a vessel with the intent named in the statute; and that, although the attempt to commit that crime, or the procuring that crime to be committed, or the being knowingly concerned in committing that crime, is punishable under the statute, yet the body of the crime is the fitting-out and arming, and nothing short of that is punishable under the statute, either against the wrong doer personally, or against the offending res; and the interpretation sought to be put by the counsel upon these words of the statute, 'or shall knowingly be concerned in the furnishing, fitting-out, or arming of any ship or vessel, with intent,' &c., is that it is not necessary to the criminality of the individual that he should have performed every part of the crime, but it is enough if he was knowingly concerned in any one step in the chain of conduct which completed the criminality, or would have completed it if carried out, but still the crime must be the crime of fitting-out and arming, either completed or attempted. But the court cannot adopt this interpretation of the statute. The mischief against which the statute intended to guard was not merely preventing the departure from the United States of an armed vessel, but the departure of any vessel intended to be employed in the service of any foreign power, to cruise or commit hostilities against any other foreign power with whom the United States are at peace. The neutrality of the government of the United States, in a war between two foreign powers, would be violated quite as much by allowing the departure from its ports of an unarmed vessel with the clear intent to cruise or commit hostilities against one of the belligerents, as it would be by permitting the departure from its ports of an armed vessel with such intent. If the intent to cruise or commit hostilities exists when the vessel departs, and the vessel is one adapted to the purpose, the subsequent arming is a very easy matter. The facility with which this can be done was made manifest in the case of the Shenandoah and other vessels, which, during the late rebellion, left England unarmed, but with the full intent on the part of those who sent them forth that they should be used to cruise and commit hostilities against the United States, and were subsequently armed in neutral waters. It would be a very forced interpretation of the statute to say that it was not an offense against it to knowingly fit out a vessel with everything necessary to make her an effective cruiser, except her arms, and with the intent that she should become such a cruiser, because it should not be shown that there was any intent that she should be armed within the United States. The evil consequences which would flow from interpreting the statute to mean that the crime must include the arming of the vessel within the United States, become especially apparent in reference to that part of the third section which forbids the issuing or delivering a commission, within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States, for any ship or vessel, to the intent that she may be employed for the purpose named in the section. Under such an interpretation of the statute it would be no offense to issue or deliver a commission within the United States for any vessel, unless such vessel were actually armed at the time, or perhaps were intended to be armed prior to her departure from the United States; and it would be no offense to issue a commission within the United United States for a vessel fitted and equipped to cruise or commit hostilities, and intended to cruise and commit hostilities, so long as such vessel was not armed at the time, and was not intended to be armed within the United States, although it could be shown that a clear intent existed on the part of the person issuing or delivering the commission, that the vessel should receive her armament the moment she should be beyond the jurisdiction of the United States." "THE SANTISSIMA TRINIDAD CASE. "Much reliance was placed by the counsel for the claim, in his summing up, upon the doctrine supposed by him to have been laid down by the Supreme Court in the case of the Santissima Trinidad. That doctrine was stated by the counsel in various forms, but the principle contended for was, that freedom of commerce is allowed to a neutral to furnish to a belligerent warlike materials or warlike vessels as articles of merchandise or traffic; that, while the principle of the law of nations is recognized which prohibits neutral territory from being used by either belligerent as a vantage ground from which he may sally forth to commit hostilities upon the other belligerent, yet the right of citizens of the neutral country to sell all that their industry produces for purposes of war, as fair matter of trade, to any belligerent, cannot be interfered with; that it is no offense and no violation of neutrality to sell a vessel of war, armed or not armed, in our ports, to a belligerent power; and that there is the same right, under the law of nations, to sell in our ports an armed vessel, under such circumstances, that there is to sell guns or |