seas surrounding the British Isles, as far as Cape Finisterre to the south, and Vanstaten in Norway to the north. Driven from this lordly pretension, other pretensions, less local, but hardly less offensive, were avowed. The boast of “Britannia rules the waves” was practically adopted by British Prize Courts, and universal maritime rights were subjected to the special exigencies of British interests. In the consciousness of strength, and with an irresistible navy, this power has put chains upon the sea. The commerce of the United States, as it began to whiten the ocean, was cruelly decimated. American ships and cargoes, while, in the language of Earl Russell, “pursuing a lawful and innocent voyage,” suffered from British Prize Courts more than from rock or tempest. Shipwreck was less frequent than confiscation, and, when it came, was easier to bear. But the loss of property stung less than the outrage of impressment, by which foreigners, under protection of the American flag, and also American citizens, without any form of trial, and at the mere mandate of a navy officer, who for the moment acted as a judicial tribunal, were dragged from the deck which should have been to them a sacred altar. This outrage, insolently vindicated by the municipal claim of Great Britain to the services of her subjects, was enforced arrogantly and perpetually on the high seas, where Municipal Law is silent and International Law alone prevails. The belligerent right of search, derived from International Law, and justly applicable to enemy property or contraband only, and not to men, was employed for this purpose, and the quarter-deck of every English cruiser became a floating judgment-seat. The leading organ of opinion in England, on the morning after the news that the Rebels had been taken from a British ship, thus confessed the precedents of British history:-- “Unwelcome as the truth may be, it is nevertheless a truth, that we have ourselves established a system of International Law which now tells against us. In high-handed and almost despotic manner, we have, in former days, claimed privileges over neutrals which have at different times banded all the maritime powers of the world against us. _We have insisted even upon stopping the ships of war of neutral nations and taking British subjects out of them._”[39]