“It is obvious, from the temper of the age, that the present is no safe time to assert and enforce pretensions on the part of belligerent powers affecting the interest of nations at peace, _unless such pretension are clearly justified by the Law of Nations_.… The stopping of neutral vessels upon the high seas, their forcible entrance, and the overhauling and examination of their cargoes, the seizure of their freight _at the will of a foreign officer_, the frequent interruption of their voyages by compelling them to change their destination in order to seek redress, and, _above all, the assumption of jurisdiction by a foreign armed party over what has been aptly termed the extension of the territory of an independent state, and with all the abuses which are so prone to accompany the exercise of unlimited power_, where responsibility is remote,--these are, indeed, serious ‘obstructions,’ little likely to be submitted to in the present state of the world, without a formidable effort to prevent them.”[59] Such is an authentic history of this British pretension, and of the manner in which it has been met by our Government. And now the special argument formerly employed by us against an intolerable pretension is invoked by Great Britain against the error of taking two Rebel emissaries from a British packet ship. If Captain Wilkes is right, then, throughout all these international debates, extending over at least two generations, have we been wrong. It is sometimes said, that the steam packet, having on board the Rebel emissaries, was on this account liable to capture, and therefore the error of Captain Wilkes in taking the emissaries was simply of form, and not of substance. I do not stop to consider whether an exercise of summary power, against which our nation has so constantly protested, can, under any circumstances, be an error of form merely; for the national policy, most positively declared in diplomacy, and also attested in numerous treaties, leaves small room to doubt that a neutral ship with enemy passengers, not in the military or naval service, is not liable to capture, and therefore the whole proceeding was wrong, not only because the passengers were taken from the ship, but also because the ship, howsoever guilty morally, was not guilty legally, in receiving such passengers on board. If this question were argued on English authorities, it might be otherwise; but according to American principles, the ship was legally innocent. Of course, I say nothing of the moral guilt which an indignant patriotism will find forever indelible in that ship.