Such is unbroken testimony, in the most solemn form, to the policy of our Government. In some of the treaties the exception is simply “soldiers,” in others it is “officers or soldiers.” Observe, too, that every treaty testifies to the opinions of the Administration that negotiated it, and of at least two thirds of the Senate that ratified it,--so that this large number of treaties constitutes a mass of authority from which there can be no appeal, embracing all the great names of our history. It is true that among these treaties there is none with Great Britain; but it is also true that this is simply because our mother country refused assent, when this principle was presented as an undoubted part of International Law which our Government desired to confirm by treaty. Clearly and beyond all question, according to American principle and practice, the ship was not liable to capture on account of the presence of emissaries, “not soldiers or officers”; nor could such emissaries be legally taken from the ship. But the completeness of this authority is increased by the concurring testimony of the Continent of Europe. Since the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the policy of the Continental States has generally refused to sanction the removal of enemies from a neutral ship, unless military men in actual service. And now, since this debate has commenced, we have the positive testimony of the French Government to the same principle, given with special reference to the present case. M. Thouvenel, the Minister of the Emperor for Foreign Affairs, in a recent letter communicated to Mr. Seward, and published with the papers before the Senate, earnestly insists that the Rebel emissaries, not being military persons actually in the service of the enemy, were not subject to seizure on board a neutral ship.[91] I leave this question with the remark, that it is perhaps Great Britain alone whose position here can be brought into doubt. Originally a party to the Treaty of Utrecht, this imperial power soon saw that its provisions in favor of Maritime Rights interfered plainly with that dictatorship of the sea which Britannia was then grasping. Maritime Rights were repudiated, and her Admiralty Courts have ever since enforced this repudiation. * * * * *