Here again our way is clear. American principle and practice have settled this question also. Wheaton commences his statement of the Law of Contraband by saying, “The general freedom of neutral commerce with the respective belligerent powers is subject to some exceptions. _Among these is the trade with the enemy_ in certain articles called contraband of war.”[100] It will be perceived that the trade must be _with the enemy_, not with the neutral. And here the author followed the suggestions of reason and the voice of American treaties. In the celebrated treaty with Great Britain negotiated by John Jay in 1794, after an enumeration of contraband articles, it is expressly said, “And all the above articles are hereby declared to be just objects of confiscation, _whenever they are attempted to be carried to an enemy_.”[101] Of course, when on the way to neutrals, they are free. And the early treaties negotiated by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams are in similar spirit; and in precisely the same sense is the treaty with Prussia in 1828, which in its twelfth article revives the thirteenth article of our treaty with that same power in 1799, by which contraband is declared to be detainable _only when carried to an enemy_. Even if this rule were of doubtful authority with regard to articles of acknowledged contraband, it is positive with regard to despatches, which, as we have already seen, are among “merchandises and _things_” declared free; with regard to which our early treaties secured the greatest latitude. Nothing can be broader than the words in the treaty of 1778 with France:-- “So that they may be transported and carried _in the freest manner_ by the subjects of both confederates, even to places belonging to an enemy, such towns or places being only excepted as are at that time besieged, blocked up, or invested.”[102] But the provision in the treaty with the Netherlands of 1782 is equally broad:-- “So that all _effects_ and merchandises which are not expressly before named may, _without any exception and in perfect liberty_, be transported by the subjects and inhabitants of both allies from and to places belonging to the enemy, excepting only the places which at the same time shall be besieged, blocked, or invested; and those places only shall be held for such which are surrounded nearly by some of the belligerent powers.”[103]