“But there existed a war between the parent state and her colony. It was not only a fact of the most universal notoriety, but officially notified in the gazettes of the United States.… Here, then, was notice of the existence of war, and an assertion of the rights consequent upon it. The object of the measure was … solely the reduction of an enemy. _It was, therefore, not merely municipal, but belligerent, in its nature and object._”[10] Although the conclusion of the Court in this case was afterwards reversed, yet nothing occurred to modify the judgment on the principles now in question; so that the case remains authority for double proceedings, municipal and belligerent. On a similar state of facts, arising from the efforts of France to suppress the insurrection in San Domingo, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania asserted the same principle; and here we find the eminent Chief-Justice Tilghman--one of the best authorities of the American bench--giving to it the weight of his enlightened judgment. These are his words:-- “We are not at liberty to consider the island in any other light than as part of the dominions of the French Republic. _But supposing it to be so, the Republic is possessed of belligerent rights.…_ “Although the French Government, from motives of policy, might not choose to make mention of war, yet it does not follow that it might not avail itself of all rights to which by the Law of Nations it was entitled in the existing circumstances.… This was the course pursued by Great Britain in the Revolutionary War with the United States.… Considering the words of the _arrêté_, and the circumstances under which it was made, it ought not to be understood simply as a municipal regulation, but a municipal regulation connected with _a state of war_ with revolted subjects.”[11] The principle embodied in these cases is accurately stated by a recent text-writer as follows. “A sovereign nation, engaged in the duty of suppressing an insurrection of its citizens, may, with entire consistency, act in the twofold capacity of sovereign and belligerent, according to the several measures resorted to for the accomplishment of its purpose. By inflicting, through its agent, the judiciary, the penalty which the law affixes to the capital crimes of treason and piracy, … it acts in its capacity as a sovereign, and its courts are but enforcing its municipal regulations. By instituting a blockade of the ports of its rebellious subjects, … the nation is exercising the right of a belligerent, and its courts, in their adjudications upon the captures made in the enforcement of this measure, are organized as Courts of Prize, governed by and administering the Law of Nations.”[12]