Even if Rebel Slavery, coagulated in embryo government, has arrived at that _semi_-sovereignty _de facto_ on the ocean which justifies belligerent rights, yet the Christian powers should indignantly decline to make the concession, because by doing so they make themselves accomplices in shameful crime. Here I avoid details. It is sufficient to say that every argument of fact and reason, every whisper of conscience and humanity, every indignant outburst of an honest man against recognition of Slavery as an independent power, is equally strong against any concession of ocean belligerence. Such concession is half-way house to recognition, and can be made only where a nation is ready, if the fact of independence be sufficiently established, to acknowledge it, on the principle of Vattel, that “whosoever has a right to the end has a right to the means.”[156] It is equally clear, that, where a nation, on grounds of conscience, must refuse recognition of independence, it cannot concede belligerence; for, _where the end is forbidden, the means must be forbidden also_. The illogical absurdity of such concession by Great Britain, so persistent always against Slavery, and now for more than a generation the declared protectress of the African race, becomes doubly apparent, when it is considered that every Rebel ship built in England and invested with ocean belligerence carries with it the Law of Slavery, so that, by British concession, the ship becomes an _extension_ of _Slave_ territory and a floating _Slave_ castle. And yet it is said that this impostor is entitled to ocean rights, and the British Queen is made to proclaim them. Sad day for England, when another wicked compromise was struck with Slavery, kindred to that old treaty which mantles the cheeks of honest Englishmen, when the slave-trade was protected and its profits secured to British subjects! I know not the profits secured by the destruction of American commerce, but I do know that the Treaty of Utrecht, crimson with the blood of slaves, is not so crimson as that reckless proclamation which gave to Slavery a frantic life, and helped for a time, nay, still helps, this demon in the rage with which it battles against Human Rights. Such a ship, with the law of Slavery on its deck and the flag of Slavery at its mast-head, sailing for Slavery, fighting for Slavery, burning for Slavery, and knowing no other sovereignty than the pretended government of Rebel Slavery, can be nothing less in spirit and character than a slave pirate and the enemy of the human race. Like produces like, and the parent power, which is Slavery, must stamp itself upon the ship, making it a floating offence to Heaven, with no limit to its audacity,--wild, outrageous, impious, a monster of the deep, to be hunted down by all who have not forgotten their duty alike to God and man.