Of course, the general principle of International Law applicable to such an incident is beyond question. It is found in the authoritative words of the Dutch publicist, Bynkershoek, when he says, “Certainly it is by no means lawful to attack or take an enemy in the port of a neutral who is in amity with both parties.”[2] Chancellor Kent, a great authority, enforces the same principle, when he says, “It is not lawful to make neutral territory the scene of hostility, or to attack an enemy while within it.”[3] General Halleck, in his excellent work on International Law, says: “Hostilities cannot be lawfully exercised within the territorial jurisdiction of the neutral state which is the common friend of both parties.” And he follows this compendious statement with the remark, that “the Government of the United States has invariably claimed the absolute inviolability of neutral territory.”[4] As early as 1793, our Government gave its adhesion to this principle in a case where Great Britain and France were the hostile parties. The British merchant-ship Grange was captured in Delaware Bay by a French frigate, and brought into Philadelphia, to which port she was bound. Mr. Jefferson, in a gossiping letter to Mr. Monroe, under date of May 5, 1793, says: “Upon her coming into sight, thousands and thousands of the yeomanry of the city crowded and covered the wharves. Never before was such a crowd seen there; and when the British colors were seen reversed, and the French flying above them, they burst into peals of exultation.”[5] The British minister, addressing himself at once to our Government, demanded restitution of the captured vessel, then within our jurisdiction. The French minister insisted that Delaware Bay was an open sea, so that the original capture was lawful. _But the ship was restored._ Washington was at the time President, and Jefferson Secretary of State. It is not known that there was any appearance in the prize court with reference to the Grange. It was settled by diplomacy, as will be seen by a formal letter of the Secretary of State addressed to the French minister, where he says: “I am charged by the President of the United States to express to you his expectation, and at the same time his confidence, that you will be pleased to take immediate and effectual measures for having the ship Grange and her cargo restored to the British owners, and the persons taken on board her set at liberty.”[6] The general principle illustrated by this striking case has been maintained by our Government ever since. If any reader is curious to see an elaborate vindication of it, I refer him to a very animated article in the “Boston Gazette” for 1814, transferred to “Niles’s Register,”[7] where the inviolability of neutral territory is upheld, especially against the open pretensions of Great Britain.