This general principle may seem at first view conclusive with regard to the Florida. If this vessel, now lying within the jurisdiction of the United States, were an ordinary private ship, cognizable in a prize court, or if it were still within the jurisdiction of Brazil, it might be so. But it remains to be seen whether there are not decisive considerations, _distinguishing this case from every other_, which will justify our Government, while recognizing the violation of Brazilian territory, and making all proper apologies, _at least in declining any restitution of the ship_. On this point it is not necessary to express an opinion. I began by allusion to the reckless judgments of British journals, tending to excite a cry against our country; and my present object will be accomplished, if I exhibit those _historic precedents_ which must close the British mouth, whenever it opens to condemn a capture like that of the Florida. 1. It was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth that England began to contest the supremacy of the seas; and it was in this same reign that this domineering power began those pretensions under which neutral rights of all kinds were set at nought. As early as 1567, Hawkins, fresh from a slave-trading voyage in the ship “Jesus,” fired at a Spanish ship in the harbor of Plymouth, and forced her to lower her flag. The Spanish ambassador said indignantly to Elizabeth: “Your mariners rob my master’s subjects on the sea; they plunder our people in the streets of your towns; _they attack our vessels in your very harbors_. I entreat your Majesty to punish this last outrage at Plymouth, and to preserve the peace between the two nations.”[8] Elizabeth gave a smooth answer, and that was all. 2. Not long afterwards Admiral Drake entered the harbor of Cadiz, where he scattered, sunk, and burned an immense fleet of Spanish transports, and then did the same thing in the harbor of Lisbon. There were apologies on the part of Elizabeth; Burleigh wrote a crafty letter; the Admiral was disavowed; but this was all.[9] Among the ships seized at Lisbon were no less than sixty belonging to the Hanse Towns. _These towns vainly demanded their restitution._ Philip of Spain, at that time sovereign of Portugal, was equally unsuccessful, although, by way of retaliation, he drove from Lisbon the factors of the Company of English Merchants.[10] Such are some of the earliest historic precedents. 3. In similar defiance of unquestionable right, the Dutch East India fleet, in 1665, which had put into Bergen in Norway, was attacked by the English in this neutral port. On this outrage Vattel remarks: “But the Governor of Bergen fired on the assailants, and the Court of Denmark complained, perhaps too faintly, of an enterprise so injurious to its dignity and its rights.”[11]