On the other hand, the effect of seizure of _public_ enemy vessels is their immediate and final appropriation. They may be either taken into a port or at once destroyed. All individuals on board become prisoners of war, although, if perchance there should be on board a private enemy individual of no importance, he would probably not be kept for long in captivity, but liberated in due time. As regards goods on captured public enemy vessels, there is no doubt that the effect of seizure is the immediate appropriation of such goods on the vessels concerned as are enemy property, and these goods may therefore be destroyed at once, if desirable. Should, however, neutral goods be on board a captured enemy public vessel, it is a moot point whether or no they share the fate of the captured ship. According to British practice they do, but according to American practice they do not.[366] [Footnote 366: See, on the one hand, the _Fanny_ (1814), 1 Dodson, 443, and, on the other, the _Nereide_ (1815), 9 Cranch, 388. See also below, § 424, p. 542 note 2.] [Sidenote: Immunity of Vessels charged with Religious, Scientific, or Philanthropic Mission.] § 186. Enemy vessels engaged in scientific discovery and exploration were, according to a general international usage in existence before the Second Peace Conference of 1907, granted immunity from attack and seizure in so far and so long as they themselves abstained from hostilities. The usage grew up in the eighteenth century. In 1766, the French explorer Bougainville, who started from St. Malo with the vessels _La Boudeuse_ and _L'Étoile_ on a voyage round the world, was furnished by the British Government with safe-conducts. In 1776, Captain Cook's vessels _Resolution_ and _Discovery_, sailing from Plymouth for the purpose of exploring the Pacific Ocean, were declared exempt from attack and seizure on the part of French cruisers by the French Government. Again, the French Count Lapérouse, who started on a voyage of exploration in 1785 with the vessels _Astrolabe_ and _Boussole_, was secured immunity from attack and seizure. During the nineteenth century this usage became quite general, and had almost ripened into a custom; examples are the Austrian cruiser _Novara_ (1859) and the Swedish cruiser _Vega_ (1878). No immunity, however, was granted to vessels charged with religious or philanthropic missions. A remarkable case occurred during the Franco-German war. In June, 1871, the _Palme_, a vessel belonging to the Missionary Society of Basle, was captured by a French man-of-war, and condemned by the Prize Court of Bordeaux. The owners appealed and the French Conseil d'État set the vessel free, not because the capture was not justified but because equity demanded that the fact that Swiss subjects owning sea-going vessels were obliged to have them sailing under the flag of another State, should be taken into consideration.[367] [Footnote 367: See Rivier, II. pp. 343-344; Dupuis, No. 158; and Boeck, No. 199.]