Among the objections raised by the British Government to the capture by the Russian ship _Peterburg_ in the Red Sea, on July 13, 1904, of the P. and O. ss. _Malacca_, for carriage of contraband were (1) that the so-called contraband consisted of government ammunition for the use of the British fleet in Chinese waters; and (2) what was more serious, that the capturing vessel, which belonged to the Russian volunteer fleet, after issuing from the Black Sea under the commercial flag had subsequently, and without touching at any Russian port, brought up guns from her hold, and had proceeded to exercise belligerent rights under the Russian naval flag. In consequence of the protest of the British Government, and to close the incident, the _Malacca_ was released at Algiers, after a purely formal examination, on July 27, and Russia agreed to instruct the officers of her volunteer fleet not to make any similar captures. The question of the legitimacy of the transformation on the high seas into a ship-of-war of a vessel which has previously been sailing under the commercial flag was much discussed at The Hague Conference of 1907, but without result. Opinions were so much divided upon the point, that no mention of it is made in Convention No. vii. of that year, ratified by Great Britain on November 27, 1909, "as to the transformation of merchant vessels into ships-of-war." At the session of the Institut de Droit International held at Oxford in 1913, this question was discussed, and rules relating to it will be found in Section 2 of the _Manuel des lois de la guerre maritime_, the drafting of which occupied the whole of the session. THE _ALLANTON_ _(Unqualified Captors)_ Sir,--The indignation caused by the treatment of the _Allanton_ is natural, and will almost certainly prove to be well founded; but Mr. Rae, in the letter which you print this morning, overstates a good case. He asks that, "whatever steps are taken for the release of the _Malacca_, equally strong steps should be taken for the release of the _Allanton_"; and he can see no difference between the cases of the two ships, except that the former is owned by a powerful company in the habit of carrying British mails, while the latter is his private property.