General Halleck, for instance, whilst as against an enemy who puts in force the extreme rights of war he justifies a belligerent in following suit, denies the right of the latter to do so against an enemy who passes all bounds and conducts war in a downright savage fashion. Whilst therefore, according to him, the law of retaliation would never justify such acts as the massacre of prisoners, the use of poison, or promiscuous slaughter, he would consider as legitimate reprisals acts like the sequestration by Denmark of debts due from Danish to British subjects in retaliation for the confiscation by England of the Danish fleet in 1807, or Napoleon’s seizure of all English travellers in France in retaliation for England’s seizure and condemnation of French vessels in 1803.[108] And a French writer, in the same spirit, denies that the French Government would have been justified in retaliating on Russia, when the Czar had his French prisoners of war consigned to the mines of Siberia.[109] The distinction is clearly untenable on any rational theory of the laws of retributive justice. You may retaliate for the lesser, but not for the greater injury! You may check resort to infamous hostilities by the threat of reprisals, but must fold your hands and submit, if your enemy becomes utterly barbarous! You may restrain him from burning your crops by burning his, but must be content to go without redress if he slays your wives and children! How difficult the question really is appears from the attempt made to settle it at the Brussels Conference of 1874, when the following clauses formed part of the original Russian project submitted to the consideration of that meeting: _Section IV._ 69. ‘Reprisals are admissible in extreme cases only, due regard being paid as far as possible to the laws of humanity when it shall have been unquestionably proved that the laws and customs of war have been violated by the enemy, and that they have had recourse to measures condemned by the law of nations.’ 70. ‘The selection of the means and extent of the reprisals should be proportionate to the degree of the infraction of the law committed by the enemy. Reprisals that are disproportionately severe are contrary to the rules of international law.’ 71. ‘Reprisals should be allowed only on the authority of the commander-in-chief, who shall likewise determine the degree of their severity and their duration.’