[Footnote 23: This case, it will be remembered, was _not_ decided on the ground of the contraband character of the goods in the cargo but because of the presumption that the ultimate intention of the ship was to break the blockade established over the Southern States. This well founded suspicion, based upon the character of the cargo as tending to show that it could be intended only for the forces of the Southern Confederacy, led to the conclusion that a breach of blockade was premeditated. This presumption no doubt was correct and in this particular case the decision of the court was probably justified, but the course of reasoning by which the conclusion was reached was generally considered a dangerous innovation in international relations. It has been recently again asserted that the decision was not based upon the accepted rules of evidence. Supra p. 24. For a clear statement of the latter view, see Atherley-Jones, Commerce in War, p. 255.] [Footnote 24: Sessional Papers, Africa, No. I (1900), C. 33, p. 6; Hatzfeldt to Salisbury, Jan. 4, 1900.] In his reply to the German note Lord Salisbury thought it desirable, before examining the doctrine put forward, to remove certain "errors of fact in regard to the authorities" cited. He emphatically declared that the British Government had not in 1863 "raised any claim or contention against the Judgment of the United States' Prize Court in the case of the _Springbok_" And he continued: "On the first seizure of that vessel, and on an _ex parte_ and imperfect statement of the fact by the owners, Earl Russell, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, informed Her Majesty's Minister at Washington that there did not appear to be any justification for the seizure of the vessel and her cargo, that the supposed reason, namely, that there were articles in the manifest not accounted for by the captain, certainly did not warrant the seizure, more especially as the destination of the vessel appeared to have been _bona fide_ neutral, but that, inasmuch as it was probable that the vessel had by that time been carried before a Prize Court of the United States for adjudication, and that the adjudication might shortly follow, if it had not already taken place, the only instruction that he could at present give to Lord Lyons was to watch the proceedings and the Judgment of the Court, and eventually transmit full information as to the course of the trial and its results." He asserted that the real contention advanced in the plea of the owners for the intervention of the British Government had been that "the goods [on board the _Springbok_] were, in fact, _bona fide_ consigned to a neutral at Nassau;" but that this plea had been refused by the British Government without "any diplomatic protest or ... any objection against the decision ... nor did they ever express any dissent from that decision on the grounds on which it was based."[25] [Footnote 25: Ibid., p. 18; Salisbury to Lascelles, Jan. 10, 1900.]