His Majesty's Government, like the Government of the United States, have often and explicitly held that these rights represent the best usage of warfare in the dealings of belligerents with neutrals at sea. In this connection I desire to direct attention to the opinion of the Chief Justice of the United States in the case of the Peterhof, which arose out of the civil war, and to the fact that that opinion was unanimously sustained in the award of the Arbitration Commission of 1871, to which the case was presented at the request of Great Britain. From that time to the Declaration of London of 1909, adopted with modifications by the Order in Council of the 23d of October last, these rights have not been seriously questioned by the British Government. And no claim on the part of Great Britain of any justification for interfering with the clear rights of the United States and its citizens as neutrals could be admitted. To admit it would be to assume an attitude of unneutrality toward the present enemies of Great Britain, which would be obviously inconsistent with the solemn obligations of this Government in the present circumstances. And for Great Britain to make such a claim would be for her to abandon and set at nought the principles for which she has consistently and earnestly contended in other times and circumstances. The note of his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, which accompanies the Order in Council, and which bears the same date, notifies the Government of the United States of the establishment of a blockade which is, if defined by the terms of the Order in Council, to include all the coasts and ports of Germany and every port of possible access to enemy territory. But the novel and quite unprecedented feature of that blockade, if we are to assume it to be properly so defined, is that it embraces many neutral ports and coasts, bars access to them, and subjects all neutral ships seeking to approach them to the same suspicion that would attach to them were they bound for the ports of the enemies of Great Britain, and to unusual risks and penalties. It is manifest that such limitations, risks, and liabilities placed upon the ships of a neutral power on the seas, beyond the right of visit and search and the right to prevent the shipment of contraband already referred to, are a distinct invasion of the sovereign rights of the nation whose ships, trade, or commerce is interfered with.