Whether a nation has a right to close permanently a channel of commerce wholly within its own borders is a question that has never been decided by any international court, or any writer on international law, for that matter. At any rate, it is quite certain that if England chose to dam permanently a harbor as a war measure, she would not receive in kindly spirit any interference from a foreign power. But the fact is that the “Stone Fleet” was not sunk in Charleston’s channels with any idea that the hulks would “permanently injure” the harbor. It was well known to engineers in England, as well as in the United States, that when tidal currents over such sands as those at Charleston were interrupted in one place, they would cut new channels. It was further well known that these obstructions could be removed readily whenever there was need of doing so. With these facts in mind, the following extract from a letter of instructions written by Lord Russell to Lord Lyons about the “permanent” closing of Charleston harbor is of interest: “Such a cruel plan would seem to imply despair of the restoration of the Union, the professed object of the war; for it never could be the wish of the United States government to destroy cities from which their own country was to derive a portion of its riches and prosperity. Such a plan could only be adopted as a measure of revenge and of irremediable injury against an enemy. Lord Lyons was further told that even as a scheme of embittered and sanguinary war such a measure would not be justifiable. It would be a plot against the commerce of all maritime nations, and against the free intercourse of the Southern States of America with the civilized world.” The protest of France was of the same tenor, and when the French Chambers and the British Parliament met in January and February, 1862, the subject was vehemently discussed.