_Contraband of War_. [Sidenote: Contraband of War.] The general freedom of neutral commerce is subject to certain restrictions with respect to neutral commerce. Among these is the trade with the enemy in certain articles, called _Contraband of War_. These are generally warlike stores, and articles which are directly auxiliary to warlike purposes. Writers on this subject have made distinctions between those things useful only for the purposes of war, those which are not so, and those which are susceptible of indiscriminate use in war and peace. All seem to agree in excluding the first class from neutral trade; and, in general, admitting the second. The chief difference is about the third class. The last kind of articles--for example, money, provisions, ships, and naval stores, according to Grotius, are sometimes lawful articles of neutral trade, and sometimes not; and the question depends upon circumstances. This is perhaps the truest ground of decision, as we shall see in subsequent illustrations.[166] Thus, these articles become contraband, _ipso facto_, if carried to a besieged town, camp, or port. So in a _naval_ war, ships and materials for ships, are contraband, although timber and cordage may be used for other purposes, besides fitting out ships of war; and so horses and saddles are not of necessity warlike stores, except when comparing the quality, manufacture, or quantity attempted to be imported into the hostile state, with the circumstances and condition of the war, it appears (if not to be impossible) to be in the highest degree unlikely, that they should be designed for any other purposes besides the purposes of war.[167] [Sidenote: Provisions, when Contraband.] Common Provisions are not Contraband in general prize law, except in the single case of being sent to a beseiged or blockaded place.[168] It is a modern practice, in order to remove all possible doubt as to what goods are contraband, for nations at war to enumerate them particularly in treaties or compacts with neutral states; and such treaties leave the neutral, with which they are made, at liberty to supply the enemy with all goods that are not enumerated in them. These treaties do not operate as a law; but like other treaties, are binding only between the nations that are parties to them.[169] [Sidenote: Lord Stowell's Opinion on Contraband of War.] The Opinions of our great English authority, Lord Stowell, on this subject, are contained in two judgments, of which the following is the substance:--