A stoppage or seizure (in other words, an embargo), must not be confounded with complete reprisals. When ships are seized for the purpose of obtaining satisfaction for a particular injury, or security against a possible event, that seizure is only an embargo. The vessels are preserved as long as there is any hope of obtaining satisfaction or justice. As soon as that hope disappears, they are confiscated, and the reprisals are accomplished. In fact, that which was _embargo_ becomes reprisals by the _act of confiscation_.[201] In the words of Lord Stowell: "Upon property so detained the declaration of war is said to have a retroactive effect, and to render it liable to be considered as the property of enemies taken in time of war. The property is seized provisionally--an act hostile enough in the mere execution, but equivocal as to its effects, and liable to be varied by subsequent events, and by the conduct of the government, the property of whose subjects is so detained. Where the first seizure is equivocal, if the matter in dispute terminates in reconciliation, the seizure is converted into a mere civil embargo. This would be the retroactive effect of that course of circumstances. On the contrary, if the transactions end in hostility, the retroactive effect is directly the other way. It impresses a hostile character upon the original seizure. It is declared to be embargo; it is no longer an equivocal act, subject to two interpretations; there is a declaration of the _animus_ by which it was done, that it was done _hostili animo_, and is to be considered a hostile measure _ab initio_. The property taken is liable to be used as the property of persons, trespassers _ab initio_, and guilty of injuries which they have refused to redeem by any amicable alteration of their measures. This is the necessary course, if no particular compact intervenes for the restitution of such property taken before a formal declaration of hostilities."[202] The modern rule seems to be, that tangible property, belonging to an enemy, ought _not_ to be _immediately confiscated_. It may be considered as the opinion of all who have written on the _jus belli_, that war gives the _right_ to confiscate, but does not of itself confiscate the property of an enemy. Chancellor Kent expressly terms this species of hostility--_a reprisal_.[203] And Lord Mansfield says, that though foreign ports or harbours are not the high sea any more than the shore, yet numberless captures made there have been condemned as prize,[204] _i.e._ can be the subject _of reprisal_. NOTE B.--_War Bill Act_.