The American Notes to Germany--The Protest to Great Britain against the Order In Council--Mr. Norman Angell’s Plan for the Neutralization of the Sea--His Threat of War with the United States--German Idea of a ‘Free Sea’--General View of the Main Provision of the Order in Council--Application of the Law of Vendor and Purchaser: Contracts F.O.B.--Declaration of Paris: Free Ships make Free Goods--A Suggested Solution of all Difficulties--Effect of the Order in Council--American Acquiescence in a ‘Long-Distance Blockade’--Relation between Contraband of War and Blockade--Sovereignty over Neutral Ships--Withdrawal of National Protection from Ships carrying Contraband of War--Right of Search no Infringement of National Jurisdiction--Doctrine of ‘Continuous Voyages’ and the Order in Council--Reprisals--The Orders in Council of 1807--The American _caveat_--Criticism of Note in the ‘North American Review’--Continuing Contracts entered into before the War. The quality of diplomatic courtesy between the United States and Germany is much strained, for the submarine pirates have sunk American ships, and have drowned American citizens bound on their lawful errands on British ships. On the 14th of May, Germany was informed for the second time that she would be held to strict accountability for any infringement of the rights of American citizens, whether intentional or accidental, and in her methods of attack against the trade of her enemies she was called on no longer to disregard ‘those rules of fairness, reason, justice, and humanity, which all modern opinion regards as imperative.’ On the 11th of June, the defence that the _Lusitania_ was carrying contraband was brushed aside as irrelevant to the question of the legality of those methods. The German reply being evasive and justificatory, on the 23rd of July a third warning was given: if the offence should continue unabated the action would be treated as ‘deliberately unfriendly.’ These Notes derive their dignity from their obvious restraint, from the measured insistence of their words, and from the scrupulous exactitude in the statement of the principles they appeal to. No saner judgment was ever pronounced against a criminal, and, though a golden bridge has been offered for retreat, they will stand against Germany as a permanent record of her iniquity. But a curiously paradoxical situation arises with regard to ourselves. The very virtue of these Notes is bound to react to our prejudice; for other neutrals may too readily assume that those same high qualities are also to be found in the Note of the 30th of March, protesting against the British Order in Council issued as a reply to the German submarine attacks on merchant shipping in the ‘war-zone.’ There is also a minute minority of our own people who have a perverse habit of thinking that ‘after all’ we _may_ be wrong, and they will not fail to apply their favourite doctrine in this case.