Another dispute arose, in January, 1916, over the operation of the Trading with the Enemy Act, one of Great Britain's war measures, the provisions of which were enlarged to forbid British merchants from trading with any person or firm, resident in a neutral country, which had German ownership or German trade connections. The United States objected to the prohibition as constituting a further unlawful interference with American trade. It held that in war time the trade of such a person or firm domiciled in a neutral country had a neutral status, and consequently was not subject to interference; hence goods in transit of such a trader were not subject to confiscation by a belligerent unless contraband and consigned to an enemy country. An example of the working of the act was the conviction of three members of a British glove firm for trading with Germany through their New York branch. They had obtained some $30,000 worth of goods from Saxony between October, 1915, and January, 1916, the consignments evading the blockade and reaching New York, whence they were reshipped to England. One defendant was fined $2,000; the two others received terms of imprisonment. While the act would injure American firms affiliated with German interests, it aimed to press hardest upon traders in neutral European countries contiguous to Germany who were trading with the Germans and practically serving as intermediaries to save the Germans from the effect of the Allies' blockade. The appearance of a captured British steamer, the _Appam_, at Newport News, Va., on February 1, 1916, in charge of a German naval lieutenant, Hans Berg, and a prize crew, involved the United States in a new maritime tangle with the belligerents. One of the most difficult problems which Government officials had encountered since the war began, presented itself for solution. The _Appam_, as elsewhere described, was captured by a German raider, the _Moewe_ (Sea Gull), off Madeira, and was crowded with passengers, crews, and German prisoners taken from a number of other ships the _Moewe_ had sunk. Lieutenant Berg, for lack of a safer harbor, since German ports were closed to him, sought for refuge an American port, and claimed for his prize the privilege of asylum under the protection of American laws--until he chose to leave. Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, immediately notified the State Department that Germany claimed the _Appam_ as a prize under the Prussian-American Treaty of 1828, and would contend for possession of the ship.