r, for the cargo, or any part of it, the question of
ownership can only be decided by the Prize Courts of the Confederate
States. In the meantime, I have the honour to request that your
Excellency will permit me to leave this prize vessel with her cargo in
the port of Puerto Caballo, until the question of prize can be
adjudicated by the proper tribunals of my country. This will be a
convenience to all parties, as well to any citizen of Venezuela who may
have an interest in the cargo, as to the captors, who have also valuable
interests to protect.

In making this request, I do not propose that the Venezuelan Government
shall depart from a strict neutrality between the belligerents; as the
same rule it applies to us, it can give the other party the benefit of,
also. In other words, with the most scrupulous regard for the
neutrality, she may admit both belligerents to bring their prizes into
her waters; and of this neither belligerent can complain, since whatever
favour is extended to its enemy is extended also to itself.

I have an additional and cogent reason for making this request, and that
is, that the rule of exclusion, although it might be applied in terms to
both belligerents, would not operate equally and justly upon them both.
It is well known to your Excellency that the Northern United States
(which are now making an aggressive and unjust war upon the Confederate
States, denying to the latter the right of self-government, which is
fundamental in all republics, and invading their territories for the
purpose of subjugation) are manufacturing and commercial states, whilst
the Confederate States have been thus far agricultural and planting
states; and that, as a consequence of this difference of pursuits, the
former States had in their possession at the commencement of this war
almost all the naval force of the old Government, which they have not
hesitated to seize and appropriate to their own use, although a large
proportion of it belonged of right to the Confederate States, which had
been taxed to create it.

By means of this naval force, dishonestly seized as aforesaid, the enemy
has been enabled to blockade all the important ports of the Confederate
States.

This blockade necessarily shuts out the cruisers of the Confederate
States from their own ports, and if foreign Powers shut them out also,
they can make no other use of their prizes than to destroy them. Thus
your Excellency sees that, under the rule of