tribunals to proclaim the practice contrary to the Law of Nations; to
deprive these privateers of the protection of neutrality, when in
their native waters, and to subject the nation that permits them to
fit out in, or issue from their ports, to the danger of reprisals,
from the offended belligerents.

This I suggest as an example of the application of the principles of
right and wrong, as at present understood, to the investigation of the
continued soundness of an accepted precept of law. In the judgments of
Lord Stowell there are many such examples; and _guided_ as he was by
precedent and authority, he could not be said to have been _led_ by
anything but the principles of universal justice. At no time does he
appear for a moment to have hesitated in putting aside precedent, when
the true doctrine was unsatisfied. Mr. Justice Story acted on the same
plan. The granting of salvage for the recapture of neutral
property--the denial of the right of the Danish Government to
confiscate private debts--the declaration of Mr. Justice Story, that
the slave trade was against the law of nations--are a few amongst many
remarkable examples of the fundamental principle being allowed to
alter and overrule the authoritative precept.

THE LAWS OF WAR.

PART I.

THE LAWS OF WAR AFFECTING COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

CHAPTER I. COMMENCEMENT OF WAR.

SECTION I.

_The Immediate Effects of War_.

For some months the state of war that has been impending between
Russia, and the Allied Powers,--England, France, and Turkey,--has now
become actual; and though there have been many acts of preparation and
precaution on the part of England and France, we have not been, up to
the present crisis, engaged in what is termed by international
writers, Public and Solemn War; such a position of affairs has at last
arrived.

[Sidenote: Solemn War.]

The War then, that England has entered into, is of the most Public and
Solemn kind. Public War is divided into Perfect and Imperfect. The
former is more usually called Solemn. Grotius defines Public or Solemn
War to be such Public War as is declared or proclaimed.

Imperfect Wars between nations, that is such wars as nations carry on
one against the other, without declaring or proclaiming them, though
they are Public Wars, are seldom called wars at all; they are more
usually known by the name of reprisals, or acts of hostility. It has
often been important to determine, on th