and by the Law of
Nations, and should for that reason be seized, the same
should not be confiscated, but the owners thereof should be
speedily and completely indemnified; and the captors, or in
their default, the Government under whose authority they
act, should pay to the masters or owners of such vessels the
full value of all such articles, with a reasonable
mercantile profit thereon, together with the freight, and
also the demurrage incident to such detention."

The instructions of June, 1793, had been revoked previously to the
signature of this treaty; but before its ratification, the British
Government issued, in April, 1795, an order in council, instructing
its cruizers to stop and detain all vessels laden wholly, or in part,
with corn, flour, meal, and other provisions, and bound to any port in
France, and to send them to such ports as might be most convenient, in
order that such corn, &c., might be purchased on behalf of Government.

This last order was subsequently revoked, and the question of its
legality became the subject of discussion in a mixed commission,
constituted under the treaty, to decide upon the claims of American
citizens, by reason of irregular or illegal seizures of their vessels
and cargoes, under the authority of the British Government.

A full indemnification was allowed by the commissioners, under the 7th
article of the Treaty of 1794, to the owners of vessels and cargoes
seized under the orders in council, as well for the loss of a market
as for the other consequences of their detention.

It was, however, urged on the part of the United States, that the 18th
article of the Treaty of 1794, manifestly intended to leave the
question where it was before, namely, that when _the law of nations_,
existing at the time the case arises, pronounces the articles
contraband, they may for that reason be seized; when otherwise, not
so. Each party was thus left free to decide what was contraband in its
own courts of the law of nations, leaving any false appeal to that law
to the usual remedy of reprisals and war.[172]

Since the ratification of this treaty, we have a decision of Lord
Stowell, in 1799, on this very subject, in the case of the Haabet,
which, however, arose on a question of insurance.

"The right of taking possession of provisions is no peculiar
claim of this country; it belongs generally to belligerent
nations: the ancient practi