g drawn between neutral and
enemy property, under such exceptional circumstances as the bad
condition or small value of the prize, risk of recapture, distance from
a Russian port, danger to the Imperial cruiser or to the success of her
operations. The instructions of 1901, it may be added, explain that an
officer "incurs no responsibility whatever" for so acting if the
captured vessel is really liable to confiscation and the special
circumstances imperatively demand her destruction. It is fair to say
that not dissimilar, though less stringent, instructions were issued by
France in 1870 and by the United States in 1898; also that, although the
French instructions expressly contemplate "l'etablissement des
indemnites a attribuer aux neutres," a French prize Court in 1870
refused compensation to neutral owners for the loss of their property on
board of enemy ships burnt at sea.

The question, however, remains whether such regulations are in
accordance with the rules of international law. The statement of these
rules by Lord Stowell, who speaks of them as "clear in principle and
established in practice," may, I think, be summarised as follows: An
enemy's ship, after her crew has been placed in safety, may be
destroyed. Where there is any ground for believing that the ship, or any
part of her cargo, is neutral property, such action is justifiable only
in cases of "the gravest importance to the captor's own State," after
securing the ship's papers and subject to the right of neutral owners to
receive fall compensation (_Actaeon_, 2 Dods. 48; _Felicity, ib._ 381;
substantially followed by Dr. Lushington in the _Leucade_, Spinks, 221).
It is not the case, as is alleged by the _Novoe Vremya_, that any
British regulations "contain the same provisions as the Russian" on this
subject. On the contrary, the Admiralty Manual of 1888 allows
destruction of enemy vessels only; and goes so far in the direction of
liberality as to order the release, without ransom, of a neutral prize
which either from its condition, or from lack of a prize crew, cannot be
sent in for adjudication. The Japanese instructions of 1894 permit the
destruction of only enemy vessels; and Art. 50 of the carefully debated
"Code des prises" of the Institut de Droit International is to the same
effect. It may be worth while to add that the eminent Russian jurist, M.
de Martens, in his book on international law, published some twenty
years ago, in mentioning that the d