ade, and
which claimants allege are in contravention of the law of nations,
those courts are powerless to pass upon the real ground of complaint
or to give redress for wrongs of this nature. Nevertheless, it is
seriously suggested that claimants are free to request the prize court
to rule upon a claim of conflict between an Order in Council and a
rule of international law. How can a tribunal fettered in its
jurisdiction and procedure by municipal enactments declare itself
emancipated from their restrictions and at liberty to apply the rules
of international law with freedom? The very laws and regulations which
bind the court are now matters of dispute between the Government of
the United States and that of His Britannic Majesty."

The British Government, in pursuit of its favorite device of seeking
in American practice parallel instances to justify her prize-court
methods, had contended that the United States, in Civil War contraband
cases, had also referred foreign claimants to its prize courts for
redress. Great Britain at the time of the American Civil War,
according to an earlier British note, "in spite of remonstrances from
many quarters, placed full reliance on the American prize courts to
grant redress to the parties interested in cases of alleged wrongful
capture by American ships of war and put forward no claim until the
opportunity for redress in those courts had been exhausted."

This did not appear to be altogether the case, Secretary Lansing
pointed out that Great Britain, during the progress of the Civil War,
had demanded in several instances, through diplomatic channels, while
cases were pending, damages for seizures and detentions of British
ships alleged to have been made without legal justification. Moreover,
"it is understood also that during the Boer War, when British
authorities seized the German vessels, the _Herzog_, the _General_ and
the _Bundesrath_, and released them without prize court proceedings,
compensation for damages suffered was arranged through diplomatic
channels."

The point made here was by way of negativing the position Great
Britain now took that, pending the exhaustion of legal remedies
through the prize courts with the result of a denial of justice to
American claimants, "it cannot continue to deal through the diplomatic
channels with the individual cases."

The United States summed up its protest against the British practice
of adjudicating on the interference with America