118.]

[Footnote x: _de jur. b. & p._ _l._ 3. _c._ 3. Sec. 11.]

IV. BUT, as the delay of making war may sometimes be detrimental to
individuals who have suffered by depredations from foreign potentates,
our laws have in some respect armed the subject with powers to impel
the prerogative; by directing the ministers of the crown to issue
letters of marque and reprisal upon due demand: the prerogative of
granting which is nearly related to, and plainly derived from, that
other of making war; this being indeed only an incomplete state of
hostilities, and generally ending in a formal denunciation of war.
These letters are grantable by the law of nations[y], whenever the
subjects of one state are oppressed and injured by those of another;
and justice is denied by that state to which the oppressor belongs. In
this case letters of marque and reprisal (words in themselves
synonimous and signifying a taking in return) may be obtained, in
order to seise the bodies or goods of the subjects of the offending
state, until satisfaction be made, wherever they happen to be found.
Indeed this custom of reprisals seems dictated by nature herself; and
accordingly we find in the most antient times very notable instances
of it[z]. But here the necessity is obvious of calling in the
sovereign power, to determine when reprisals may be made; else every
private sufferer would be a judge in his own cause. And, in pursuance
of this principle, it is with us declared by the statute 4 Hen. V. c.
7. that, if any subjects of the realm are oppressed in time of truce
by any foreigners, the king will grant marque in due form, to all that
feel themselves grieved. Which form is thus directed to be observed:
the sufferer must first apply to the lord privy-seal, and he shall
make out letters of request under the privy seal; and, if, after such
request of satisfaction made, the party required do not within
convenient time make due satisfaction or restitution to the party
grieved, the lord chancellor shall make him out letters of marque
under the great seal; and by virtue of these he may attack and seise
the property of the aggressor nation, without hazard of being
condemned as a robber or pirate.

[Footnote y: Grot. _de jur. b. & p._ _l._ 3. _c._ 2. Sec. 4 & 5.]

[Footnote z: See the account given by Nestor, in the eleventh book of
the Iliad, of the reprisals made by himself on the Epeian nation; from
whom he took a multitude of cattle, as a satisfaction f