essel's destination should be considered
neutral, if both the port to which she is bound and every intermediate
port at which she is to call in the course of her voyage be neutral,"
and "the destination of the vessel is conclusive as to the destination
of the goods on board." In view of this declaration on the part of Great
Britain toward neutral commerce Count Hatzfeldt contended that his
Government was "fully justified in claiming the release of the
_Bundesrath_ without investigation by a Prize Court, and that all the
more because, since the ship is a mail-steamer with a fixed itinerary,
she could not discharge her cargo at any other port than the neutral
port of destination."[24]

[Footnote 23: This case, it will be remembered, was _not_ decided on the
ground of the contraband character of the goods in the cargo but because
of the presumption that the ultimate intention of the ship was to break
the blockade established over the Southern States. This well founded
suspicion, based upon the character of the cargo as tending to show that
it could be intended only for the forces of the Southern Confederacy,
led to the conclusion that a breach of blockade was premeditated. This
presumption no doubt was correct and in this particular case the
decision of the court was probably justified, but the course of
reasoning by which the conclusion was reached was generally considered a
dangerous innovation in international relations. It has been recently
again asserted that the decision was not based upon the accepted rules
of evidence. Supra p. 24. For a clear statement of the latter view, see
Atherley-Jones, Commerce in War, p. 255.]

[Footnote 24: Sessional Papers, Africa, No. I (1900), C. 33, p. 6;
Hatzfeldt to Salisbury, Jan. 4, 1900.]

In his reply to the German note Lord Salisbury thought it desirable,
before examining the doctrine put forward, to remove certain "errors of
fact in regard to the authorities" cited. He emphatically declared that
the British Government had not in 1863 "raised any claim or contention
against the Judgment of the United States' Prize Court in the case of
the _Springbok_" And he continued: "On the first seizure of that vessel,
and on an _ex parte_ and imperfect statement of the fact by the owners,
Earl Russell, then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, informed Her
Majesty's Minister at Washington that there did not appear to be any
justification for the seizure of the vessel and her cargo, tha