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Excerpt from A Legal View of the Seizure of Messrs. Mason and Slidell All the facts of this case have not yet been officially communicated. We will assume, however, that the Eng lish mail steam-packet Trent was visited beyond the dis tance of a marine league from the shore, and that the neutral waters within that distance were not used by the United States' cruiser in watching her Opportunity for the exercise of a belligerent right in the adjacent seas. Mr. Webster, the most distinguished American ex pounder of international law, in his official correspondence with Lord Ashburton, declared that a vessel on the high seas, beyond the distance of a marine league from the shore, is regarded as part of the territory of the nation to which she belongs. He also, in a subsequent letter to the same functionary, held the following language The ocean is the sphere of the law of nations and any merchant vessel on the seas is by that law under the protection of the laws of her own nation, and may claim immunity, unless in cases in which that law allows her to be entered or visited. The maritime right of visitation and search of neutral merchant vessels is a pure belligerent right, and can have no existence on the high seas during peace. It is allowed by the law of nations only in times of war, 1, for contra band, 2, for military persons, and 3, for despatches. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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