court of another nation. The institution of these tribunals, so far from exempting, or being intended to exempt, the sovereign of the belligerent nations from responsibility for the acts of his commissioned cruisers, is designed to ascertain and fix that responsibility. Those cruisers are responsible only to the sovereigns whose commissions they bear. So long as seizures are regularly made upon apparent grounds of just suspicion, and followed by prompt adjudication in the usual mode, and until the acts of the captors are confirmed by the sovereign in the sentences of the tribunals appointed by him to adjudicate in matters of prize, the neutral has no ground of complaint, and what he suffers is the inevitable result of the belligerent right of capture. But the moment the decision of the tribunal of the last resort has been pronounced (supposing it not to be warranted by the facts of the case, and by the law of nations applied to those facts), and justice has thus been finally denied, the capture and the condemnation become the acts of the State, for which the sovereign is responsible to the government of the claimant.' Not only may a State demand indemnity for the property of its citizens unlawfully condemned by a foreign prize court, but, if refused, it may resort to reprisals or even to war. The right of redress in this case rests upon the same grounds as the right of redress for injuries received, and a denial of justice persisted in. This principle is supported by the authority of publicists, and by historical examples. If justice is not done to the other claimants by the prize courts of the captors, says Rutherforth, they may apply to their own State for a remedy; which may, consistently with the law of nations, give them a remedy, either by solemn war or reprisals. In order to determine when their right to apply to their own State begins, we must enquire when the exclusive right of the other State to judge in this controversy ends. As this exclusive right is nothing else but the right of the State, to which the captor belongs, to examine into the conduct of its members before it becomes answerable for what they have done, such exclusive right cannot end until their conduct has been thoroughly examined. Natural equity will not allow that the State should be answerable for their acts, until those acts are examined by all the ways which the State has appointed for this purpose. Since, therefore, it is usual in maritime countries to establish not only inferior courts of marine, but likewise superior courts of review, to which the parties may appeal, if they think themselves aggrieved by the inferior courts, the subjects of a neutral State can have no right to apply to their own State for a remedy against an erroneous sentence of an inferior court, till they have appealed to the superior court, or to the several superior courts, if there are more courts of this sort than one, and till the sentence has been confirmed in all of them. For these courts are so many means appointed by the State, to which the captors belong, to examine into their conduct; and, till their conduct has been examined by all these means, the State's exclusive right of judging continues. After the sentence of the inferior courts has been thus confirmed, the foreign claimants may apply to their own State for a remedy, if they think themselves aggrieved; but, the law of nations will not entitle them to a remedy, unless they have been actually aggrieved. When the matter has been carried thus far, the two States become the parties to the controversy.' ' and of the States and § 17. In 1753, the King of Prussia undertook to set up Cases of within his own dominions a commission to re-examine the England sentences pronounced against his subjects in the British prize Prussia in courts: this was deemed an innovation upon the settled 1753 and usage of nations. But, although the British government United asserted the proceedings of their prize tribunals to be the only legitimate mode of determining the validity of captures made in 1830 in war, it did not consider these proceedings as excluding the demand of Prussia for redress upon the government itself. The King even resorted to reprisals, by stopping the interest upon a loan due to British subjects, and secured by hypothecation upon the revenues of Silesia. So, also, under the treaty of 1794, between the United States and Great Britain, a mixed commission was appointed to determine the claim of American citizens, arising from the capture of their property by British cruisers during the existing war with France, and a full satisfactory indemnity was awarded in many cases where there had been a final condemnation by courts of prize. Again, in the negotiation between the Danish and American governments ! Wheaton, Elem. Int. Law, pt. iv. ch. ii. § 16; Rutherforth, Institutes, b. ii. ch. ix. § 19. 2 See as to the Silesian loan vol. i. p. 539. When jurisdic tion may be enquired into respecting the captures of American vessels by the cruisers of Denmark during the war between that power and England, it was admitted that, although the jurisdiction of the tribunals of the capturing nation was exclusive and complete, and had the effect of closing for ever all private controversy between the captors and the captured, still, the American government might demand indemnity for unlawful condemnations. The demand which the United States made upon the Danish Government was not for a judicial reversal of the sentences pronounced by its tribunals, but for the indemnity to which the American citizens were entitled, in consequence of the denial of justice by the tribunal in the last resort, and of the responsibility thus incurred by the Danish Government for the acts of its cruisers and tribunal. The Danish Government was, of course, free to adopt any measures it might think proper to satisfy itself of the injustice of those sentences, one of the most natural of which would be a re-examination and discussion of the cases complained of, conducted by an impartial tribunal, under the sanction of the two governments, not for the purpose of disturbing the question of title to the specific property which had been irrevocably condemned, or of reviving the controversy between the individual captors and claimants, which had been for ever terminated, but for the purpose of determining between government and government whether injustice had been done by the tribunals of one power against the citizens of the other, and of determining what indemnity ought to be granted to the latter. There are many other instances where arrangements of this kind have been made between States, for determining and settling claims which arise from the unjust condemnation of prize tribunals. § 18. We have already stated the general principle that the sentence of a prize court, of competent jurisdiction, in rem, is conclusive upon the title to the property condemned. It may be added, that the general presumption is, that the jurisdiction exercised by a foreign tribunal is lawful. But that presumption may be overturned by competent evidence. Where a claim is set up under a sentence of condemnation of a foreign court, every court has a right to examine into the jurisdiction of such foreign court, so far, at least, as to ascertain its competency, in international law, to pronounce the adjudication. Whenever the jurisdiction cannot, consistently with the laws of nations, be exercised, the sentence will be disregarded. If, therefore, a vessel be condemned under circumstances which show that the court could, under the rules of international law, have no jurisdiction, such sentence will be regarded as a nullity. For instance, à condemnation of a prize, by the consul of the belligerent, in a neutral country, is deemed invalid, because such a jurisdiction cannot be exercised consistently with the law of nations. Moreover, the jurisdiction may be enquired into, not only with respect to the subject matter, but also with respect to the authority from which it has emanated; and if the jurisdiction be unauthorised from either cause, it is a decisive objection to the sentence.1 § 19. We have already pointed out the distinction between How far governed prize courts and municipal tribunals, with respect to their con- by municistitution and character. The same distinction exists with re- pal laws spect to the laws which they administer. Prize courts are in no way bound to regard local ordinances and municipal regulations, unless they are sanctioned by the law of nations. Indeed, if such ordinances and regulations are in contravention of the established rules of international jurisprudence, prize courts must either violate their duty, or entirely disregard them. They are not binding on the prize courts, even of the country by which they are issued. The stipulations of treaties, however, are obligatory upon the nations which have entered into them, and prize courts must observe them in adjudicating between subjects or citizens of the contracting parties. The language of Sir William Scott, in delivering the judgment of the court in the case of the 'Maria,'' is peculiarly just and appropiate. 'In forming my judgment, I trust it has not escaped my anxious recollection for one moment, what it is that the duty of my station calls from me; namely, to consider myself as stationed here, not to deliver occasional and shifting opinions, to serve present purposes of particular national interest, but to administer, with indiffer 1 Phillips, On Insurance, vol. ii. pp. 680 et seq.; Amroyd v. Williams, 2 Wash. R., 608; Cherrot v. Foussat, 3 Binn. R., 220; Snell v. Foussat, 1 Wash. R., 271; Bradstreet v. Nep. Ins. Co., 3 Sumn. R., 600; Francis v. Ocean Ins. Co., 6 Cowen R., 404; Cuculler v. Lou. Ins. Co., 5 Mart. N. S., 464; Ocean Ins. Co. v. Francis, 2 Wend. R., 65. 2 1 Rob., 340. Character of proceedings ence, that justice which the law of nations holds out, without distinction, to independent States, some happening to be neutral and some to be belligerent. The seat of judicial authority is, indeed, locally here, in the belligerent country, according to the known law and practice of nations; but the law itself has no locality. It is the duty of the person who sits here, to determine this question exactly as he would determine the same question, if sitting at Stockholm; to assert no pretensions on the part of Great Britain, which he would not allow to Sweden in the same circumstances; and to impose no duties on Sweden, as a neutral country, which he would not admit to belong to Great Britain, in the same character. If, therefore, I mistake the law in this matter, I mistake that which I consider, and which I mean should be considered, as universal law upon the question.' In speaking of the right of a prize court to adjudicate upon maritime captures, Rutherforth remarks: The right which it exercises, is not civil jurisdiction; and the civil law, which is peculiar to its own territory, is not the law by which it ought to proceed. Neither the place where the controversy arose, nor the parties who are concerned in it, are subject to this law. The only law by which this controversy can be determined, is the law of nature, applied to the collective bodies of civil societies, that is, the law of nations; unless, indeed, there have been any particular treaties made between the two States, to which the captors and the other claimants belong, mutually binding them to depart from such rights as the law of nations would otherwise have supported. Where such treaties have been made, they are a law to the two States, as far as they extend, and to all the members of them in their intercourse with one another. The State, therefore, to which the captors belong, in determining what might or what might not be lawfully taken, is to judge by these particular treaties, and by the law of nations taken together.' § 20. 'No proceedings,' says Mr. Justice Story, 'can be more unlike than those in the courts of Common Law and in Admiralty. In prize courts, in an especial manner, the allegations, the proofs, and the proceedings, are, in general, modelled upon the civil law, with such additions and alterations as the practice of nations and the rights of belligerents and neutrals unavoidably impose.' The parties in a prize |