On Article III.
This regulation is comformable to the law of nations, and
to the tenor of all treaties which define the belligerent claim of
visiting and searching neutral vessels. No treaty can be
cited in which the practice of compelling the neutral vessel to
send its boat, its officers, its people or its papers to the
belligerent vessel, is authorized. British treaties, as well as
those to which she is not a party, in every instance where a
regulation of the claim is undertaken, coincide with the article
here proposed. The article is in fact almost a transcript of
the article of the Treaty of 1786 between Great Britain
and France.
The regulation is founded in the best reasons—1st. It
is sufficient for the neutral, that he acquiesces in the interruption
of his voyage, and the trouble of the examination,
imposed by the belligerent Commander. To require a positive
and active co-operation on his part in behalf of the latter, is
more than can be justified on any principle. 2d. The
belligerent party can always send more conveniently to the
neutral vessel, than this can send to the belligerent vessel;
having neither such fit boats for the purpose, especially in a
rough sea, nor being so abundantly manned. 3d. This last
consideration is enforced by the numerous and cruel abuses
committed in the practice of requiring the neutral vessel to
send to the belligerent. As an example you will find in the
documents now transmitted a case where neither the smallness
and leakiness of the boat, nor the boisterous state of the
weather, nor the pathetic remonstrances of the neutral commander
had any effect on the imperious injunctions of the
belligerent, and where the task was performed at the manifest
peril of the boat, the papers, and the lives of the people.
The limitation of the number to be sent on board the neutral
vessel is a reasonable and usual precaution against the danger
of insults and pillage.
