28 ENGLISH NEUTRALITY. pensation for damages inflicted by French privateers fitted out in our ports. The philosophic statement of the principle is given by Burlemaqui, who cites Grotius and Heineccius, and is in turn cited by Phillimore (vol. ii., p. 230), with approval, in these words: “ In civil societies, when a particular member has done an injury to a stranger, the governor of the commonwealth is sometimes responsible for it, so that war may be declared against him on that account. But to ground this kind of imputation, we must necessarily suppose one of these two things, sufferance or reception, viz.: either that the sovereign has permitted this harm to be done to the stranger, or that he afforded a retreat to the criminal. In the former case, it must be laid down as a maxim, that a sovereign who, knowing the crimes of his subjects—as, for example, that they practise piracy on strangers—and, being able and obliged to hinder it, does not hinder it, renders himself criminal, because he has consented to the bad action.................... Now it is presumed that a sovereign knows what his subjects openly and frequently commit; and as to his power of preventing the evil, this is always presumed, unless the want of it be clearly proved.” This principle extends, it will be perceived, so far as to make the neutral sovereign prima facie responsible for the unneutral acts of the belligerents when done or initiated within his jurisdiction. All the more is he bound to prevent, or if he does not prevent, to compensate for such acts done by his own subjects; and the question remains, although no longer of the first importance, What is the national character of the Oreto and Alabama ? Each of those vessels was entirely built, equipped, and fitted, in British waters by Englishmen. They are permitted to enter and lie in British ports as safely as if they were commissioned in her Majesty’s service, at the same time that our cruisers are warned off, and forbidden, even when in distress, to enter for coal—as in the cases of the Tuscarora, Flambeau, and Saginaw. The Oreto went to sea with a crew consisting of fifty-two Englishmen and one American. She sailed under English papers for a legitimate port. Both were, at or about their departure, ascertained to be the private property of Englishmen. Unless some change of title has taken place, these vessels are yet owned in England by Englishmen. If any such change has taken place, to whom has the title passed? Not to the Confederate States, or any rebellious citizen of that portion of this nation; for, as between England and the rest of the world, these rebels are to be con
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