32 ENGLISH NEUTRALITY. stated as follows: First. The obligation of neutrality which Great Britain owes this nation is based on international law, international comity, gratitude, the spirit of treaties, and, last and least, upon that compact with all the world, called the Act of 59 Geo. III. Second. That international law is the science of the external relations of nations, and that its sanctions are neither derived from nor dependent upon things municipal, but bear equally upon democracies, aristocracies, and despotisms. Third. For this reason, no government can excuse itself from full performance of its international obligations by the suggestion of any lack of internal authority; and within the scope of this proposition, it may be safely asserted that, if that radical defect in the internal organization of this republic, which prevented the President of the United States from exercising control over the sheriff of an interior county of New York, was not a good excuse in McLeod’s case, England will hardly make a defect of power in her revenue officers suffice in the matter of the Florida;-nor a queen’s advocate’s “ malady” in that of the Alabama. Fourth. That it was the duty of the British gov- erment in both cases, after the application of Mr. Adams, to have followed the “Maury” precedent by seizing and holding the vessels, and thus preventing mischief, until a full investigation could have been had; and having failed in this, it was a duty all the more imperative, when the real purpose of these vessels was known, to follow the Portuguese-Terceira precedent, by sending British cruisers to the ends of the earth, to prevent the consummation of the fraud, as well as bring the criminals to justice for their offence against the dignity and peace of England. Fifth. That the action of the British government, certainly, and its motive, apparently, have been grossly in breach of its neutral obligations. Sixth. That it is a maxim in universal justice, as well as in the common law, that there is no wrong without a remedy ; and the remedies for these injuries are of two kinds: 1st, by civil action and criminal prosecution against the English owners, their servants, agents, and abettors ; and, 2d, by the demand, and receipt from that government, of full compensation to private sufferers ; and in default of the latter, by reprisals and war. And, in justification of such a war, we may appeal to English state papers, where the reasons will be found, set out with all requisite particularity by England’s greatest historian for one of her greatest kings.
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