under the Stars and Stripes; at a moment, too, when she had cleared the port, and was virtually on her voyage, having been lying off the harbour for six days, waiting for a favourable wind." It is clear from this statement, that this was merely an attempt to make an American vessel, in an English port, an asylum for a criminal against the authority of the English laws. The expression "lying off the harbour," is equivocal in itself, and is, to a great extent, contradicted by the next phrase, waiting for a favourable wind;" for if outside the harbour, which the word off is meant to imply, there is no American captain that would have waited for a favourable wind; inside it he might have done so, for a wind blowing directly into the port might prevent his coming out. But giving the fullest effect desired by its writer to the expression, and forgetting the previous part of the statement, which is at variance with it, namely, that the "N. D. Chase" was "in the harbour of Cork," still the case is worth nothing in law, and is condemned by Mr. Beach Lawrence himself in his letter to a supposed questioner, where he begins by admitting that a vessel "within a marine league of the shore," is to be considered as "within the waters" of the adjoining land. His words are these: "When I saw you yesterday, I supposed that Messrs. Slidell and Mason had been taken from a British steamer in British waters; that is to say, within a marine league of the shores of a British island. In such case their seizure would have been as objectionable as if made on the land, and a gross violation of neutral rights." In facts which give the law, and in the principles of the law itself, this case of M'Manus therefore fails to present any justification for the present proceeding.

ADJUDICATION.

Then as to the subject of not taking the vessel into port for adjudication. It is a settled rule of law (Martens, c. 6, s. 15), that the searcher stops a neutral ship at his peril. As the legality of the stoppage is to determine his liability to make compensation, he must take the ship where a regular adjudication can take place, and must not adjudicate for himself. There would be no protection for property, nor much, perhaps, for life, if every commander of a war vessel, public and private (and

the Americans expressly refuse to abolish privateering) was to be the ultimate judge of the right to confiscate the one or take the other. The captured party must submit to the adjudication of the courts of the country of the captor. This is surely sufficient for the purposes of the captor. But all the world gives credit to courts of justice for proceeding upon recognised principles and precedents, and if a court makes a mistake, it becomes the duty of the country where it sits to afford a remedy. The honour and dignity of the country are concerned to do so. They are not so deeply concerned in the act of any one individual officer, and, for the protection of all men, the decisions of competent courts are those alone to which universal deference is paid. It is not, therefore, a trifling matter to insist on, that if the rights of a neutral vessel on the high seas are encroached upon, the lawfulness of the act shall be forthwith submitted to the adjudication of a competent tribunal, that so its character, and the character of the government which has established it and maintained it in authority, shall be made answerable for justice being done. The inconvenience to the particular ship or its passengers may be greater, but so is the responsibility of the state; and the fact that it is so will operate to prevent that state from permitting its cruisers to do acts which, if only referred to individual zeal, might indeed be made the subject of a convenient reproof, but of a secret and more sincere approval (a).

SEIZURE OF ENGLISH SAILORS IN AMERICAN SHIPS.

I have not dealt with the cases of the searches of American vessels, and the capture, out of them, of persons asserted to be British sailors. Nor do they require more than a passing remark, for they do not resemble the present case. It is true that the Americans were, at the commencement of the practice of making those searches, holding the character of neutrals, and that the British government claimed these sailors as deserters, that is, criminals. And in that respect it has been asserted that

(a) It appears from a case of Jackson v. Montgomery, 13 Howard's Am. Rep. 515, that there is an Act of Congress enforcing this principle of international law, and requiring that, in such cases of capture by ships of war of the United States, the captured vessel shall be forthwith brought into a court of competent jurisdiction for adjudication.

they were in the situation of Messrs. Slidell and Mason, that is, criminals towards the government of their country. But first, it is to be observed that these sailors went on board American ships solely for their own personal advantage, the going there being itself the essential act of criminality charged against them; next, the English government believed and asserted that the American captains, for purposes of their own, wilfully encouraged the desertion of these men; thirdly, they were not taken into the American ships as passengers, but were at once rated there as sailors; and lastly, their arrest did not interfere in any way with the legal rights or interests of any third country to which they were proceeding. I am not concerned to say whether all these circumstances justified, or even excused, their arrest in this manner. The United States and England both alike terminated the war which arose on that account without deciding that question, and it is no part of my duty to decide it. I am content to point out the great distinctions which exist between that case and the present.

PROPOSITIONS.

Let me now sum up the argument which I submit to the consideration of the Society:

I say that a ship is, as a rule, part of the soil of the country to which it belongs.

That that rule is subject to certain exceptions, one of which is the right of a belligerent ship to search it, though a neutral, for contraband of war.

That it has the general right of freely sailing over the seas, carrying cargo, papers, and persons; but this cargo must not be contraband, nor must the neutral vessel engage itself to do the service of a belligerent transport in the conveyance of persons or papers between the belligerent mother country and its colonies, for, in such a case, being employed in the belligerent service as a transport, it may lawfully be treated as a belligerent transport. That where a neutral vessel is bonâ fide pursuing its ordinary employment between a neutral and a belligerent country (a multò fortiori, where it is doing so between two neutral countries, as in this case), the fact that the vessel has received on board in the

ordinary way, as casual individual passengers or papers, the officers or the despatches of one belligerent, will not authorize the other belligerent to stop and search it, nor to take the persons or papers from on board it.

Lastly, that it is unlawful for a vessel of one nation to stop a vessel of another nation on the high seas, to take out of it a person charged as a criminal, for such an act is an exercise of a municipal jurisdiction by one State within the limits of another, which can only be permitted by treaties previously existing between the two parties.

And, consequently, as this is the act that has been done by the "San Jacinto" in the case of the "Trent," I am of opinion that the act is not defensible by the Law of Nations.

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XXVII.-SIMPLIFICATION OF TITLE TO LAND PREFERABLE TO THE INTRODUCTION OF NOVEL MODES OF ASSURANCE, WITH AN OUTLINE OF A PLAN. BY EDWARD P. WOLSTENHOLME.

(Read 10th March, 1862.)

It is not my intention this evening to suggest any new mode of evidencing the title to land: on the contrary, I hope to show that, by retaining and improving the existing law of real property, we may obtain nearly, if not quite, all the benefits to be expected, and avoid all the evils to be feared, from any scheme which proposes the total or partial overthrow of that law, and the substitution of an entirely new system of transfer. The desire for some such new system is, no doubt, mainly attributable to the Report made in the year 1857 by the commissioners appointed "to consider the subject of registration of title with reference to the sale and transfer of land;" but I cannot persuade myself that the evils and benefits of the existing system are in that report impartially stated. It reads to me rather as the argument of an advocate in favour of a desired conclusion than as the summing up of an unbiassed judge. Thus, for instance, at p. 22 of the Report it is stated, that fraudulent titles may be made by suppression of deeds, and then it is asserted that "there is consequently a general insecurity of title, and apprehension of risk, even when to all external appearances there is an absence of any ground for suspicion." If this is so, how is it that a mortgage on a good estate produces interest very little higher than that received on stock, though a mortgage always involves the mortgagee in some risk of costs? Might we not say with equal truth that the Bank of England is in constant apprehension of loss by forged transfers of stock? and yet that would scarcely be accepted as a true description of their position.

To a certain extent every owner of property is in constant apprehension of losing it, especially where, as in the case of land, it does not necessarily admit of being replaced by a money