(    102    )
fluetaced by the wishes or the interests of 3 neutral or
belligerent power.
It is a general rule, that war gives to a belligerent pow-
er a right to seize and confiscate the goods of its enemy.
However humanity may deplore the application of this
principle, there is perhaps no one to which man has
more universally assented, or to which jurists have more
uniformly agreed. Its theory and its practice have un-
happily been maintained in all ages. This right then may
be exercised on the goods of an enemy wherever found,
unless opposed by some superior right. It yields by
common consent to the superior right of a neutral na-
tion to protect, by virtue of its sovereignty, the goods
of either of the belligerent powers, found within its ju-
risdiction. But can this right of protection, admitted
to be possessed by every government within its own li-
mits, in virtue of its absolute sovereignty, be communi-
cated to a vessel navigating the high seas ?
It is supposed that it cannot be so communicated ; be-
cause the ocean being common to all nations, no abso-
lute sovereignty can be acquired in it : the rights of all
are equal, and must necessarily check, limit and restrain
each other. The superior right therefore of absolute so-
vereignty, to protect all property within its own terri-
tory, ceases to be superior, when the property is no lon-
ger within its own territory, and may be encountered by
the opposing acknowledged right of a belligerent power,
to seize and confiscate the goods of his enemy. If the
belligerent permits the neutral to attempt without hazard
to himself, thus to serve and aid his enemy, yet he does
not relinquish the right of defeating that attempt when-
ever it shall be in his power to defeat it. Thus it is ad-
mitted that an armed vessel may stop and search at sea a
neutral bottom, and may take out goods, which are con-
traband of war, without giving cause of offence, or
being supposed in any degree to infringe neutral rights.
But this practice could not be permitted within the rivers,
harbours or other places of a neutral, where its sove-
reignty was complete. It follows then that the full right
of affording protection to all property whatever, whithin