orbidding prizes captured by either of the
contending parties in North America being admitted into our ports.

_Governor Sir P. Wodehouse to Rear-Admiral Sir B. Walker, August 8,
1863_.

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's letter
of yesterday's date, and to inclose the copy of an opinion given by the
Acting Attorney-General to the effect that the vessel to which you refer
ought to be regarded as a tender and not as a prize.

I shall take care to submit this question to Her Majesty's Government by
the next mail, but in the meantime I conclude that your Excellency will
be prepared to act on the opinion of the Attorney-General in respect to
any vessels which may enter these ports in the character of prizes
converted into ships of war by the officers of the navy of the
Confederate States.

_Extracts from "Wheaton's Elements of International Law."_

What constitutes a setting forth as a vessel of war has been determined
by the British Courts of Prize, in cases arising under the clause of the
Act of Parliament, which may serve for the interpretation of our own
law, as the provisions are the same in both. Thus it has been settled
that where a ship was originally armed for the Slave Trade, and after
capture an additional number of men were put on board, but there was no
commission of war and no additional arming, it was not a setting forth
as a vessel of war under the Act. But a commission of war is decisive if
there be guns on board; and where the vessel after the capture has been
fitted out as a privateer, it is conclusive against her, although, when
recaptured, she is navigating as a mere merchant-ship; for where the
former character of a captured vessel had been obliterated by her
conversion into a ship of war, the Legislature meant to look no further,
but considered the title of the former owner forever extinguished. Where
it appeared that the vessel had been engaged in a military service of
the enemy, under the direction of his Minister of the Marine, it was
held as a sufficient proof of a setting forth as a vessel of war; so
where the vessel is armed, and is employed in the public military
service of the enemy by those who have competent authority so to employ
it, although it be not regularly commissioned. But the mere employment
in the enemy's military service is not sufficient; but if there be a
fair semblance of authority, in the person directing the vessel to be so
employed, and not