tances already
noticed.

Whether, in the case of a vessel duly commissioned as a ship of war,
after being made prize by a belligerent Government, without being first
brought _infra praesidia_, or condemned by a court of prize, the
character of prize, within the meaning of Her Majesty's orders, would or
would not be merged in that of a national ship of war, I am not called
upon to explain. It is enough to say that the citation from Mr.
Wheaton's book by your attorney-general does not appear to me to have
any direct bearing upon the question.

Connected with this subject is the question as to the cargoes of
captured vessels, which is alluded to at the end of your despatch. On
this point I have to instruct you that Her Majesty's orders apply as
much to prize cargoes of every kind which may be brought by any armed
ships or privateers of either belligerent into British waters as to the
captured vessels themselves. They do not, however, apply to any articles
which may have formed part of any such cargoes, if brought within
British jurisdiction, not by armed ships or privateers of either
belligerent, but by other persons who may have acquired or may claim
property in them by reason of any dealings with the captors.

I think it right to observe that the third reason alleged by the
attorney-general for his opinion assumes (though the fact had not been
made the subject of any inquiry) that "no means existed for determining
whether the ship had or had not been judicially condemned in a court of
competent jurisdiction," and the proposition that, "_admitting her to
have been captured by a ship of war of the Confederate States_, she was
entitled to refer Her Majesty's Government, in case of any dispute, to
the court of her States in order to satisfy it as to her real
character." This assumption, however, is not consistent with Her
Majesty's undoubted right to determine within her own territory whether
her own orders, made in vindication of her own neutrality, have been
violated or not.

The question remains what course ought to have been taken by the
authorities of the Cape--

1st. In order to ascertain whether this vessel was, as alleged by the
United States Consul, an uncondemned prize brought within British waters
in violation of Her Majesty's neutrality; and

2dly. What ought to have been done if such had appeared to be really the
fact.

I think that the allegations of the United States Consul ought to have
been brought