n the case supposed, would be responsible to France, and
not to you. If this reasoning be correct--and with all due submission to
his lordship I think it is sustained by the plainest principles of the
international code--it follows that the condemnation of a prize in a
prize court is not the only mode of changing the character of a captured
ship. When the sovereign of the captor puts his own commission on board
such a ship, this is a condemnation in its most solemn form, and is
notice to all the world. On principle, if a ship thus commissioned were
recaptured, the belligerent prize court could not restore her to her
original owner, but must condemn her as a prize ship of war of the enemy
to the captors; for prize courts are international courts, and cannot
go behind the pennant and commission of the cruiser.

Further, as to this question of adjudication, your letter to Lieutenant
Low, the late commander of the Tuscaloosa, assumes that, as the
Tuscaloosa was not condemned, she was therefore the property of the
enemy from whom she had been taken. Condemnation is intended for the
benefit of neutrals, and to quiet the titles of purchasers, but is never
necessary as against the enemy. His right is taken away by force, and
not by any legal process, and the possession of his property _manu
forte_ is all that is required against him.

Earl Russell having decided to disregard these plain principles of the
laws of nations, and to go behind my commission, let us see what he next
decides.

His decision is this, that the Tuscaloosa being a prize, and having come
into British waters in violation of the Queen's orders of neutrality,
she must be restored to her original owner. The ship is not seized and
condemned for the violation of any municipal law, such as fraud upon the
revenue, &c.--as, indeed, she could not be so seized and condemned
without the intervention of a court of law--but by the strong arm of
executive power he wrests my prize from me, and very coolly hands her
over to the enemy. It is admitted that all prizes, like other merchant
ships, are liable to seizure and condemnation for a palpable violation
of the municipal law; but that is not this case. The whole thing is done
under the international law. Now, there is no principle better
established than that neutrals have no right to interfere in any manner
between the captor and his prize, except in one particular instance, and
that is where the prize has been captured