ime the right to take enemy's goods on board a neutral vessel has in
this country been steadily maintained; though in France it has been
fluctuating; the interests of another commercial power became the
origin of the extraordinary confederacies termed _Armed Neutralities_.
At an early period it was an object of interest with Holland, a great
commercial and navigating country, whose permanent policy was
essentially pacific, to obtain a relaxation of the severe rules which
had previously been observed in maritime warfare. The States General
of the United Provinces having complained of the provisions in the
French Ordinance of 1538, a treaty of commerce was concluded between
France and the Republic in 1646, by which the law, as far as respected
the capture and confiscation of neutral vessels for carrying enemy's
property, was suspended; but it was found impossible to obtain, at
that time, any relaxation as to the liability to capture of enemy's
property in neutral vessels.

This latter concession, however, the United Provinces obtained from
France by the treaty of alliance of 1662, and the commercial treaty
signed at the same time with the peace, at Nimiguen, in 1671;
confirmed by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697. The maxim that _free
ships_ make _free goods_ was coupled in these treaties with its
correlative maxim, _enemy's ships_ make _enemy's goods_.

The same concession was obtained by Holland from England in 1668 and
1674, as the price of an alliance between the two countries against
the ambitious designs of Louis XIV.

In the subsequent war of 1756, a controversy arose between England and
Holland, in which it was said, on the one hand, that England had
violated the rights of neutral commerce; and on the other, that
Holland had not fulfilled the guarantees under which those privileges
had been granted.

Afterwards, when the American Revolution gave rise to a war between
France and Great Britain, the latter power, instead of following the
example of her enemy, (who had issued an ordinance prohibiting the
seizure of neutral vessels, even when bound to or from enemy ports,
unless carrying contraband,) issued an order in council, (March,
1780,) suspending the special stipulations respecting commerce and
navigation contained in the Treaty of 1674.

This was the crisis of many complaints made by the neutral powers
against Great Britain; and, in 1780, the Empress of Russia proclaimed
the principles of the Baltic Code of