sion of cotton in the
list of "absolute" contraband is that this is wholly without precedent.
It has, indeed, been alleged that cotton was declared to be "contraband"
by the United States in their Civil War. The Federal proclamations will,
however, be searched in vain for anything of the kind. The mistake is
due to an occasional loose employment of the term, as descriptive of
articles found by an invader in an enemy's territory, which, although
the property of private, and even neutral, individuals, happen to be so
useful for the purposes of the war as to be justly confiscated. That
this was so will appear from an attentive reading of the case of _Mrs.
Alexander's Cotton_, in 1861 (2 Wallace, 404), and of the arguments in
the claim made by Messrs. Maza and Larrache against the United States in
1886 (Foreign Relations of U.S., 1887). A similarly loose use of the
term was its application by General B.F. Butler to runaway slaves who
had been employed on military works--an application of which he
confessed himself "never very proud as a lawyer," though "as an
executive officer, much comforted with it." The phrase caught the
popular fancy, came to be applied to slaves generally, and was
immortalised in a song, long a favourite among negro children, the
refrain of which was "I'se a happy little contraband."

The decision of the Court of St. Petersburg in the case of the
_Calchas_, so far as it recognises the existence of a conditional class
of contraband, and that raw cotton, as _res ancipitis usus_, must be
treated in accordance with the rules applicable to goods belonging to
that class, has laid down an unimpeachable proposition of law. Whether
the view taken by the Court of the facts of the case, so far as they
relate to the cotton cargo, is equally satisfactory, is a different and
less important question, upon which I refrain from troubling you upon
the present occasion.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
T. E. HOLLAND.

P.S.--It may be worth while to add, for the benefit of those only who
care to be provided with a clue (not to be found in the judgment)
through the somewhat labyrinthine details of the question under
discussion, a summary of its history. The Russian rules as to contraband
are contained in several documents--viz. the "Regulations as to Naval
Prize" of 1895, Arts. 11-14; the "Admiralty Instructions" of 1900, Arts.
97, 98, and the appended "Special Declaration" as to the articles
considered to be contrab