own
vessels, on the high seas.

Every merchant-vessel on the seas is rightfully considered as part of
the territory of the country to which it belongs. The entry, therefore,
into such vessel, being neutral, by a belligerent, is an act of force,
and is, _prima facie_, a wrong, a trespass, which can be justified only
when done for some purpose allowed to form a sufficient justification by
the law of nations. But a British cruiser enters an American
merchant-vessel in order to take therefrom supposed British subjects;
offering no justification, therefore, under the law of nations, but
claiming the right under the law of England respecting the king's
prerogative. This cannot be defended. English soil, English territory,
English jurisdiction, is the appropriate sphere for the operation of
English law. The ocean is the sphere of the law of nations; and any
merchant-vessel on the seas is by that law under the protection of the
laws of her own nation, and may claim immunity, unless in cases in which
that law allows her to be entered or visited.

If this notion of perpetual allegiance, and the consequent power of the
prerogative, was the law of the world; if it formed part of the
conventional code of nations, and was usually practised, like the right
of visiting neutral ships, for the purpose of discovering and seizing
enemy's property, then impressment might be defended as a common right,
and there would be no remedy for the evil till the national code should
be altered. But this is by no means the case. There is no such principle
incorporated into the code of nations. The doctrine stands only as
English law, not as a national law; and English law cannot be of force
beyond English dominion. Whatever duties or relations that law creates
between the sovereign and his subjects can be enforced and maintained
only within the realm, or proper possessions or territory of the
sovereign. There may be quite as just a prerogative right to the
property of subjects as to their personal services, in an exigency of
the state; but no government thinks of controlling by its own laws
property of its subjects situated abroad; much less does any government
think of entering the territory of another power for the purpose of
seizing such property and applying it to its own uses. As laws, the
prerogatives of the crown of England have no obligation on persons or
property domiciled or situated abroad.

"When, therefore," says an authority not unknow