penalty, or what other penalty, to be incurred by
resistance to visit in time of peace? Or suppose that force be met by
force, gun returned for gun, and the commander of the cruiser, or some
of his seamen be killed; what description of offence will have been
committed? It would be said, in behalf of the commander of the cruiser,
that he mistook the vessel for a vessel of England, Brazil, or Portugal;
but does this mistake of his take away from the American vessel the
right of self-defence? The writers of authority declare it to be a
principle of natural law, that the privilege of self-defence exists
against an assailant who mistakes the object of his attack for another
whom he had a right to assail.

Lord Aberdeen cannot fail to see, therefore, what serious consequences
might ensue, if it were to be admitted that this claim to visit, in time
of peace, however limited or defined, should be permitted to exist as a
strict matter of right; for if it exist as a right, it must be followed
by corresponding duties and obligations, and the failure to fulfil those
duties would naturally draw penal consequences after it, till erelong it
would become, in truth, little less, or little other, than the
belligerent right of search.

If visit or visitation be not accompanied by search, it will be in most
cases merely idle. A sight of papers may be demanded, and papers may be
produced. But it is known that slave-traders carry false papers, and
different sets of papers. A search for other papers, then, must be made
where suspicion justifies it, or else the whole proceeding would be
nugatory. In suspicious cases, the language and general appearance of
the crew are among the means of ascertaining the national character of
the vessel. The cargo on board, also, often indicates the country from
which she comes. Her log-books, showing the previous course and events
of her voyage, her internal fitting up and equipment, are all evidences
for her, or against her, on her allegation of character. These matters,
it is obvious, can only be ascertained by rigorous search.

It may be asked, If a vessel may not be called on to show her papers,
why does she carry papers? No doubt she may be called on to show her
papers; but the question is, Where, when, and by whom? Not in time of
peace, on the high seas, where her rights are equal to the rights of any
other vessel, and where none has a right to molest her. The use of her
papers is, in time of war, to p