s, in time of war,
at the will and for the convenience of the belligerent; because by
such employment they were "in effect incorporated in the enemy's
navigation, having adopted his commerce and character, and identified
themselves with his interests and purposes."[108]

During the next great maritime war, that of American Independence, the
United States were involved as belligerents, and the only maritime
neutrals were Holland and the Baltic States. These drew together in a
league known historically as the Armed Neutrality of 1780, in
opposition to certain British interpretations of the rights of
neutrals and belligerents; but in their formulated demands that of
open trade with the colonies of belligerents does not appear, although
there is found one closely cognate to it,--an asserted right to
coasting trade, from port to port, of a country at war. The Rule of
1756 therefore remained, in 1793, a definition of international
maritime law laid down by British courts, but not elsewhere accepted;
and it rested upon a logical deduction from a system of colonial
administration universal at that period. The logical deduction may be
stated thus. The mother country, for its own benefit, reserves to
itself both the inward and outward trade; the products of the colony,
and the supplying of it with necessaries. The carriage of these
commodities is also confined to its own ships. Colonial commerce and
navigation are thus each a national monopoly. To open to neutrals the
navigation, the carriage of products and supplies, in time of war, is
a war measure simply, designed to preserve a benefit endangered by the
other belligerent. As a war measure, it tends to support the financial
and naval strength of the nation employing it; and therefore, to an
opponent whose naval power is capable of destroying that element of
strength, the stepping in of a neutral to cover it is clearly an
injury. The neutral so doing commits an unfriendly act, partial
between the two combatants; because it aids the one in a proceeding,
the origin and object of which are purely belligerent.

When the United States in 1776 entered the family of nations, she came
without colonies, but in the war attendant upon her liberation she had
no rights as a neutral. In the interval of peace, between 1783 and
1793, she had endeavored, as has been seen, to establish between
herself and the Caribbean region those conditions of open navigation
which were indicated as natural b