ion in damages; nor does it
differ from it in principle. The point at issue really is not, "Is the
property private?" but, "Is the method conducive to the purposes of
war?" Property strictly private, on board ship, but not in process of
commercial exchange, is for this reason never touched; and to do so is
considered as disgraceful as a common theft.

Napoleon, as a ruler, was always poverty-stricken. For that reason he
levied heavy contributions on conquered states, which it is needless
to say were paid by private taxpayers; and for the same reason, by
calling French ships and French goods "private property," he would
compel for them the freedom of the sea, which the maritime
preponderance of Great Britain denied them. He needed the revenue that
commerce would bring in. So as to blockades. In denying the right to
capture under a nominal blockade, unsupported by an effective force,
he took the ground which the common-sense of nations had long before
embodied in the common consent called international law. But he went
farther. Blockade is very inconvenient to the blockaded, which was the
role played by France. Along with the claim for "private property," he
formulated the proposition that the right of blockade is restrained
to fortified places; to which was afterwards added the corollary that
the place must be invested by land as well as by sea. It is to be
noticed that here also American policy showed a disposition to go
astray, by denying the legitimacy of a purely commercial blockade; a
tendency natural enough at that passing moment, when, as a weak
nation, it was desired to restrict the rights of belligerents, but
which in its results on the subsequent history of the country would
have been ruinous. John Marshall, one of the greatest names in
American jurisprudence, when Secretary of State in 1800, wrote to the
minister in London:

On principle it might well be questioned whether this rule [of
blockade] can be applied to a place not completely invested, by
land as well as by sea. If we examine the reasoning on which is
founded the right to intercept and confiscate supplies designed
for a blockaded town, it will be difficult to resist the
conviction that its extension to towns invested by sea only is
an unjustifiable encroachment on the rights of neutrals. But it
is not of this departure from principle (a departure which has
received some sanction from practice) that we mean to