_Governor Sir P. Wodehouse to Rear-Admiral Sir B. Walker, August 8,
1863_.
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's letter
of yesterday's date, and to inclose the copy of an opinion given by the
Acting Attorney-General to the effect that the vessel to which you refer
ought to be regarded as a tender and not as a prize.
I shall take care to submit this question to Her Majesty's Government by
the next mail, but in the meantime I conclude that your Excellency will
be prepared to act on the opinion of the Attorney-General in respect to
any vessels which may enter these ports in the character of prizes
converted into ships of war by the officers of the navy of the
Confederate States.
_Extracts from "Wheaton's Elements of International Law."_
What constitutes a setting forth as a vessel of war has been determined
by the British Courts of Prize, in cases arising under the clause of the
Act of Parliament, which may serve for the interpretation of our own
law, as the provisions are the same in both. Thus it has been settled
that where a ship was originally armed for the Slave Trade, and after
capture an additional number of men were put on board, but there was no
commission of war and no additional arming, it was not a setting forth
as a vessel of war under the Act. But a commission of war is decisive if
there be guns on board; and where the vessel after the capture has been
fitted out as a privateer, it is conclusive against her, although, when
recaptured, she is navigating as a mere merchant-ship; for where the
former character of a captured vessel had been obliterated by her
conversion into a ship of war, the Legislature meant to look no further,
but considered the title of the former owner forever extinguished.
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