But the most extraordinary part of the proceeding has yet to be stated.
You not only divest me of my title to my prize, but you tell me that you
are about to hand her over to the enemy! On what principle this can be
done I am utterly at a loss to conceive. Although it may be competent to
a Government, in an extreme case, to _confiscate to the Exchequer_ a
prize, there is but one possible contingency in which the prize can be
restored to the opposite belligerent, and that is the one already
mentioned of a capture within neutral jurisdiction. And this is done on
the ground of the nullity of the original capture. The prize is
pronounced not to have been lawfully made, and this being the case, and
the vessel being within the jurisdiction of the neutral whose waters
have been violated, there is but one course to pursue. The vessel does
not belong to the captor, and as she does not belong to the neutral, as
a matter of course she belongs to the opposite belligerent, and must be
delivered up to him. But there is no analogy between that case and the
one we are considering. My capture cannot be declared a nullity. My
title is as good against the enemy as though condemnation had passed.
The vessel either belongs to me or to the British Government. If she
belongs to me, justice requires that she should be delivered up to me.
If she belongs (by way of confiscation) to the British Government, why
should that Government make a gratuitous present of her to one of the
belligerents rather than the other?
My Government cannot fail, I think, to view this matter in the light in
which I have placed it; and it is deeply to be regretted that a weaker
people struggling against a stronger for very existence should have so
much cause to complain of the unfriendly disposition of a Government
from which, if it represents truly the instincts of Englishmen, it had
the right to expect at least sympathy and kindness in the place of
rigour and harshness.
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