pursue her voyage in her own way, and to use all necessary precautions to avoid any suspected sinister enterprise or hostile attack.  Her right to the free use of the ocean is as perfect as that of any other ship.  An entire equality is presumed to exist.  She has a right to consult her own safety, but at the same time she must take care not to violate the rights of others.  She may use any precautions dictated by the prudence or fears of her officers, either as to delay, or the progress or course of her voyage; but she is not at liberty to inflict injuries upon other innocent parties simply because of conjectural dangers.

But if the vessel thus approached attempts to avoid the vessel approaching, or does not comply with her commander’s order to send him her papers for his inspection, nor consent to be visited or detained, what is next to be done?  Is force to be used?  And if force be used, may that force be lawfully repelled?  These questions lead at once to the elemental principle, the essence of the British claim.  Suppose the merchant-vessel be in truth an American vessel engaged in lawful commerce, and that she does not choose to be detained.  Suppose she resists the visit.  What is the consequence?  In all cases in which the belligerent right of visit exists, resistance to the exercise of that right is regarded as just cause of condemnation, both of vessel and cargo.  Is that 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.