If visit or visitation be not accompanied by search, it will be in most cases merely idle.  A sight of papers may be demanded, and papers may be produced.  But it is known that slave-traders carry false papers, and different sets of papers.  A search for other papers, then, must be made where suspicion justifies it, or else the whole proceeding would be nugatory.  In suspicious cases, the language and general appearance of the crew are among the means of ascertaining the national character of the vessel.  The cargo on board, also, often indicates the country from which she comes.  Her log-books, showing the previous course and events of her voyage, her internal fitting up and equipment, are all evidences for her, or against her, on her allegation of character.  These matters, it is obvious, can only be ascertained by rigorous search.

It may be asked, If a vessel may not be called on to show her papers, why does she carry papers?  No doubt she may be called on to show her papers; but the question is, Where, when, and by whom?  Not in time of peace, on the high seas, where her rights are equal to the rights of any other vessel, and where none has a right to molest her.  The use of her papers is, in time of war, to prove her neutrality when visited by belligerent cruisers; and in both peace and war, to show her national character, and the lawfulness of her voyage, in those ports of other countries to which she may proceed for purposes of trade.

It appears to the government of the United States, that the view of this whole subject which is the most naturally taken is also the most legal, and most in analogy with other cases.  British cruisers have a right to detain British merchantmen for certain purposes; and they have a right, acquired by treaty, to detain merchant-vessels of several other nations for the same purposes.  But they have no right at all to detain an American merchant-vessel.  This Lord Aberdeen admits in the fullest manner.  Any detention of an American vessel by a British cruiser is therefore a wrong, a trespass; although it may be done under the belief that she was a British vessel, or that she belonged to a nation which had conceded the right of such detention to the British cruisers, and the trespass therefore an involuntary trespass.  If a ship of war, in thick weather, or in the darkness of the night, fire upon and sink a neutral vessel, under the belief that she is an enemy’s vessel, this is a trespass, a mere wrong; and cannot be said to be an act done under any right, accompanied by responsibility for damages.  So if a civil officer on land have process against one individual, and through mistake arrest another, this arrest is wholly tortious; no one would think of saying that it was done under any lawful exercise of authority, subject only to responsibility, or that it was any thing but a mere trespass, though an unintentional trespass.  The municipal law does not undertake to lay down beforehand any rule for the government of such cases; and as little,