This order was justified upon the ground, that by the modern law of nations, all provisions are to be considered as contraband, and as such liable to confiscation, wherever depriving an enemy of these supplies is one of the means intended to be employed for reducing him to terms.  The actual situation of France, (it was said,) was notoriously such, as to lead to the employing this mode of distressing her by the joint operations of the various powers engaged in the war; and the reasonings of the text writers applying to all cases of this sort were more applicable to the present case, in which the distress resulted from the unusual mode of war adopted by the enemy himself, in having armed almost the whole laboring class of the French nation, for the purpose of commencing and supporting hostilities against almost all European Governments; but this reasoning was most of all applicable to a trade, which was in a great measure carried on by the then actual rulers of France, and was no longer to be regarded as a mercantile speculation of individuals, but as an immediate operation of the very persons who had declared war, and were then carrying it on against Great Britain.

This reasoning was resisted by the neutral powers—­Sweden, Denmark, and especially the United States.  The American Government insisted, that when two nations go to war, other nations who choose to remain at peace, retain their natural right to pursue their agriculture, manufactures, and ordinary vocations; to carry the produce of their industry for exchange to all countries, belligerent or neutral, (as usual;) to go and come freely without injury or molestation; in short, that the war, (amongst other) should be for neutral purposes, as if it did not exist; the only exceptions being trade in implements of war, or to a place blockaded by its enemy.  That there were sufficient treaties to decide what were implements of war.  Corn, flour, and meal, were not of the class of contraband.

The result of this controversy was a treaty with the United States in 1794.  It confined contraband to military and naval stores; and with respect to provisions not generally contraband, it was agreed,

“That whenever such articles became contraband by the Law of Nations, and should for that reason be seized, the same should not be confiscated, but the owners thereof should be speedily and completely indemnified; and the captors, or in their default, the Government under whose authority they act, should pay to the masters or owners of such vessels the full value of all such articles, with a reasonable mercantile profit thereon, together with the freight, and also the demurrage incident to such detention.”

The instructions of June, 1793, had been revoked previously to the signature of this treaty; but before its ratification, the British Government issued, in April, 1795, an order in council, instructing its cruizers to stop and detain all vessels laden wholly, or in part, with corn, flour, meal, and other provisions, and bound to any port in France, and to send them to such ports as might be most convenient, in order that such corn, &c., might be purchased on behalf of Government.