Chancellor Kent expressly terms this species of hostility—­a reprisal.[203] And Lord Mansfield says, that though foreign ports or harbours are not the high sea any more than the shore, yet numberless captures made there have been condemned as prize,[204] i.e. can be the subject of reprisal.

NOTE B.—­War Bill Act.

During the last war, the War Bill Act, 34 Geo. 3. c. 9, was passed as a measure of retaliation.  It was passed in order to prevent the effect intended to be produced by an order of the French Government, compelling all merchants, bankers, and others, possessed of money, funded property, and effects, in different parts Europe, to declare all such property, that it might be taken by violence, and applied to the purposes of the war then carried on by the government of France against the greater part of Europe.

The principal sections relating to bills, prohibited any British subject, from and after March 1, 1794, from wilfully and knowingly in any manner paying or satisfying any bill of exchange, note, draught, obligation, or order for money, in part or in whole, which, since January 1, 1794, had been or at any time during the said war should be drawn, accepted, or indorsed, or in any manner sent from any part of the dominions of France, &c.; every person so offending to forfeit double the value, and the payment not to be effectual against any person who might otherwise have demanded the same; but the demands of all persons to remain, notwithstanding such payment, and notwithstanding such bills shall have been delivered up.

NOTE C.—­Rule of 1756.

During the war of 1756, the French Government, finding the trade with their colonies cut off by the maritime superiority of Great Britain, relaxed the monopoly of that trade, and allowed the Dutch, then neutral, to carry on the commerce between the mother country and her colonies, under special licences or passes, granted for this particular purpose, excluding at the same time, all other neutrals from the same trade.  Many of their vessels were captured by the British cruizers.

The policy under which they were captured is called the “Rule of 1756;” and as, in the present war, its justice and propriety has already begun to be doubted, it may not be uninteresting to read the reasons upon which it was founded.

1.  They were considered as part of the French navigation, having adopted this otherwise exclusive commerce, and acting in the character of French enemy in identifying themselves with that interest, in direct opposition to the belligerent interests and purposes of Great Britain.

2.  Inasmuch as they were only carriers for the French, they were to be regarded as French transports, carrying national assistance to the enemy, and therefore to be condemned on the same principle as vessels carrying troops or despatches.

3.  That the property they carried being from one part of the French empire to the other, was so completely identified with French interests as to take a hostile character.