Is it, then, to be expected that such foe will forego such advantage,—­will insist upon spending blood and money in fighting, or money in the vain effort of maintaining a fleet which, having nothing to fight, also keeps its hands off such an obvious means of crippling the opponent and forcing him out of his ports?  Great Britain’s navy, in the French wars, not only protected her own commerce, but also annihilated that of the enemy; and both conditions—­not one alone—­were essential to her triumph.

It is because Great Britain’s sea power, though still superior, has declined relatively to that of other states, and is no longer supreme, that she has been induced to concede to neutrals the principle that the flag covers the goods.  It is a concession wrung from relative weakness—­or possibly from a mistaken humanitarianism; but, to whatever due, it is all to the profit of the neutral and to the loss of the stronger belligerent.  The only justification, in policy, for its yielding by the latter, is that she can no longer, as formerly, bear the additional burden of hostility, if the neutral should ally himself to the enemy.  I have on another occasion said that the principle that the flag covers the goods is forever secured—­meaning thereby that, so far as present indications go, no one power would be strong enough at sea to maintain the contrary by arms.

In the same way it may be asserted quite confidently that the concession of immunity to what is unthinkingly called the “private property” of an enemy on the sea, will never be conceded by a nation or alliance confident in its own sea power.  It has been the dream of the weaker sea belligerents in all ages; and their arguments for it, at the first glance plausible, are very proper to urge from their point of view.  That arch-robber, the first Napoleon, who so remorselessly and exhaustively carried the principle of war sustaining war to its utmost logical sequence, and even in peace scrupled not to quarter his armies on subject countries, maintaining them on what, after all, was simply private property of foreigners,—­even he waxes quite eloquent, and superficially most convincing, as he compares the seizure of goods at sea, so fatal to his empire, to the seizure of a wagon travelling an inland country road.

In all these contentions there lies, beneath the surface plausibility, not so much a confusion of thought as a failure to recognize an essential difference of conditions.  Even on shore the protection of private property rests upon the simple principle that injury is not to be wanton,—­that it is not to be inflicted when the end to be attained is trivial, or largely disproportionate to the suffering caused.  For this reason personal property, not embarked in commercial venture, is respected in civilized maritime war.  Conversely, as we all know, the rule on land is by no means invariable, and private property receives scant consideration when its appropriation