wiih  France,  Holland,  and  Prassia,  and  tbe  Frencli  goods  found  by  tbe
'  latter  nations  in  American  bottoms  are  not  made  prize  of. It  is  onr  wisb
to  establish  it  with  other  nations. Bat  this  requires  their  consent  also,
as  a  work  of  time,  and  in  the  meanwhile  they  haye  a  right  to  act  on
the  general  principle,  without  giving  to  us  or  to  France  cause  of  com*
pkint.''(<)

GLXXl. The  two  distinct  propositions,  that  enemy's  goods  found  on
board  a  neutral  ship  may  lawfully  be  seized  as  prize  of  war,  and  that  the
goods  of  a  Neutral  found  on  board  of  an  enemy's  vessel  are  to  be  restored,
have  also  been  explicitly  incorporated  into  the  jurisprudence  of  the
United  States,  and  declared  by  the  Supreme  Oourt  to  be  founded  on  the
Law  of  Nations. The  rule,  as  it  was  observed  by  the  Court,  rested  on
the  simple  and  intelligible  principle,  that  War  gave  a  full  right  to  cap-
ture the  goods  of  an  enemy,  but  gave  no  right  to  capture  the  goods  of  a
friend. The  neutral  flag  constituted  no  protection  to  enemy's  property,
and  the  belligerent  flag  communicated  no  hostile  character  to  neutoal
property. The  character  of  the  property  depended  upon  the  fact  of
ownership,  and  not  upon  the  character  of  the  vehicle  in  which  it  wad
found. Nations,  indeed,  had  changed  this  simple  and  natural  principle
P^Ace-i  of  public  law,  by  conventions  between  themselves,  *in  whole  at
L  -I  in  part,  as  they  believed  it  to  be  for  their  interest;  but  the  one
proposition,  that  free  ships  should  make  free  goods,  did  not  necessarily
imply  the  converse  proposition,  that  enemy's  ships  should  make  enemy's
goods. If  a  Treaty  established  the  one  proposition,  and  was  silent  as  to
the  other,  the  other  stood  precisely  as  if  there  had  been  no  stipulation,
and  upon  the  ancient  rule. The  stipulation  that  neutral  bottoms  should
make  neutral  goods,  was  a  concession  made  by  the  Belligerent  to  the
Neutral,  and  it  gave  to  the  neutral  flag  a  capacity  not  given  to  it  by  the
Law  of  Nations. 