Page:Handbook of maritime rights.djvu/107

Rh should be established. As to I., it was untrue; no uncertainty at all, as I hope I have clearly shown, existed as to the law of nations on the subject, although many nations, in their practice, went beyond, and so violated—deliberately—the law of nations. And as for II., however desirable it might be to establish uniformity, uniformity has not been established, as Spain and the United States both decline to sign the declaration and give up the right of using privateers.

In the debates in Parliament, other reasons were assigned, viz., that we could not maintain these maritime rights against the "intense anxiety of the neutral nations "that we should not," and especially against the attitude of the United States in the matter. The purely military nations may, I think, be dismissed from consideration; as they are powerless on the sea, this argument, founded as it is on an implied menace of power, cannot apply to them. With