Page:Handbook of maritime rights.djvu/110

96 United States for declining to adhere to the Declaration of Paris is not any objection to the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Rules, but to the 1st Rule, viz., that which abolishes privateering; and England's adhesion to the other points was conditional on this first point being accepted; it being decided at the Conference that the rules must be accepted "en bloc" or not at all. The United States offered to agree to them all, if an addition were made to them, to the effect that all private property (ships and cargoes) at sea should enjoy the same immunity in time of war as in peace.