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6 blockades I must notice some further pretensions on the subject put forward by neutral nations and by those whose manifest interest it is to cripple England's power at sea, and which, although not yet adopted, can be equally supported by exactly the same class of argument by which the Declaration of Paris is defended.

In the Berlin decrees of the First Napoleon, and in a circular of Count Beust, the pretension was raised that the right of blockading should be confined to fortified places thus putting an end to commercial blockades altogether, and involving that larger pretension which I shall examine later on, viz., the immunity of all private property at sea.

But in order to clear the ground for the examination of the chief point on which we have to fix our attention (viz., the maxim of the flag covering the cargo) it may be as well to dispose of the 1st rule of the Declaration of Paris, which abolished