This warranty to sail with convoy, does not mean that the vessel shall depart with convoy immediately from the lading port, but only from the place of rendezvous appointed for vessels bound from that port, and must be strictly and impartially maintained by force, to the uniform universal exclusion of all vessels not privileged by law.[196]
From many ports, and among others from the port of London, no convoy ever sails. It has therefore been held sufficient for a vessel bound from London to sail with convoy from the Downs, and even from Spithead, when there was no convoy appointed from the Downs. Neither does it require the vessel to sail with convoy bound to the precise place of her destination; but if the vessel sail with the only convoy appointed for vessels going to her place of destination, it is sufficient. It sometimes happens that the force first appointed, is to accompany the ships only for a part of their voyage, and to be succeeded by another; at other times a small force is detached from the main body to bring up to a particular point; if a vessel sail under the protection of a vessel thus appointed or detached, the warranty is satisfied.
But this warranty requires not only that the vessel shall sail under the protection of the convoy, but also that she shall continue during its course under the same protection, unless prevented from so doing by tempest or other unavoidable accident, in which case, the master and owners will be excused, if the master does all that is in his power to keep with the convoy.
The merchantman must, before sailing, obtain or endeavour to obtain, the sailing orders issued by the convoying squadron. The value of a convoy appointed by Government arises in a great degree from its taking the ships under control, as well as under protection; but this control cannot be exercised except by means of sailing orders. Otherwise, the master could not learn the rendezvous in case of dispersion by a storm, or obey signals in case of attack.
The obligation to sail with convoy does not depend merely on special agreement; but, by act of parliament, a merchant cannot sail without a convoy, on a foreign voyage, unless previously licensed to do so.[197]
SECTION IV.
[Sidenote: Armed Neutralities.]
It is not improbable the course of events in the present war may make it not uninteresting to my readers to have some short account of the origin and meaning of Armed Neutralities, especially as the principles on which they were founded may again be open to discussion. The right to take enemy's property on board neutral vessels has, in the present war, been waived by the Queen, in a declaration, dated Buckingham Palace, March 29th 1854. This is however tempered by a reservation of the right to search for contraband. Up to the present time the right to take enemy's goods on board a neutral vessel has in this country been steadily maintained; though in France it has been fluctuating; the interests of another commercial power became the origin of the extraordinary confederacies termed Armed Neutralities. At an early period it was an object of interest with Holland, a great commercial and navigating country, whose permanent policy was essentially pacific, to obtain a relaxation of the severe rules which had previously been observed in maritime warfare. The States General of the United Provinces having complained of the provisions in the French Ordinance of 1538, a treaty of commerce was concluded between France and the Republic in 1646, by which the law, as far as respected the capture and confiscation of neutral vessels for carrying enemy's property, was suspended; but it was found impossible to obtain, at that time, any relaxation as to the liability to capture of enemy's property in neutral vessels.
This latter concession, however, the United Provinces obtained from France by the treaty of alliance of 1662, and the commercial treaty signed at the same time with the peace, at Nimiguen, in 1671; confirmed by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697. The maxim that free ships make free goods was coupled in these treaties with its correlative maxim, enemy's ships make enemy's goods.
The same concession was obtained by Holland from England in 1668 and 1674, as the price of an alliance between the two countries against the ambitious designs of Louis XIV.