On July 14th, 1805, during the war between Great Britain and Spain, the British privateer Minerva captured the Spanish vessel Anna, near the mouth of the river Mississippi. When brought before the British prize court in November, 1805, the United States claimed the captured vessel, on the ground that the capture was effected within the American territorial maritime belt. From the evidence brought forward it appeared that the Anna was captured at a spot five miles from the mainland, but that there were several small mud islands composed of earth and trees, which had drifted down the river and had fixed themselves more than two miles off the shore.
80. The Punishment for Murder.
In 1905 Henry Johnson, an English subject, commits a murder in London but succeeds in escaping. In 1906 he appears in Rome under the name of Charles Waiter and commits a murder there also. During his trial at Rome his real name and antecedents are disclosed and reported in England. As the Italian penal code does not provide capital punishment and he is therefore only condemned to penal servitude for life, the question is raised in the English Press whether England could not demand the extradition of the murderer, so that he might be tried and executed in England for the murder committed there.
SECTION XXI
81. A Traitor's Fate.
In 1670 Frederick William, the great elector of Brandenburg, ordered his diplomatic envoy at Warsaw, the capital of Poland, to obtain possession of the person of one Colonel von Kalkstein, a Prussian subject, who had fled to Poland for political reasons, as he was accused of high treason. Von Kalkstein having been seized secretly on November 28th, 1670, was wrapped up in a carpet and in this way carried across the frontier and beheaded at Memel.
82. An Interrupted Armistice.
During a war between states A and B, a general armistice is concluded, without detailed stipulations. The commander of the forces of state A is informed through spies that the enemy is throwing up defences within the line where the forces face each other and is concentrating twice as many troops in that place as had been there before the conclusion of the armistice. This he considers a violation of the armistice, and, fearing an attack, at once recommences hostilities, without any previous denunciation of the armistice.
83. Shooting Affray in a Legation.