[540] Martens, R. VII. p. 260.
But this compromise did not last long. When in November 1807 war broke out between Russia and England, the former in her declaration of war[541] annulled the Maritime Convention of 1801, proclaimed again the principles of the First Armed Neutrality, and asserted that she would never again drop these principles. Great Britain proclaimed in her counter-declaration[542] her return to those principles against which the First and the Second Armed Neutrality were directed, and she was able to point out that no Power had applied these principles more severely than Russia under the Empress Catharine II. after the latter had initiated the First Armed Neutrality.
[541] Martens, R. VIII. p. 706.
[542] Martens, R. VIII. p. 710.
Thus all progress made by the Maritime Convention of 1801 fell to the ground. Times were not favourable to any progress. After Napoleon's Berlin decrees in 1806 ordering the boycott of all English goods, England declared all French ports and all the ports of the allies of France blockaded, and ordered her fleet to capture all ships destined to these ports. And Russia, which had in her declaration of war against England in 1807 solemnly asserted that she would never again drop the principles of the First Armed Neutrality, by article 2 of the Ukase[543] published on August 1, 1809, violated one of the most important of these principles by ordering that neutral vessels carrying enemy (English) goods were to be stopped, the enemy goods seized, and the vessels themselves seized if more than the half of their cargoes consisted of enemy goods.
[543] Martens, N.R. I. p. 484.
Neutrality during the Nineteenth Century.
§ 291. The development of the rules of neutrality during the nineteenth century was due to four factors.
(1) The most prominent and influential factor is the attitude of the United States of America towards neutrality from 1793 to 1818. When in 1793 England joined the war which had broken out in 1792 between the so-called First Coalition and France, Genêt, the French diplomatic envoy accredited to the United States, granted Letters of Marque to American merchantmen manned by American citizens in American ports. These privateers were destined to cruise against English vessels, and French Prize Courts were set up by the French Minister in connection with French consulates in American ports. On the complaint of Great Britain, the Government of the United States ordered these privateers to be disarmed and the French Prize Courts to be disorganised.[544] As the trial of Gideon Henfield,[545] who was acquitted, proved that the Municipal Law of the United States did not prohibit the enlistment of American citizens in the service of a foreign belligerent, Congress in 1794 passed an Act temporarily forbidding American citizens to accept Letters of Marque from a foreign belligerent and to enlist in the army or navy of a foreign State, and forbidding the fitting out and arming of vessels intended as privateers for foreign belligerents. Other Acts were passed from time to time. Finally, on April 20, 1818, Congress passed the Foreign Enlistment Act, which deals definitely with the matter, and is still in force,[546] and which afforded the basis of the British Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819. The example of the United States initiated the present practice, according to which it is the duty of neutrals to prevent the fitting out and arming on their territory of cruisers for belligerents, to prevent enlistment on their territory for belligerents, and the like.
[544] See Wharton, III. §§ 395-396.