[764] In his judgment in the case of the Franciska (1855), Spinks, 287.
Cessation of Effectiveness.
§ 382. A blockade is effective so long as the danger lasts which makes probable the capture of such vessels as attempt to pass the approach. A blockade, therefore, ceases ipso facto by the absence of such danger, whether the blockading men-of-war are driven away, or are sent away for the fulfilment of some task which has nothing to do with the blockade, or voluntarily withdraw, or allow the passage of vessels in other cases than those which are exceptionally admissible. Thus, when in 1861, during the American Civil War, the Federal cruiser Niagara, which blockaded Charleston, was sent away and her place was taken after five days by the Minnesota, the blockade ceased to be effective, although the Federal Government refused to recognise this.[765] Thus, further, when during the Crimean War Great Britain allowed Russian vessels to export goods from blockaded ports, and accordingly the egress of such vessels from the blockaded port of Riga was permitted, the blockade of Riga ceased to be effective, because it tried to interfere with neutral commerce only; therefore, the capture of the Danish vessel Franciska[766] for attempting to break the blockade was not upheld.
[765] See Mountague Bernard, Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War (1870), pp. 237-239.
[766] Spinks, 287. See above, § [370].
On the other hand, practice[767] and the majority of writers have always recognised the fact that a blockade does not cease to be effective in case the blockading force is driven away for a short time through stress of weather, and article 4 of the Declaration of London precisely enacts that "a blockade is not regarded as raised if the blockading force is temporarily withdrawn on account of stress of weather." English[768] writers, further, have hitherto denied that a blockade loses effectiveness through a blockading man-of-war being absent for a short time for the purpose of chasing a vessel which succeeded in passing the approach unhindered,[769] but the Declaration of London does not recognise this.[770]
[767] The Columbia (1799), 1 C. Rob. 154.
[768] See Twiss, II. § 103, p. 201, and Phillimore, III. § 294.
[769] See article 37 of U.S. Naval War Code.
[770] See the Report of the Drafting Committee on article 4 of the Declaration of London.