BLOCKADE, in war, the shutting up of any place or port by a naval or military force, so as to cut off all communication with those who are without the hostile line.
There is, perhaps, no part of the law of nations which, in practice, presents so many perplexing questions, as that which concerns the respective rights of neutral and belligerent states. No definite line of distinction has yet been drawn between the privileges of war and peace ; and the consequence has been, that, in all the wars which have been waged in Europe, the general tranquillity of the world has been endangered by the jarring of these two different interests. It has commonly happened, too, that all these important questions have been agitated during a season of war, when the passions of the contending parties were keenly engaged in the dispute,—when principles were already subvert ed,—and when the minds of men, exasperated by the glaring infraction of acknowledged rights, were not in a state to agree on any system of general equity, by which to regulate and reform the erring policy of states. In these circumstances, many points of international law, which appear to rest on the most obvious principles, and which are very clearly settled in the writings of civilians, have, neverthe less, been the occasion, in practice, of no small con troversy, and have frequently involved nations in all the miseries of protracted war. This has been, in some measure, manifested in the case of the Rights gf'Blociade respecting which, though no difference of opinion has ever prevailed among speculative writers, a controversy arose during the late contests in Europe, which, along with other points, ultimate- ' ly involved Great Britain in a war with the neutral powers. We propose, in the course of the sub sequent observations, to state, lst, The general principles from which the most approved writers have deduced the rights of blockade; and, 2d, To give a short account of the recent differences which have taken place between the neutral and the belligerent states, respecting the extent of those rights.
In regulating the respective privileges of the neu tral and the belligerent, it has been generally held as a fundamental principle, by writers on the law of nations, that those rights, from the exercise of which less benefit would accrue to the one party than detriment to the other, should be abandoned ; and in all cases where the rights of peace and the rights of war happen to come Into collision, the ap plication of this rule will decide which of the two parties must yield to the convenience of the other. Thus the neutral state is debarred from carrying on any trade with either of the belligerents in warlike stores. The general right to a free trade is modi fied, in this particular instance, by the paramount rights of the belligerent. To refrain, for a time, from trading with an individual state in warlike stores, can, at most, only impose a trifling inconve nience on the neutral power, while the continuance of such a trade might terminate in the destruction of the belligerent. The detriment occasioned to the one party, by the existence of such a trade, is; it in this manner, infinitely greater than the loss suffer , ed by the other from its abandonment. Warlike stores, and whatever else bears a direct reference to war, are, accordingly, proscribed as unlawful articles of trade, and made liable to seizure by either of the belligerents. To this inconvenience the neutral is exposed, to avoid the greater inconvenience and damage which might fall on the belligerent, by the licensing of such a trade. On the other hand. the neutral state enjoys the most unlimited freedom of trade in all other articles, with either of the powers at war ; and though, by means of this beneficial in tercourse, they may be both furnished with the means of carrying on a protracted contest, this is a contingent and incidental consequence of the trade, which, in its character, is substantially pacific, and which is attended with such great and immediate advantages, that they could not, with any regard to equity, be sacrificed to the remote convenience of the belligerent.