BLOCKADE. In International Law. The actual investment of a port or place by a hostile force fully competent, under or dinary circumstances, to out off all communi cation therewith, so arranged or disposed as to be able to apply its force to every point of practicable access or approach to the port or place so invested.
2. National sovereignty confers the right of declaring war ; and the right which nations at war have of destroying or capturing each other's citizens, subjects, or goods imposes on neutral nations the obligation not to in terfere with the exercise of this right within the rules prescribed by the law of nations. A declaration of a siege or blockade is an 'act of sovereignty, 1 C. Rob. Adm. 146 ; but a direct declaration by the sovereign authority of the besieging belligerent is not always requisite; particularly when the blockade is en a distant station ; for its officers may have power, either expressly or by implication, to institute such siege or blockade. 6 C. Rob. Adm. 367.
In case of civil war, the government may blockade its own ports. Wheaton, Int. Law, 305; 3 Binn. Penn. 252 ; 3 Wheat.•365 ; 7 id. 306 ; 4 Cranch, 272; 3 Scott, 225; 24 Bost. Law Rep. 276, 335.
3. To be sufficient, the blockade must be effective and made known. By the convention of the Baltic powers of 1780, and again in 1801, and by the ordinance of congress of 1781, it is required that there should be a number of vessels stationed near enough to the port to make the entry apparently dangerous. The government of the United States has uniform ly insisted that the blockade should be made effective by the presence of a competent force stationed and present at or near the entrance of the port. 1 Kent, Comm. 145, and the au thorities by him cited. And see 1 C. Rob. Adm. 80; 4 id. 66 ; 1 Act. Prize Cas. 64-5; and Lord Erskine's speech, 8th March, 1808, on the orders in council, 10 Cobbett, Parl. De bates, 949, 950. But " it is not an accidental absence of the blockading force, nor the cir cumstance of being blown off by wind (if the suspension and the reason of the suspen sion are known), that will be sufficient in law to remove a blockade." 1 C. Rob. Adm. 86, 154. But negligence or remissness on the part of the cruisers stationed to maintain the blockade may excuse persons, under cer tain circumstances, for violating the block ade. 3 C. Rob. Adm. 156 ; 1 Act. Prize Cas. 59.
4. To involve a neutral in the consequences of violatiox the blockade, it is indispensable that he should have due notice of it. This in formation may be communicated to him in two ways: either actually, by a formal notice from the blockading power, or constructively, by notice to his government, or by the no toriety of the fact. 6 C. Rob. Adm. 367; 2 id. 110, 111, n. ; id. 128; 1 Act. Prize Cas. 61. Formal notice is not required ; 'any authentic information is sufficient. 1 C. Rob. Adm. 334; 5 id. 77-81, 286-289; Edw. Adm. 203; 3 Phillimore, Int. Law, 397 ; 24 Bost. Law Rep. 276.
to. A violation May be either by going into the place blockaded, by coming out of it with a cargo laden after the commencement of the blockade. Also placing himself so near a blockaded port as to be in a condition to slip in without observation, is a violation of the blockade, and raises thepresumption of a criminal intent. 6 C. Rob. Adm. 30, 101, 182; 7 Johns. N. Y. 47 ; 1 Edw. Adm. 202; 4 Cranch, 185: The sailing for a blockaded port, knowing it to be blockaded, is, it seems, such an act as may charge the party with a breach of the blockade. 5 Cranch, 335 ; 9 id. 440, 446; 1 Kent, Comm. 150; 3 Phillimore, Int. Law, 397; 24 Bost. Law Rep. 276. See 4 Cranch, 185; 6 tc/. 29; 10 Moore, Priv. Counc, 58.
6. When the ship has contracted guilt by a breach of 'the blockade, she may be taken at any time before the end of her voyage; but the penalty travels no further than the end of her return voyage. 2 C. Rob. Adm. 128; 3 id. 147. When taken, the ship is confiscated; and the cargo is always, prima fade, impli cated in the guilt of the owner or master of the ship ; and the burden of rebutting the presumption that the vessel was going in for the benefit of the cargo, and with the di rection of the owners, rests with them. 1 C. Rob. Adm. 67, 130; 3 id. 17.3; 4 id. 93 ; 1 Edw. Adm. 39. See, generally, 2 Brown, Civ. & Adm. Law, 314; Chitty, Com. Law, Index, h. t.; Chitty, Law of Nations, 128 to 147; 1 Kent, Comm. 143 to 151 ; Marshall, Ins. Index, h. t. See also the declaration respecting Mari time Law, signed by the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, Rus sia, Sardinia, and Turkey, at Paris, April 16, 1856; Appendix to Phillimore on rnterna tional Law, 850; Wheaton, Int. Law; Vette], Law of Nations.