M. Hautefeuille, however, like a watch-dog of neutral rights, or from some spite against the English race, suspects that we shall have ineffective blockades, and sees in the vast extent of the coast to be blockaded, and in the conduct of our Government, a beginning of sin in this direction. Some occasion has been given off certain ports for the apprehension that the commanding officers were not sufficiently aware of their duty in this respect. But the best evidence that the blockade is pretty effectual and honestly maintained, is supplied by the great want felt in the southern States of several foreign articles of great importance. As for the rest, the fact that fast sailing steamers can now and then run the blockade, is no evidence of its being ineffectual and invalid. The power of steam gives an advantage to the wrong doing ship which sailing vessels cannot enjoy; and, on the other hand, a blockading steamer is as good, it may be, as two or three ships of war propelled by sails. There is no exact definition of an effective blockade, and the modern introduction of steam seems likely to overthrow the old definitions.

Passing over what our author says of contraband of war, and of the relations between ship and cargo, we come to his last topic-the visit of neutral vessels by the belligerent. The object of this is to ascertain whether a vessel is hostile or neutral, and if neutral, whether it is committing some act which ranks it in the class of enemies. By those nations which have confiscated hostile goods in neutral ships, visit was employed, in order to ascertain to whom the cargo belonged, but since the declaration of 1856, this ground of visit no longer exists for most of the nations of Europe; and the United States having always been sticklers for the principle that free ships make free goods, are in a similar position with the leading States except England. England, until 1856, in exercising the right of visit, aimed at ascertaining the destination of a vessel, but the principle that a blockade, to be valid, must be effective, destroys that pretence'; and here, also, as well as with regard to the formalities of visit, there is a substantial agreement between the United States and those nations which have hitherto been usually neutrals on the water.

Some nations again have claimed and exercised the right of making search into chests and cases, and even of examining and interrogating the people on board; still more, on suspicion of fraud, have seized neutral vessels and carried them into places of safety, until further satisfaction could be obtained. Such has been the policy of England. In their intercourse with France and most other nations, the United States have conformed to that system of rules for which most States have contended. Their conduct towards England was regulated for a time by the treaty of 1794, which may be interpreted as allowing that degree of search which the vessels of Great Britain practiced. Thus the English, if the other treaties are to govern the practice of the United States, are in a less favorable position than most other nations; but the English, the author thinks, are not likely to consent to occupy this inferior place.

The present war, according to Hautefeuille, is of great importance in this respect, that if other neutrals demand of the United States the strict fulfillment of their treaties, which are all on the liberal side in maritime questions, Great Britain will also claim the same benefits for her subjects, and thus will be compelled to abandon her former practice. If, on the other hand, neutral powers suffer the United States to be careless and unscrupulous in the execution of their treaties, if they allow of fictitious blockades, of an enlargement of the catalogue of contraband goods and the like, they may be sure that the precedent will be appealed to against themselves as soon as England shall be involved in hostilities, and they will thus annihilate by their silence the progress made in international law for more than a century. Thus the author reveals his main object at the close of his brochure: he is firing at England over the head of the United States, and hopes to commit her to a course of liberal policy in regard to neutrals from which she cannot draw back. While we condemn the author for weak and false views of our Government, and cannot admit all his positions, we approve of his leading design, and hope that the United States, and all other nations, will be kept up to their duties upon the sea, and that no such offenses

will be allowed anywhere as those, of which France, and especially England, set the example, at the beginning of this century.

Scarcely had this pamphlet reached our country, ere the memorable detention of the Trent and the seizure of Mason and Slidell occurred. A large part of the nation, misled by extracts from English law books, which, when well sifted, did not support the proceedings of Wilkes, by abstract reasonings which looked beyond positive international law, and by precedents which were not analogous, defended and applauded the transaction. Before, however, any news of the temper of England could come over the water, nearly all sober minded men, acquainted with the subject, had made up their opinion that the seizure was unlawful, and that some kind of reparation could be rightfully called for. It was felt, moreover, to be a strange position for the United States, who, as late as 1858, had complained loudly that British vessels, cruising near Cuba, had insulted their flag by illegal searches, if they should defend a more unjustifiable kind of search, attended with the abduction of persons from the neutral ship. Nor was it pleasant to excuse this conduct by the often repeated crime of Great Britain, that of taking men from our vessels on the high seas, upon the ground that they were her subjects; for this very grievance, after long complaint, was a cause of the last war with that country. From the false position which we should have taken by defending the conduct of Wilkes, and which might have been fruitful of future wars, the wisdom and moderation of the Government has rescued us. There can be no doubt that if this had occurred towards a neutral like Sweden or Hamburg, which could have done us no great harm, some act of reparation would have been wise and proper. Only that nation, which can own and amend its faults, can be truly great or, for a long time, prosperous. As for the state paper of Mr. Seward, we are not in a mood to criticise it. We will simply express our regret that he has made points which are indefensible. Sir William Scott he quotes as saying that you may stop the embassador of your enemy on his passage. But this doctrine is so obviously lim

ited by the words quoted from Vattel, which occur in the next sentence before, "that you may exercise your right of war against them [i. e. against embassadors] wherever the character of hostility exist,"—which can only mean, wherever the right to exercise acts of hostility exists-that we are sorry he should lean on so weak a staff. Nor do we believe that he will gain the assent of continental Europe to his position that Mason and Slidell were contraband goods. But enough. Let us hope that the good opinion of neutrals, which is just now invaluable to us, consistency in maintaining neutral rights, and a feeling of justice-justice, we mean, in the sense of literal adherence to the requirements of positive law-will keep us out of all such difficulties in future. How strange for a time has been the position of England and the United States! John Bull complaining of the stoppage of the Trent as an unheard of thing, in complete forgetfulness of his hundreds of less excusable detentions of neutral vessels, and brother Jonathan forgetting all the principles he had stretched in peace, as soon as he falls into a state of war. Will not the result be to put a stop to the English invasions of neutral rights henceforth, and to lead us off from a track where we should have been alone without sympathy or approval of our conduct?

ARTICLE XII.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGY.

PRESIDENT WALKER'S SERMONS.*-These sermons have more than satisfied the high anticipations with which we sought for them. In their way they are admirable. To say that they are characteristic of their author, would be to say that they are shrewd, sagacious, devout, and yet so modest and unpretending as not to reveal in any single paragraph, or any single sermon, the full strength or reach of the intellect which lies behind. The manner of Dr. Walker is eminently quiet and unimpassioned; but this gives him great power, especially with an academic audience, and in the treatment of the practical themes to which the most of these discourses are devoted. Even upon the hasty reader the conviction must silently impress itself that the writer has observed the human heart with a penetrating eye, and that he has watched the beginning and progress of the religious life with a cool but sympathizing insight.

These discourses are chiefly ethical, and so they were designed to be with a wise discretion. They are, however, not vaguely ethical, but they treat of those subjects with which students are most concerned; for example, such topics as these. The student's Sabbath. Prayer. Conscience.. Motives. Character. Government of the thoughts. Difficulty, struggle, progress. Sins of omission. No hiding-place for the wicked. Thou shalt say, No. The heart more than the head. Compromises. Conditions of success in life. On the choice of a profession. The end not yet. Faith and works. Salvation by hope. These are the titles of seventeen out of the twenty-five sermons.

Of the remainder a few are devoted to the defense of revelation from the suspicions and objections that are likely to spring up among thoughtful young men. One or two only have slightly theological character, which is not at all offensive.

* Sermons preached in the Chapel of Harvard College. By JAMES WALKER, D. D. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1861. 12mo. pp. 397. (For sale in New Haven by T. H. Pease. Price $1.50.)