Page:Handbook of maritime rights.djvu/76

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62
MARITIME RIGHTS.

Thus we have 32 treaties acknowledging the new rule as against 72 maintaining the old one. And, as I have already observed, in every treaty in which the new rule is conceded, its converse, viz., that "enemies" ships should make enemies' goods (i.e, that neutral goods should be seizable in enemies' ships) was likewise stipulated; and it was never so much as urged that a particular treaty, or any number of particular treaties, with particular nations, making a particular concession, could create a new law of nations, or change the old law of nations, as a law of nations, whatever exceptions to it they conventionally introduced.

I must observe that England never conceded the principle in any treaty with the Northern States, Russia, Denmark or Sweden. She maintained her maritime rights intact in the waters bordering on her coasts.