The practice, which is comparatively modern, dating only from 1827, was at first directed against ships under all flags, and ships arrested for breach of a pacific blockade were at one time confiscated, as they would have been in time of war.

It has been purged of these defects as the result of discussions, diplomatic and scientific.

As now understood, the blockade is enforced only against vessels belonging to the "quasi-enemy," and even such vessels, when arrested, are not confiscated, but merely detained till the blockade is raised.

International law does not stand still; and having some acquaintance with Continental opinion on the topic under consideration, I read with amazement "M.'s" assertion that "the majority in number," "the most weighty in authority" of the writers on international law "have never failed to protest against such practices as indefensible in principle." The fact is that the objections made by, e.g.

Lord Palmerston in 1846, and by several writers of textbooks, to pacific blockade, had reference to the abuses connected with the earlier stages of its development.