Show BAYARD AND BLOCKADES r143 correspondence between Secretary Bayard and Senor Becarru the Colombian Minister at Washington in relation to the decree of the Colombian government declaring the ports of Sabinilla and Santa Murtfi in the Carribean sea and the river > ort of Barranguillo closed to foreign coiniperce is of much interest as it clear y indicates that the new Administration Adminis-tration is fully alive to all our foreign interests in-terests and is prompt in defining and defending de-fending them There is in Secretary Bayards letter a tone of firmness and decision that clearly indicates that the stand which the Administration has fcikeij will be maintained and which must prove to Senor Becarri and his govern inentv that when it desires to establish a blockade in Colombian ports it must be lone with an effective force and not nterely with an authoritathe declaration declara-tion that ports are blockaded This position of the government in lCm lC-m U4 r of the Colombian ports is the same which it has always taken even so long ago as 1781 when an ordinance of f Congress in that year declared that to make a blockade effective there must be actually enough vessels of the govern mentseeking to blockade to make entrance en-trance to the port dangerous In this Congress followed the example of the convention of the Baltic powers in 780 which had defined a blockade to be the same as that which Congress adopted the year following a Napoleon sought to blockade the ports of the British Empire throughout the world by a mere declaration declara-tion ol a state of blockade lie did this by hiS famous Berlin Decree of November hiI 1 806 It was somewhat of an annoyance annoy-ance to English commerce but was not t in any sense a blockade The reason for requiring so strict an enforcement of a blockade is that it is an exjreme and harsh war measure and maka the vessels and goods of neutrals liablejto seizure and confiscation for any violation of the blockade and if there is notfforce sufficient to make it effectual although notice of such a state of things may have been given to neutrals by the propej authorities of the government en deavoling to maintain it yet there is no legal Blockade The object is to cut off all commerce with the blockaded port there y preventing supplies of any nature na-ture fi om entering or leaving the nation and tl us crippling the enemy But to be binling there must be actual or constructive con-structive notice of the blockade before I any vassel can be held responsible for a violation of it If a vessel has run a blockade it is only liable to capture until the end of the voyage in which she run it Sd if a blockade is raised before a vesseljvvhich has violated it has reached her destination she is notliable to seizure I after he raising of the blockade The I whole fciihiort is one of the most interest ing in the Law of Nations as around it there are clustered the rights of belligerents belliger-ents and of neutrals the questions of what ifl contraband and what is not and what cjirgoes neutral vessels may carry and what ones they may not It was this question of what neutrals neu-trals might carry and what not that gave rise to the controversy with England in 1SG1 about the Trent affair the United States claiming that the transportation of Mason and Sliddell with their Confederate dispatches in an English vessel to England was violation viola-tion of the Jaws in regard to neutrality The cade after much correspondence between be-tween Washington and Downing street was firijilly f settled although the question as to tlta right of a neutral to camry the dispatches of an enemy was not settled the vices of our own jtnists such as Mr Lawrenjce and Mr Dana not agreeing with tlit English writers It is entertaining to think what would have been the course of Mr Blaine in the present case of the blockade of the Colombian ports had he been Secretary I I of Statq ts his correspondence with Earl I Granville concerning the BulwerClayton I treaty was of such a nature as to warrant that it vtonld have been brilliant at least althougll it might have brought ridicule I upon ul and compelled us to retire from any position we might have taken But I the presjint energetic action of Secretary Bayard land his decisive stand on the I America doctrine of blockades will furnish I fur-nish the Republicans much to talk about I when JJr Blaine is put in nomination again in 18SS which he probably will be |