Note 865 — Chapter V · UNNEUTRAL SERVICE

It should be mentioned that, according to the customary law hitherto prevailing, the case of diplomatic agents sent by the enemy to neutral States was an exception to the rule that neutral vessels may be punished for carrying agents sent by the enemy. The importance of this exception became apparent in the case of the Trent which occurred during the American War. On November 8, 1861, the Federal cruiser San Jacinto stopped the British mail steamer Trent on her voyage from Havana to the British port of Nassau, in the Bahamas, forcibly took off Messrs. Mason and Slidell, together with their secretaries, political agents sent by the Confederate States to Great Britain and France, and then let the vessel continue her voyage. Great Britain demanded their immediate release, and the United States at once granted this, although the ground on which release was granted was not identical with the ground on which release was demanded. The Government of the United States maintained that the removal of these men from the vessel without bringing her before a Prize Court for trial was irregular, and, therefore, not justified, whereas release was demanded on the ground that a neutral vessel could not be prevented from carrying diplomatic agents sent by the enemy to neutrals. Now diplomatic agents in the proper sense of the term these gentlemen were not, because although they were sent by the Confederate States, the latter were not recognised as such, but only as a belligerent Power. Yet these gentlemen were political agents of a quasi-diplomatic character, and the standpoint of Great Britain was for this reason perhaps correct. The fact that the Governments of France, Austria, and Prussia protested through their diplomatic envoys in Washington shows at least that neutral vessels may carry unhindered diplomatic agents sent by the enemy to neutrals, however doubtful it may be whether the same is valid regarding agents with a quasi-diplomatic character. See Parliamentary Papers, 1862, North America, N. 5; Marquardsen, Der Trent Fall (1862); Wharton, § 374; Moore, VII. § 1265; Phillimore, II. §§ 130-130A; Mountague Bernard, Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War (1870), pp. 187-205; Harris, The Trent Affair (1896).