Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

84 HISTORY OF THE WAR.

that this had been the view and practice of America | herself during her own Civil War. Further, though we claimed wide powers of restriction, we had endeavoured in the use of them to bear as gently as possible upon innocent neutral trade.*

The American Note came as a painful surprise to the British people. Of all Mr. Wilson’s many Notes it was the narrowest in argument and the most captious in spirit. There was nothing judicial in its tone ; it was the kind of brief which a competent lawyer can prepare on either side of any question, without breadth of view or balance, a series of meticulous arguments on details. It laid down as settled law many views which were notoriously in dispute. It ignored the changed circumstances, and argued from the books like an old-fashioned conveyancer. The precedents to which it appealed were enumerated, not weighed. It tried, but failed, to explain away some of the embarrassing judgments of the Supreme Court in the Civil War. It complained that American vessels were detained on suspicion, an obvious right of any belligerent with regard to ships or individuals. In its attempt to make the flag decisive proof of the nationality of a merchant vessel it disregarded the most patent facts of a condition of war. It dwelt incessantly upon the inadequacy of our blockade, though it was clear that the work of British submarines in the Baltic was far more effective than had been the efforts of the Federal Navy off the Confederate coasts.

The Note was written in that strain of acid rhetoric occasionally found in legal documents. It

* See Appendix III.