for the interest of France to champion neutral pretensions and to deny the principle that enemies' goods were seizable in neutral bottoms. The French Government maintained therefore that the French law was that enemies' goods were safe in neutral bottoms, but that friends' goods were seizable in enemies' vessels; and they offered to give up the latter principle, if the English Government would yield the former. I must here remark that this was not a compromise at all, but a mutual surrender for the benefit of the common enemy. However, it appears that the English Government yielded to pressure, and accepted the French proposal for the duration of the war, it being well understood that they only waived their rights and did not abandon them.
The experience of the Crimean War was not favourable to the maritime policy which had thus been adopted. It was found that in spite of a pretty strict blockade of the
