Search

(RIGHT OF,) (sur ch.) (International Law.) The right of belligerents, during war, to visit and search the ve els of neutrals for contraband ofwar. Some powerful nations have, at different times, refused to submit to this search; but all the highest authorities upon the law of nations acknowledge the right in time of war as resting upon sound principles of public jurisprudence, and upon the institutes and practices of all great maritime powers. The duty of self-preservation gives belligerent nations this right; and as the law now stands, a neutral ve el refusing to be searched would from that proceeding alone be condemned as a lawful prize. The right of search, however, is confined to private merchant-ve els, and does not apply to public ships of war. The government of the U. States has fully admitted the right of search, but has energetically refused to submit to the right a umed by the English of searching neutral ve els on the high seas for deserters, and other persons liable to military and naval service. This question, not yet specifically settled, was one of the chief causes of the War of 1812. [s. 809]