No. 529.
Mr. Evarts
to Mr. Christiancy.
Washington, March 2, 1880.
Sir: Your dispatch No. 112, of the 28th January last, has been received. It relates to the authority of the consul of the United States at Iquique to grant clearances to American vessels. Your letter to him upon the subject is in general approved. No consul, pursuant to our law or regulations, has the right to grant a clearance to any American vessel, even if his post is at a port conquered and possessed by the enemy of the country from whose government he may have received his exequatur. It is the exclusive province of the belligerent authority for the time being—civil, military, or naval—to grant such clearances, and the consul, as is required in time of peace, should not deliver the vessel’s papers until the clearance shall have been presented to him by the [Page 838] master. The consul’s course is not to be governed or influenced by the components of the cargo of the vessel. If these, according to the existing authority, may lawfully be exported, the consul cannot properly gainsay that opinion. It is natural that Peru should be incensed at the exportation of nitrate for the benefit and account of her adversary. It is to be regretted, however, that she should allow her resentment to lead her to claim a belligerent right not acknowledged by any authority, that of capturing on the high seas vessels of a neutral for having on board a cargo from a place which she controlled before the war. In this case, however, her title to it was annulled, or at least suspended, by the armed occupation by Chili of the region whence the article was taken. The attempt of Peru, therefore, to avenge upon neutrals her want of good fortune in the contest will not, it is to be feared, add to her reputation for magnanimity or regard to public law, and certainly will not be acquiesced in by the governments of neutrals, whose interests may thereby be affected.
I am, &c.,