Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Annual Message of the President Transmitted to Congress December 5, 1898

Instructions to blockading vessels and cruisers.

Navy Department,
Washington , June 20, 1898 .

General Orders
No. 492.

The following “Instructions to blockading vessels and cruisers,” prepared by the Department of State, are published for the information and guidance of the naval service.

John D. Long,
Secretary.

Instructions to Blockading Vessels and Cruisers.

1. Vessels of the United States, while engaged in blockading and cruising service, will be governed by the rules of international law, as laid down in the decisions of the courts and in the treaties and manuals furnished by the Naval Department to ships’ libraries, and by the provisions of the treaties between the United States and other powers.

The following specific instructions are established for the guidance of officers of the United States:

blockade.

2. A blockade to be effective and binding must be maintained by a force sufficient to render ingress to or egress from the port dangerous. If the blockading vessels be driven away by stress of weather, but return without delay to their stations, the continuity of the blockade is not thereby broken; but if they leave their stations voluntarily, except for purposes of the blockade, such as chasing a blockade runner, or are driven away by the enemy’s force, the blockade is abandoned or broken. As the suspension of a blockade is a serious matter, involving a new notification, commanding officers will exercise especial care not to give grounds for complaints on this score.

notifications to neutrals.

3. Neutral vessels are entitled to notification of a blockade before they can be made prize for its attempted violation. The character of this notification is not material. It may be actual, as by a vessel of the blockading force, or constructive, as by a proclamation of the government maintaining the blockade, or by common notoriety. If a neutral vessel can be shown to have had notice of the blockade in any way, she is good prize and should be sent in for adjudication; but, should formal notice not have been given, the rule of constructive knowledge arising from notoriety should be construed in a manner liberal to the neutral.

4. Vessels appearing before a blockaded port, having sailed without notification, are entitled to actual notice by a blockading vessel. They should be boarded by an officer, who should enter in the ship’s log the fact of such notice, such entry to include the name of the blockading vessel giving notice, the extent of the blockade, the date and place, verified by his official signature. The vessel is then to be set free; and should she again attempt to enter the same or any other blockaded port as to which she has had notice she is good prize.

5. Should it appear from a vessel’s clearance that she sailed after notice of blockade had been communicated to the country of her port of departure, or after the fact of blockade had, by a fair assumption, become commonly known at that port, she should be sent in as a prize. There are, however, treaty exceptions to this rule, and these exceptions should be strictly observed.

6. A neutral vessel may sail in good faith for a blockaded port with an alternative destination to be decided upon by information as to the continuance of the blockade obtained at an intermediate port. But, in such case, she is not allowed to continue her voyage to the blockaded port in alleged quest of information as to the status of the blockade, but must obtain it and decide upon her course before she arrives in suspicious vicinity; and if the blockade has been formally established with due notification, any doubt as to the good faith of such a proceeding should go against the neutral and subject her to seizure.

7. In accordance with the rule adopted by the United States in the existing war with Spain, neutral vessels found in port at the time of the establishment of a blockade will, unless otherwise ordered by the United States, be allowed thirty days from the establishment of the blockade to load their cargoes and depart from such port.

8. A vessel under any circumstances resisting visit, destroying her papers, presenting fraudulent papers, or attempting to escape, should be sent in for adjudication. The liability of a blockade runner to capture and condemnation begins and terminates with her voyage. If there is good evidence that she sailed with intent to evade the blockade, she is good prize from the moment she appeals upon the high seas. Similarly, if she has succeeded in escaping from a blockaded port she is liable to capture at any time before she reaches her home port. But with the termination of the voyage the offense ends.

9. The crews of blockade runners are not enemies and should be treated not as prisoners of war, but with every consideration. Any of the officers or crew, however, whose testimony before the prize court may be desired, should be detained as witnesses.

10. The men-of-war of neutral powers should, as a matter of courtesy, be allowed free passage to and from a blockaded port.

11. Blockade running is a distinct offense, and subjects the vessel attempting, or sailing with the intent, to commit it, to seizure without regard to the nature of her cargo. The presence of contraband of war in the cargo becomes a distinct cause of seizure of the vessel, where she is bound to a port of the enemy not blockaded, and to which, contraband of war excepted, she is free to trade.

right of search.

12. The belligerent right of search may be exercised without previous notice, upon all neutral vessels after the beginning of war, to determine their nationality, the character of their cargo, and the ports between which they are trading.

13. This right should be exercised with tact and consideration, and in strict conformity with treaty provisions, wherever they exist. The following directions are given, subject to any special treaty stipulations: After firing a blank charge, and causing the vessel to lie to, the cruiser should send a small boat, no larger than a whaleboat, with an officer to conduct the search. There may be arms in the boat, but the men should not wear them on their persons. The officer wearing only his side arms, and accompanied on board by not more than two men of his boat’s crew, unarmed, should first examine the vessel’s papers to ascertain her nationality and her ports of departure and destination. If she is neutral, and trading between neutral ports, the examination goes no further. If she is neutral, and bound to an enemy’s port not blockaded, the papers which indicate the character of her cargo should be examined. If these show contraband of war the vessel should be seized; if not, she should be set free, unless, by reason of strong grounds of suspicion, a further search should seem to be requisite.

14. Irrespective of the character of the cargo, or her purported destination, a neutral vessel should be seized if she—

(1) Attempts to avoid search by escape; but this must be clearly evident.

(2) Resists search with violence.

(3) Presents fraudulent papers.

(4) Is not supplied with the necessary papers to establish the objects of search.

(5) Destroys, defaces, or conceals papers.

The papers generally to be expected on board of a vessel are:

(1) The register.

(2) The crew list.

(3) The log book.

(4) A bill of health.

(5) A charter party.

(6) Invoices.

(7) Bills of lading.

15. A neutral vessel carrying hostile dispatches, when sailing as a dispatch vessel practically in the service of the enemy, is liable to seizure; but not when she is a mail packet and carries them in the regular and customary manner, either as a part of the mail in her mail bags, or separately, as a matter of accommodation and without special arrangement or remuneration. The voyages of mail steamers are not to be interferred with except on the clearest grounds of suspicion of a violation of law in respect of contraband or blockade.

16. A neutral vessel in the service of the enemy, in the transportation of troops or military persons, is liable to seizure.

merchant vessels of the enemy.

17. Are good prize, and may be seized anywhere, except in neutral waters. To this rule, however, the President’s proclamation of April 26, 1898, made the following exceptions:

• “4. Spanish merchant vessels in any ports or places within the United States, shall be allowed till May 21, 1898, inclusive, for loading their cargoes and departing from such ports or places; and such Spanish merchant vessels, if met at sea by any United States ship; shall be permitted to continue their voyage, if, on examination of their papers, it shall appear that their cargoes were taken on board before the expiration of the above term; provided that nothing herein contained shall apply to Spanish vessels having on board any officer in the military or naval service of the enemy, or any coal (except such as may be necessary for their voyage, or any other article prohibited or contraband of war, or any dispatch of or to the Spanish Government.
• “5. Any Spanish merchant vessel which, prior to April 21, 1898, shall have sailed from any foreign port bound for any port or place in the United States, shall be permitted to enter such port or place, and to discharge her cargo, and afterward forthwith to depart without molestation; and any such vessel, if met at sea by any United States ship, shall be permitted to continue her voyage to any port not blockaded.”

enemy’s property in neutral vessels not contraband of war.

18. The President, by his proclamation of April 26, 1898, declared:

“1. The neutral flag covers enemy’s goods, with the exception of contraband of war.”

contraband of war.

19. The term contraband of war comprehends only articles having a belligerent destination, as to an enemy’s port or fleet. With this explanation, the following articles are, for the present, to be treated as contraband:

Absolutely contraband.—Ordnance; machine guns and their appliances, and the parts thereof; armor plate and whatever pertains to the offensive and defensive armament of naval vessels; arms and instruments of iron, steel, brass, or copper, or of any other material, such arms and instruments being specially adapted for use in war by land or sea; torpedoes and their appurtenances; cases for mines, of whatever material; engineering and transport materials, such as gun carriages, caissons, cartridge boxes, campaigning forges, canteens, pontoons; ordnance stores; portable range finders; signal flags destined for naval use; ammunition and explosives of all kinds; machinery for the manufacture of arms and munitions of war; saltpeter; military accouterments and equipments of all sorts; horses.

Conditionally contraband.—Coal, when destined for a naval station, a port of call, or a ship or ships of the enemy; materials for the construction of railways or telegraphs, and money, when such materials or money are destined for the enemy’s forces; provisions, when destined for an enemy’s ship or ships, or for a place that is besieged.

sending in of prizes.

20. Prizes should be sent in for adjudication, unless otherwise directed, to the nearest home port in which a prize court may be sitting.

21. The prize should be delivered to the court as nearly as possible in the condition in which she was at the time of seizure; and to this end her papers should be sealed at the time of seizure and kept in the custody of the prize master. Attention is called to articles Nos. 16 and 17 for the government of the United States Navy. (Exhibit A.)

22. All witnesses whose testimony is necessary to the adjudication of the prize should be detained and sent in with her, and if circumstances permit it is preferable that the officer making the search should act as prize master.

23. As to the delivery of the prize to the judicial authority, consult sections 4615, 4616, and 4617, Revised Statutes of 1878. (Exhibit B.) The papers, including the log book of the prize, are delivered to the prize commissioners; the witnesses, to the custody of the United, States marshal; and the prize itself remains in the custody of the prize master until the court issues process directing one of its own officers to take charge.

24. The title to property seized as prize changes only by the decision rendered by the prize court. But if the vessel itself or its cargo is needed for immediate public use, it may be converted to such use, a careful inventory and appraisal being made by impartial persons and certified to the prize court.

28. If there are controlling reasons why vessels may not be sent in for adjudication, as unseaworthiness, the existence of infectious disease, or the lack of a prize crew, they may be appraised and sold; and if this can not be done they may be destroyed. The imminent danger of recapture would justify destruction, if there was no doubt that the vessel was good prize. But in all such cases all the papers and other testimony should be sent to the prize court in order that a decree may be duly entered.

exhibit a.

• Art. 16. No person in the Navy shall take out of a prize, or vessel seized as a prize, any money, plate, goods, or any part of her equipment, unless it be for the better preservation thereof, or unless such articles are absolutely needed for the use of any of the vessels or armed forces of the United States, before the same are adjudged lawful prize by a competent court; but the whole, without fraud, concealment, or embezzlement, shall be brought in, in order that judgment may be passed thereon; and every person who offends against this article shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
• Art. 17. If any person in the Navy strips off the clothes of, or pillages, or in any manner maltreats, any person taken on board a prize, he shall suffer such punishment as a court-martial may adjudge.

exhibit b.

• Sec. 4615. The commanding officer of any vessel making a capture shall secure the documents of the ship and cargo, including the log book, with all other documents, letters, and other papers found on board, and make an inventory of the same, and seal them up, and send them, with the inventory, to the court in which proceedings are to be had, with a written statement that they are all the papers found, and are in the condition in which they were found; or explaining the absence of any documents or papers, or any change in their condition. He shall also send to such court, as witnesses, the master, one or more of the other officers, the supercargo, purser, or agent of the prize, and any person found on board whom he may suppose to be interested in, or to have knowledge respecting, the title, national character, or destination of the prize. He shall send the prize, with the documents, papers, and witnesses, under charge of a competent prize master and prize crew, into port for adjudication, explaining the absence of any usual witnesses; and in the absence of instructions from superior authority as to the port to which it shall be sent, he shall select such port as he shall deem most convenient, in view of the interest of probable claimants, as well as of the captors. If the captured vessel, or any part of the captured property, is not in condition to be sent in for adjudication, a survey shall be had thereon and an appraisement made by persons as competent and impartial as can be obtained, and their reports shall be sent to the court in which proceedings are to be had; and such property, unless appropriated for the use of the Government, shall be sold by the authority of the commanding officer present, and the proceeds deposited with the assistant treasurer of the United States most accessible to such court, and subject to its order in the cause. (See sec. 1624, art. 15.)
• Sec. 4616. If any vessel of the United States shall claim to share in a prize, either as having made the capture, or as having been within signal distance of the vessel or vessels making the capture, the commanding officer of such vessel shall make out a written statement of his claim, with the grounds on which it is founded, the principal facts tending to show what vessels made the capture, and what vessels were within signal distance of those making the capture, with reasonable particularity as to times, distances, localities, and signals made, seen, or answered; and such statement of claim shall be signed by him and sent to the court in which proceedings shall be had, and shall be filed in the cause.
• Sec. 4617. The prize master shall make his way diligently to the selected port, and there immediately deliver to a prize commissioner the documents and papers, and the inventory thereof, and make affidavit that they are the same, and are in the same condition as delivered to him, or explaining any absence or change of condition therein, and that the prize property is in the same condition as delivered to him, or explaining any loss or damage thereto; and he shall further report to the district attorney and give to him all the information in his possession respecting the prize and her capture; and he shall deliver over the persons sent as witnesses to the custody of the marshal, and shall retain the prize in his custody until it shall be taken therefrom by process from the prize court. (See sec. 5441.)

occupation of santiago.

War Department,
Adjutant-General’s Office,
Washington , July 18, 1898 .

General Orders,
No. 101.

The following, received from the President of the United States, is published for the information and guidance of all concerned:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, July 18, 1898.

To the Secretary of War.

Sir: The capitulation of the Spanish forces in Santiago de Cuba and in the eastern part of the Province of Santiago, and the occupation of the territory by the forces of the United States, render it necessary to instruct the military commander of the United States as to the conduct which he is to observe during the military occupation.

The first effect of the military occupation of the enemy’s territory is the severance of the former political relations of the inhabitants and the establishment of a new political power. Under this changed condition of things the inhabitants, so long as they perform their duties, are entitled to security in their persons and property and in all their private rights and relations. It is my desire that the inhabitants of Cuba should be acquainted with the purpose of the United States to discharge to the fullest extent its obligations in this regard. It will therefore be the duty of the commander of the army of occupation to announce and proclaim in the most public manner that we come not to make war upon the inhabitants of Cuba, nor upon any party or faction among them, but to protect them in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights. All persons who, either by active aid or by honest submission, cooperate with the United States in its efforts to give effect to this beneficent purpose will receive the reward of its support and protection. Our occupation should be as free from severity as possible.

Though the powers of the military occupant are absolute and supreme, and immediately operate upon the political condition of the inhabitants, the municipal laws of the conquered territory, such as affect private rights of person and property and provide for the punishment of crime, are considered as continuing in force, so far as they are compatible with the new order of things, until they are suspended or superseded by the occupying belligerent; and in practice they are not usually abrogated, but are allowed to remain in force and to be administered by the ordinary tribunals, substantially as they were before the occupation. This enlightened practice is, so far as possible, to be adhered to on the present occasion. The judges and the other officials connected with the administration of justice may, if they accept the supremacy of the United States, continue to administer the ordinary law of the land, as between man and man, under the supervision of the American commander in chief. The native constabulary will, so far as may be practicable, be preserved. The freedom of the people to pursue their accustomed occupations will be abridged only when it may be necessary to do so.

While the rule of conduct of the American commander in chief will be such as has just been defined, it will be his duty to adopt measures of a different kind, if, unfortunately, the course of the people should render such measures indispensable to the maintenance of law and order. He will then possess the power to replace or expel the native officials in part or altogether, to substitute new courts of his own constitution for those that now exist, or to create such new or supplementary tribunals as may be necessary. In the exercise of these high powers the commander must be guided by his judgment and his experience and a high sense of justice.

One of the most important and most practical-problems with which it will be necessary to deal is that of the treatment of property and the collection and administration of the revenues. It is conceded that all public funds and securities belonging to the government of the country in its own right, and all arms and supplies and other movable property of such government, may be seized by the military occupant and converted to his own use. The real property of the State he may hold and administer, at the same time enjoying the revenues thereof; but he is not to destroy it save in the case of military necessity. All public means of transportation, such as telegraph lines, cables, railways, and boats belonging to the State may be appropriated to his use, but, unless in case of military necessity, they are not to be destroyed. All churches and buildings devoted to religious worship and to the arts and sciences, all schoolhouses, are, so far as possible, to be protected, and all destruction or intentional defacement of such places, of historical monuments or archives, or of works of science or art, is prohibited, save when required by urgent military necessity.

Private property, whether belonging to individuals or corporations, is to be respected, and can be confiscated only for cause. Means of transportation, such as telegraph lines and cables, railways and boats, may, although they belong to private individuals or corporations, be seized by the military occupant, but, unless destroyed under military necessity, are not to be retained.

While it is held to be the right of the conqueror to levy contributions upon the enemy in their seaports, towns, or provinces which may be in his military possession by conquest and to apply the proceeds to defray the expenses of the war, this right is to be exercised within such limitations that it may not savor of confiscation. As the result of military occupation the taxes and duties payable by the inhabitants to the former Government become payable to the military occupant, unless he sees fit to substitute for them other rates or modes of contribution to the expenses of the Government. The moneys so collected are to be used for the purpose of paying the expenses of Government under the military occupation, such as the salaries of the judges and the police, and for the payment of the expenses of the Army.

Private property taken for the use of the Army is to be paid for when possible in cash at a fair valuation, and when payment in cash is not possible, receipts are to be given.

All ports and places in Cuba which may be in the actual possession of our land and naval forces will be opened to the commerce of all neutral nations, as well as our own, in articles not contraband of war upon payment of the prescribed rates of duty which may be in force at the time of the importation.

William McKinley.

By order of the Secretary of War:

H. C. Corbin,
Adjutant-General.