having finally arrived at a proper conception of the rules of the sea.
The facts were true—to a letter. And the law as I stated. It was as clear as noonday, as contended for in America, that nobody but soldiers of a belligerent power could be removed from under a neutral flag. Maybe, then, you will conclude that was all there was about it. That was not even the beginning. For my Lord overlooked a few trifling facts. He was quite right in doing so. They were what the lawyers call irrelevant to the international issue, and he was not writing a romance. But in human affairs, American as well as others, the law has less to do with conduct than the lawyers or the professors would have us believe. And irrelevant testimony is quite often that which controls not only the jury, but the judge.
Mr. Seward's problem was intensified by the identity of these same four passengers. Mr. James Murray Mason was a gentleman of credit and renown. He had shortly before
