RECOGNITION OF CUBAN BELLIGERENCY. 411 least as far as regards the nation thus proclaiming its decision. But that is the case of the admission of a new member into the family of nations."^ In 1885 it became necessary for the United States to declare its position with regard to insurgents in the United States of Colombia. The government of that country asked us to declare public vessels of the insurgents piratical. Secretary Bayard de- clined to do so ; and President Cleveland, in his Message of December 8, 1885, said that the request could not be granted consistently with the principles of international law. ** The denial by this government of the Colombian propositions," he added, "did not however imply the admission of a belligerent status on the part of the insurgents."^ The action of the United States may be summed up as follows: She has taken formal action to recognize a state of civil war only when a hostile expedition has entered her own territory, so that knowledge of belligerency was obtained within her own borders. She has informally recognized such belligerency only when it was in adjoining territory, or when it was forced upon her by contact with ships of war of insurgents ; and she has even in that case acted with great moderation. Her attitude as to recognition of the Confederate States as belligerents will be examined later. The first British proclamation of neutrality in case of civil war followed soon after Madison's, and upon the same occasion; but in it the existence of civil war was recognized.
- ' Whereas there unhappily subsists a state of warfare between
His Catholic Majesty, and divers provinces or parts of provinces in Spanish America," all British subjects were warned not to enter the army or navy of such provinces, or of His Catholic Majesty; such subjects of Great Britain as had already been allowed to enter the service of the King of Spain were however allowed to remain in it, on condition of not serving against the revolted provinces.*^ The next proclamation of neutrality in case of a civil war was 1 50 Br. & For. St. Pap. 11 52. 2 An insurgent vessel having been captured and brought into a District Court of the United States as a pirate, Judge Brown held that she was a pirate by the law of nations; but that the executive action had recognized the insurgents as belligerents. The Ambrose Light, 25 Fed. 408. These assertions, thus directly opposed to the opinion of the executive department, were vigorously combated in an article by Francis Wharton, then Solicitor for the Department of State, 33 Alb. L. J. 125. 8 4 Br. & For. St. Pap. 488 (Nov. 27, 1817). 54
