Page 150 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

Anglo-American Reunion. 131

mentsfor it, at the first glance plausible, are very
proper to urge from their point of view. That
arch-robber, the first Napoleon, who so re-
morselessly and exhaustively carried the princi-
ple of war sustaining war to its utmost logical
sequence, and even in peace scrupled not to
quarter his armies on subject countries, main-
taining them on what, after all, was simply pri-
vate property of foreigners, — even he waxes
quite eloquent, and superficially most con-
vincing, as he compares the seizure of goods
at sea, so fatal to his empire, to the seizure of
a wagon travelling an inland country road.
In all these contentions there lies, beneath
the surface plausibility, not so much a confu-
sion of thought as a failure to recognize an
essential difference of conditions. Even on
shore the protection of private property rests
upon the simple principle that injury is not to
be wanton, — that it is not to be inflicted
when the end to be attained is trivial, or
largely disproportionate to the suffering caused.
For this reason personal property, not em-
barked in commercial venture, is respected
in civili/.ed maritime war. Conversely, as we
all know, the rule on land is by no means in-