tory for an improper or hostile purpose, the uniform practice has been to give him a fair trial, upon specific charges, or, as has frequently been done in the case of a subject of a foreign power, to allow him his liberty upon such conditions or guarantees as may ge deemed expedient and just. Further, it is to be remarked in this connection, that the claim by the British charge d'affaires is that the flag of truce, though an unwritten form, is equally with the safe-conduct a promise for a safe passage within the lines of a belligerent (which is but a reiteration of the position heretofore taken in this case by Her Majesty's Government), confounds entirely the distinction between the purposes of the flag of truce and the safe-conduct, which is pointed out in detail in the report of June 30; a distinction believed to be uniformly sustained by the authorities and which need not now be repeated.

It may be added, however (with the view of exhibiting more clearly the fact that this distinction is not one of mere form, but is founded upon strong reasons of public policy), that the privilege of free passage which is accorded by the safe conduct rests upon the principle that the character and business of the person to whom it is granted and his purpose in seeking such passage are perfectly well known to be such as properly to entitle him under the comitas gentium to such a privilege. But in the case of persons entering the territory of a belligerent under a flag of truce from the enemy, no such knowledge can, in the great majority of cases, be had in regard to their antecedents or intentions, and therefore it is that international law has not extended to such persons the privilege in question as a right. Certainly no authority for such extension is produced by the British charge d'affaires, and none, it is conceived, exists. Indeed, that publicist would stultify himself who should hold that so grave and important a privilege as that of a safe and free passage through the territory of a belligerent (a privilege which amounts to an actual dispensation from the legal effects of war, and which is accorded in but rare and special cases and to certain official or well-known personages) may also be claimed as a right by any and every stranger reaching the lines of a belligerent by means of a flag of truce. The law as to the privilege of the safe-conduct not applying to the case of the flag of truce, it follows that a person received under the latter is to entitled to be sent back without molestation to the enemy after it has been ascertained that he cannot properly be allowed to penetrate our territory. Ont he contrary, if, as in the case of Hardcastle, he is shown to have been in the service of the enemy, or to have rendered him aid and comfort when within his lines, and therefore to have been admitted within our own by concealing or misrepresenting his true character, he may be detained for trial or for such other disposition as may be proper under the circumstances. Indeed the case of Hardcastle, who is shown to have been, under the guise of a neutral, a most active and dangerous enemy, is deemed a most forcible illustration of the propriety and necessity of the rule of military police which was applied, and, it is believe, most justly to him when his real character became apparent.

it remains only to notice two observations contained in the note of the British charge d'affaires, which, it is conceived, could have been induced only upon a superficial consideration of the views of this Bureau. The writer, in alluding to an extract from Vattel, quoted in the report of June as illustrating the distinction between the privilege of a person holding a formal safe conduct and that of one arriving at our lines under a flag of truce, says: "I am instructed to state that the passage does not appear in any way to support the doctrine for the