fine upon the parties upon the ground of previous crime was never submitted to me; and if that had been the character of your original judgment, I do not err, I think, in supposing that it would never have been referred to me. The right to impose a fine under military power, and the propriety of the quantum of the fine, are not questions for a more lawyer to decide; and they would be still more inappropriate in the particular case, where I possess no there ability than that which reasonable professional knowledge may give, whilst to these, possessed by yourself in larger wealth, are added the acquirements of the accomplished soldier. The question before me was purely a legal one, and as such I passed upon it. To give that weight to my decision which it would not otherwise have had I cited names eminent for legal knowledge, and illustrious by lives of spotless purity and patriotic virtue. These citations, however, you deem wholly inapplicable. Are you sure you are right? The blockade declared but the President was by many persons said to be beyond his power, but the courts of the country have so far maintained and enforced it; and in doing this, as well against citizens as aliens violating it, they have uniformly applied to it the laws of blockade as declared by the very blockade is the same offense, identically, whether done by a citizen or a foreigner. The punishment in each case is the same. The property, if seized in its tra on the return voyage, is all that is subject to forfeiture. But no offense is perpetrated for which the party can be otherwise punished. He is not liable personally, nor is nay of his other property subject to forfeiture. No judge failed to decide them upon the very laws of blockade upon which my decision was based. I submit to you therefore that you are clearly in the wrong in holding a different one. Grotius, Puffendorf, Vattel, and Wheaton are to "be searched" by a judge, whether military or civil, who wishes his judgments to rest upon established principles of national law, and derives for their support the authority of the great lights of national jurisprudence. Notwithstanding, therefore, the aid of your friendly criticism (for which I am grateful), I am but the more convinced of the correctness of my judgment. Permit me, general, in conclusion to observe that there is a passage in your letter that bears an interpretation which I am sure is contrary to your meaning. It is this: "The fine will be restored, because stare decisis, but the guilty party ought to be, and will be, punished." This admits perhaps of this construction: I will restore the money, but the parties I know to be guilty, and I will, in some other way than by the particular fine, punish them. It may mean, take the $8,900; I give it to you because the commissioner, to whom I agreed with you to leave it, has decided that it should be returned; but that being done, I will punish you in some other way, either by imprisonment or by the imposition of another and even a greater fine. That this is not your purpose, I am satisfied. If it was, it would be a strange application of the rule stare decisis, and I submit to you therefore the propriety of putting at rest any fears the parties might otherwise entertain. A word or two more and I will cease to trouble you. You state that the rules upon which, I decided the case would have results which "would be not only, "rose water," but diluted "rose water."" If the rose wats there any in ifind fault with the law; use your influence to have it made stronger. Give to it in that way alcoholic strength, but do not be wisher than the law, and get on with the diluted article