The Doctrine of Continuous Voyages in the Eighteenth Century

Extract

It would not be possible to understand, much less to state clearly, the origin, nature, and extent of the so-called Doctrine of Continuous Voyages without explaining, even in a succinct manner, the causes that contributed to the statement of this famous principle. There is hardly anything in the field of social conceptions that is not in some way or other connected with the past. For this reason when we want to ascertain the principles that obtained in a period gone by it is imperatively necessary that our inquiries should start from an age even more remote, so that the light of history may clear the paths that we intend to explore. During the middle of the eighteenth century nothing was heard of the doctrine which we attempt now to expound; it was only at the end of that century that its first manifestations appeared. But the examination of the navigation laws of the times and of the principles of international law that regulated the intercourse between neutrals and belligerents would at once suggest that the prohibition which the doctrine embraced is dependent on or complementary to the so-called “Rule of war of 1756.”