In a maritime war the formal announcements of national executives concerning principles of intended action possess an interest frequently transcending the occasion calling them into being since they may originate important modifications in the imprescriptible system of the law of nations and thus become touched with that universality of which the sea itself offers so constant and striking a suggestion. In the conflicts of the French revolution and the First Empire, as well as in the great war of our own day, we find produced on the part of the opposing governments a series of declarations (orders in council, arrêts) which have a permanent interest for the student of international law since they practically extend over the whole field of naval warfare and reach every aspect of belligerent action upon the high seas, while they may also become a cause oftentimes of strained relations between belligerent and neutral Powers arising through widely varying views touching the application of prize law to marine captures.