CHAPTER XI 
NATIONALITY OF GOODS CAPTURED AT SEA. ENEMY 
CHARACTER 
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS 
Sec. 327. Questions Involved. The liability to capture 
and confiscation of goods carried at sea like that of the ships 
which carry them, depends upon their national character. Few 
questions were the subject of more frequent prize adjudication 
during the World War and probably none raised more perplexing 
difficulties for the Prize Courts. Among the particular forms 
which the general question assumed were: whether in given cases 
cargoes found on enemy ships were or were not confiscable, 
whether the owners of goods sunk with the ships on which they 
were laden were entitled to indemnities, whether goods otherwise 
innocent were liable to confiscation by reason of their being 
“infected” by the presence of contraband, whether enemy goods 
found on neutral ships and therefore protected by the Declara- 
tion of Paris were nevertheless confiscable in virtue of the meas- 
ures of reprisal adopted by certain belligerent governments, 
whether goods found on non-enemy ships engaged in unneutral or 
hostile service were liable to condemnation, ete. The judgments 
of the Prize Courts, especially of Great Britain, in many of the 
cases are elaborate and involved and it is not always easy to 
follow them in the tortuous processes by which they endeavored 
to unravel what often proved to be complicated and tangled 
skeins. 
Sec. 328. Rule of the Declaration of London. Article 58 
of the Declaration of London enunciates the rule that “the 
neutral or enemy character of goods found on board an enemy 
vessel is determined by the neutral or enemy character of the 
owner.” Unfortunately, the rule does not lay down any princi- 
ple by which the enemy or neutral character of the owner is to 
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