The force employed seems not to have been in excess of what might lawfully be used, either for the arrest of an enemy's neutral transport or for barring the progress of a hostile expedition.
Holland assesses that the force used against the Kowshing was lawful in the context of international law.
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Pacific reprisals should also, according to the tendency of modern opinion and practice, be so applied as not to interfere with the interests of third Powers and their subjects.
This being so, it is necessary to recognise also that increased humanity in the mode of making war has in reality followed upon the gradual softening of manners.
This is what makes it possible to proclaim an international law of war, approved by the legal conscience of all civilised peoples; and when a principle is thus generally accepted, it exerts an authority over minds and manners which curbs…
It has now come to cover, and it is the only term which does cover generically, an indeterminate list of unfriendly acts, such as embargo, pacific blockade, seizure of custom-houses, and even occupation of territory, to which resort is had…
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