Extract of a letter from J. H. Brockmann, United States consular agent at Königsberg to George Bancroft, August 31, 1870

Extract of a letter from J. H. Brockmann, United States consular agent at Königsberg, to George Bancroft.

Sir: * * * * * * * * All North German harbors of the Baltic are declared blockaded, although no effective blockade has till now been executed by the French fleet. The newspapers, indeed, brought some time ago the intelligence that the whole German Baltic has been blockaded since the 18th instant, but neither our authorities here nor those of Pillau have published a legal notification of the blockade, and they could not do so because they themselves have not received such from the French vice-admiral. That a mere notification of the blockade at Swinemünde resp. Lübeck for the whole Baltic cannot be considered effective, when no ship is stationed in the neighborhood of the different other harbors, is an unquestionable matter. But it may be, upon the whole, doubted whether a blockade notification at only one port is legally sufficient to put a stop to all other ports.

All consuls of this place are of opinion that, under said circumstances, the Baltic is not yet blockaded; but, nevertheless, they cannot advise captains to leave the harbor from fear their ships may be captured on the open sea.