War vessels being equipped in British ports would be seized and forfeited to the British Government.

If a belligerent war-ship came into a British port, no change or increase of equipment was to be permitted.

If a subject violated the Proclamation he was both punishable in British courts and forfeited any claim to British protection.

The Parliamentary discussion on May 16 brought out more clearly and in general unanimity of opinion the policy of the Government in application of the Proclamation; the South was definitely recognized as a belligerent, but recognition of independence was for the future to determine; the right of the South to send out privateers was regretfully recognized; such privateers could not be regarded as pirates and the North would have no right to treat them as such, but if the North in defiance of international opinion did so treat them, Great Britain had at least warned its subjects that they, if engaged in service on a Southern privateer, had no claim to British protection; a blockade of the South to be respected must be effective at least to the point where a vessel attempting to pass through was likely to be captured; the plan of blockading the entire Southern coast, with its three thousand miles of coast line, was on the face of it ridiculous--evidence that Members of Parliament were profoundly ignorant of the physical geography of the Southern seaboard[165].
The Parliamentary discussion did not reveal any partiality for one side in the American quarrel above the other.

It turned wholly on legal questions and their probable application.