Thus we find, in the first book of Livy, an ambassador styling himself a public messenger of the Roman People; and, in the sixth book of the same historian, we have a declaration of the senate, confining the rights of embassies to the intercourse between foreign powers, and excluding citizens from the same privileges in their transactions with each other. Upon this topic, the authority of Cicero may be cited, who, in order to shew the impropriety of sending ambassadors to Antony, observes, that they are not dealing with a Hannibal or a foreign enemy, but with one of their own citizens.

Now Virgil has so clearly explained wно are to be reckoned FOREIGNERS, that we need not have recourse to lawyers, to understand what is so well expressed by the poet, who says, "I look upon every country as foreign, which owns not the sway of our sceptre.' Aen. vii. 369.

A state therefore connected with another though by an unequal treaty, if it retain its independence, will have a right of sending embassies. The Princes of Germany, who were in some respects subject to the Emperor, as their head, being Sovereign Princes possessed the right of sending ambassadors to foreign states. But Kings who have been entirely subdued in just war, and stripped of their dominions, have, with all their other sovereign rights, lost that of sending ambassadors. It was for this reason, that Paulus Aemilius made prisoners of the messengers sent to him by Perseus, whom he had conquered.

In civil wars necessity sometimes gives birth to new rights in violation of former rules. When for instance, a kingdom is so equally divided between two parties, that it is a matter of doubt which of them constitutes the nation, or in a disputed succession between two claimants of the crown; the kingdom may be considered as forming two nations at the same time. Tacitus, considering each party in such cases, as entitled to the rights of the law of nations, condemns the Flavians for having, in the rage of civil dissensions, violated, in the persons of the Vitellian ambassadors, those privileges, which are respected even among FOREIGN nations.

not sent to foreign powers; but they are public persons, and, in that respect, are possessed of every exemption and immunity, that are necessary to the discharge of their functions.»-Vatt. b. iv. ch. vii. sect. 109. Of this nature are the privileges enjoyed by the representatives of the British people, and denominated the PRIVILEGEs of parliament.

Pirates and robbers, as they form no civil community, cannot rest any claim to protection and support upon the law of nations. Tiberius, as we are informed by Tacitus, when Tacfarinas sent ambassadors to him, spurned at the idea of treating with a robber, as with a lawful enemy. Yet sometimes a pledge of public faith, and the rights of embassy are allowed to men of that description, which was done by Pompey to the fugitives from the Pyrenean forest.

III. There are two points upon which the privileges granted by the law of nations to ambassadors turn. In the first place, they have a right to be admitted into any country, and secondly to be protected from all personal violence. Respecting the former of these points, there is a passage in the eleventh book of Livy, where Hanno, a Carthaginian senator inveighs against Hannibal for not having admitted into his camp ambassadors, who came from the allies, and on their behalf; as he had thereby overturned the law of nations.

But this rule by no means compels nations to give an UNQUALIFIED admission to all ambassadors. For that is what the law of nations can never intend: it only prohibits the refusal of admission without sufficient grounds.

There are various motives which may afford a sufficient plea for such refusal. There may be an objection to the power who offers to treat, to the person sent upon the embassy, or perhaps to the object of his mission. Thus at the suggestion of Pericles, Melesippus, the Lacedaemonian ambassador, was sent out of the territories of Athens; because he came from an enemy, who had no pacific intentions. The senate of Rome said, that they could receive no embassy from Carthage, as long as the Carthaginian army remained in Italy. The Achaeans refused to admit the ambassadors of Perseus, who were secretly MEDITATING war against the Romans. Upon the same grounds Justinian rejected an embassy from Totilas, and the same was done by the Goths at Urbino to messengers from Belisarius. Polybius relates in the third book of his history, that every power drove away the ambassadors of the Cynethensians, as they were so infamous a people.

We have an instance of the second kind, where the objection is made to the PERSON sent on an embassy, in the case of Theodore, who was called the atheist, and

whom Lysimachus refused to receive in the character of an ambassador sent from Ptolemy, and the same thing has frequently happened to others, against whom peculiar motives of aversion have existed.

In the third place, there may be sufficient grounds for refusing to admit an ambassador, if the object of his mission be of a suspicious kind, as was the case with that of Rhabshakeh the Assyrian, whom Hezekiah had reason to suspect of coming with a design to excite his people to rebellion. Or the refusal may be justified, where it is not consistent with the dignity or circumstances of one power to enter into any treaty, or intercourse with another. For this reason the Romans sent a declaration to the Aetolians, that they should send no embassy, but with the permission of their general, and Perseus was not allowed to send one to Rome, but to Licinius. Jugurtha's ambassadors too, as Sallust informs us, were ordered to leave Italy within the space of ten days, unless they came with offers from that prince to surrender himself, and his kingdom.

There may often be the best reasons for a sovereign's refusing to allow of a RESIDENT minister at his court; a practice, so general in the present day, but totally unknown to the ages of antiquity.

IV. As to the personal exemption of ambassadors from arrest, constraint, or violence of any kind, it is a subject of some difficulty to determine, owing to the varieties of opinion entertained by the most celebrated writers on the question. In the consideration of this matter, our attention is directed in the first place to the personal privileges and exemptions of ambassadors themselves, and next to those of their attendants, and their goods. With respect to their persons, some writers are of opinion, that it is ONLY from UNJUST VIOLENCE, and ILLEGAL CONSTRAINT, that the law of nations protects ambassadors. For they imagine that their privileges are to be explained according to the common principles of the law of nature. Others again suppose that ambassadors are not amenable to punishment for ALL offences, but only for such as amount to a transgression of the law of NATIONS, the principles of which are of such general extent, as to include the law of nature: consequently there can be no offences for which an ambassador is not punishable, except for those actions that are made such by the positive rules of MUNICIPAL or CIVIL LAW.

Others again consider these public representatives of states and crowned heads, as only liable to punishment for offences affecting the dignity or governments of the sovereigns to whom they are sent. While, on the other hand, there are some writers who maintain that for any state to punish an ambassador for ANY CRIME WHATEVER is highly dangerous to the independence of foreign powers; but that all offenders of that description ought to be left to the laws of their respective countries, to be punished or not, according to their deserts, upon due complaint being made to the sovereigns by whom they were sent

Some few writers, indeed, in laying down the rule to be observed in such cases, have decided that an appeal should be made to other independent and disinterested powers, which may be considered rather as a matter of DISCRETION, than of ABSOLUTE RIGHT. But the advocates of all these various systems have come to no definite conclusion in support of their favourite opinions. For this is a right which cannot, like the law of nature, be established upon unchangeable rules, but derives all its efficacy from the will of nations. Nations if they had thought proper, certainly might have laid down ABSOLUTE rules of security for ambassadors, or coupled them with certain exceptions. The argument is supported on one side by the urgent necessity of heinous crimes being punished, and on the other, the utmost latitude of exemption is favoured on account of the utility of embassies, the facility of sending which ought to be encouraged by every possible privilege, and security. To settle the point therefore, we must consider how far nations have agreed among themselves upon these principles; the proofs of which can only be found in the evidence of history.

Many instances may be produced in favour of both opinions. And in cases like this, the opinions of those celebrated for their judgment and knowledge will be of no small weight, but in some cases we must rest upon conjectures On this subject the two eminent historians, Livy and Sallust, may be quoted as authorities, the former of whom, in mentioning the ambassadors of Tarquin, who had been guilty of fomenting treasonable conspiracies at Rome, says, "that although they deserved to be treated as enemies tor their guilty conduct, yet the privilege, which they derived from the law of nations, prevailed over every other consideration." Here we see that the

rights of ambassadors could not be annulled even by the most criminal acts of hostility. But the observation made by Sallust, relates rather to those who come in the train of an embassy than to ambassadors themselves. The law of nations surely then will not deny the same privilege to a principal, which it evidently allows to those who form but a subordinate part in the public mission. The historian says, that "Bomilcar was arraigned and tried rather upon principles of equity and natural justice, than in conformity to the law of nations, as he belonged to the train of Jugurtha; who had come to Rome under the pledge of public faith."

Equity and natural justice require punishment to be inflicted on ALL offenders, whereas the law of nations makes an exception in favour of ambassadors, and those who have the public faith for their protection. Wherefore to try or punish ambassadors, is contrary to the law of nations, which prohibits many things, that are permitted by the law of nature.

The law of nations, thus deviating from the law of nature, gives rise to those interpretations and conjectures, which reconcile with the principles of justice a greater extension of privileges than the law of nature strictly allows. For if ambassadors were protected against nothing more than violence and illegal constraint, their privileges would confer no extraordinary advantage. Besides, the security of ambassadors is a matter of much greater moment to the public welfare than the punishment of offences. Because reparation for the misconduct of an ambassador may be looked for from the sovereign, by whom he is sent, unless that sovereign chuses to expose himself to hostilities by approving of his crimes. An objection to such privileges is made by some, who assert, that it is better for one person to be punished than for whole nations to be involved in war. But if a sovereign has SECRETLY given his sanction to the misconduct of his ambassador, his APPARENT intentions to punish that ambassador will not deprive the injured power of the right to seek redress by commencing hostilities.

On the other hand, the right of ambassadors would rest upon a very slippery foundation if they were accountable, for their actions, to any one but their own sovereigns. For as the interests of powers sending, and of those receiving ambassadors, are in general different, and some times even opposite, if a public minister were