dors, and other ministers, is a certain consequence of it; for if their person be not defended from violence of every kind, the right of embassies become precarious, and the success very uncertain. A right to the end is a right to the necessary means. Embassies then being of such great importance in the universal society of nations, and so necessary to their common well being, the person of ministers charged with this embassy is to be held sacred and inviolable among all nations. Whoever offers any violence to an ambassador, or any other public minister, not only injures the sovereign whom this minister represents, but he also hurts the common safety and well-being of nations: he becomes guilty of an atrocious crime towards the whole world. ib.

58. Particular Protection due to them. This safety is particularly due to the ministers, from the sovereign to whom he is sent. To admit a minister to acknowledge him in such quality, is engaging to grant him the most particular protection, and that he shall enjoy all possible safety. A sovereign is indeed to protect every person within his dominions, whether native or foreigner, and shelter him from violence; but this attention is in a higher degree due to a foreign minister. A violence done to a private person is a common trespass, which, according to circumstances, the prince may p.don: but if done to a public minister, it is a crime of state, an offence a nst the law of nations. A pardon of this does not depend on the prince in whose country the crime has been committed, but on him who has been offended in the person of his representative. However, if the minister has been insulted by persons ignorant of his character, the fault does not affect the law of nations, but comes within the case of common trespasses. Some dissolute young fellows in a town of Switzerland having, in the night-time, insulted the English minister's house, not knowing who lived there, the magistracy sent a message to the minister to know what satisfaction he required. He wisely answered, that it was the magistrate's concern to vindicate the public as they should judge proper; but as for himself he required nothing, not thinking himself affronted by persons who could have no design on him, as not knowing his house. Another particular circumstance in the protection of foreign ministers is this: according to the wretched maxims introduced by a false point of honor, a sovereign is under a necessity of shewing indulgence towards a person wearing a sword, who instantly revenges an affront done to him by a private person; but violent proceedings can never be allowed of, or excused, against a public minister, unless the latter, by beginning and urging the violence, should lay the other under a necessity of defending himself. ib.

59. Of the Time when it commences. Though the minister's character does not become declared in its whole extent, and thus does not secure to him the enjoyment of all his rights till he is acknowledged and admitted by the sovereign to whom he delivers his credentials; yet, on his entering into the country whither he is sent, and making himself known, he is under the protection of the law of nation; otherwise it would not be safe for him to

come. Till he has had his audience of the prince, he is on his word to be considered as a minister; and further, besides notice of it, usually sent by letters in case of doubt, the minister is provided with passports, certifying his character. ib.

60. What is due to them'in Countries through which they pass. These passports sometimes become necessary to him in the countries through which he passes in his way to the place of his destination; and, when it is necessary for procuring the respect and honor due to him, he produces them. Indeed that prince alone to whom the minister is sent, is under a particular obligation that he shall enjoy all the rights annexed to his character: yet the others, through whose dominions he passes, are not to deny him those regards to which the minister of a sovereign is entitled, and which nations reciprocally owe to each other.. They especially owe to him an entire safety. To insult him would be injuring his master and the whole nation; to arrest him and offer violence to him, would be hurting the right of embassy, which belongs to all sovereigns. Francis the First, king of France, had all the reason in the world to complain of the murder of his ambassadors Rincon and Fregosa, as an horrible crime against public faith and the law of nations. These two persons, destined, the one to Constantinople, and the other to Venice, having embarked on the Po, were stopt and murdered, and in appearance, by order of the governor of Milan. The emperor Charles the Vth's negligence to discover the author of the murder gave room to think that he had ordered it, or at least that he had tacitly approved of the fact. And as he did not give any suitable satisfaction concerning it, Francis the First had a very just cause for declaring war against him, and even demanding assistance of all other nations. For an affair of this nature is not a particular difference, or a litigious question, in which each party wrests law over to his side: it is the quarrel of all nations who are concerned to maintain as sacred the right and means of communicating together, and treating of their affairs. If an innocent passage be due, even with entire safety, to a mere private person, much more is it due to the minister of a sovereign who is going to execute his master's orders, and travels on the affairs of a nation—I say, an innocent passage; for the minister's journey is justly suspected, if a sovereign has reason to apprehend that he will abuse the freedom of coming into his country, for plotting something against his service, or that he is going to give intelligence to his enemies, or to stir up others against him.-We have already said that a passage may be denied him, but he is not to maltreat him, nor suffer any insult to be offered to his person. Though he has not reason sufficient for denying him a pas. sage, he may take precautions against the ample use which the minister may make of it. These maxims the Spaniards found even in Mexico, and the neighbouring countries. The ambassadors were respected all along the

road; but if they went out of the highway they were to forfeit their rights. A very wise reservation, that spies might not be sent, under the name of ambassadors. Thus, at the famous congress of Westphalia, whilst peace was negociating amidst the dangers of war and the noise of arms, the routs of the several couriers sent or received by the plenipotentiaries were marked, and out of such limits their passports were of no protection. ib.

61. Independence of foreign Ministers. The inviolability of a pub. lic minister, or the safety due to him, more sacredly and more particularly than to any other person, whether foreigner or native, is not his only privilege; he is further, by the universal practice of nations, to enjoy an entire independency from the jurisdiction and authority of the state where he resides. Some authors pretend that this independency is merely positive among nations, and will have it referred to the arbitrary law of nations, which owes its origin to the manners, the customs, or particular conventions: they deny it to be grounded on the natural law of nations. Indeed, the law of nature gives men a right of punishing those who do them wrong, and consequently impowers a sovereign to punish a foreigner who disturbs the public tranquillity, offends themselves, or maltreats their subjects: it authorises them to compel this foreigner to conform himself to the laws, and to behave properly towards the citizens. But it is no less true, that the same natural law imposes on all sovereigns the obligation of consenting to those things without which nations could not cultivate the society nature has established among them, correspond together, negociate their affairs, or adjust their differences. Now, ambassadors and other public ministers are instruments necessary to the support of this general society, of this mutual correspondence of nations. But their ministry cannot attain its designed end, unless invested with all the prerogatives which may secure the lawful success of it; and which are necessary for the free, faithful, and safe discharge of it. The same law of nations whereby they are obliged to admit foreign ministers, manifestly obliges them likewise to admit those ministers, with all the rights necessary to them, and all the privileges relative to the exercise of their functions. It is easy to conceive that independency must be one of these privileges; without it, that privilege so necessary to a public minister, would be precarious and fluctuating. He might be molested, injured, and maltreated, under a thousand pretences. A minister is often charged with a commission disagreeable to the prince to whom he is sent. If this prince has any power over him, and especially if his authority be sovereign, how is it to be expected that the minister can execute his master's orders with a proper freedom of mind, fidelity, and firmness? It is necessary he should have no snares to fear, that he cannot be diverted from his functions by any chicanery. He must have nothing to hope, and nothing to fear, from the sovereign to whom he is sent. Therefore, in order to the

success of his ministry, he must be independent of the sovereign's authority, and of the jurisdiction of the country, both civil and criminal. To this it may be added, that the nobility, and persons of great eminence, will be averse from taking on themselves an embassy, if by this commission they were to be subjected to a sovereign authority, and often among nations of no very friendly dispositions to that which they represent, where they must support disagreeable claims, and enter into discussions naturally productive of acrimony. In fine, if an ambassador could be indicted for common trespasses, be criminally prosecuted, taken into custody, punished if he might be sued in civil cases, the consequence will often be, that he will want the power, leisure, or freedom of mind, which his master's affairs require. How will the dignity of the representation be supported in such a subjection? From all these reasons it is impossible to conceive, that the prince, in sending an ambassador, or any other minister, intends to submit him to the authority of a foreign power. This is a fresh reason, which fixes the independency of a public minister. If it cannot be reasonably presumed that his master means to submit him to the authority of the sovereign, to whom he is sent, this sovereign, in receiving the minister, consents to admit him on the footing of independency. And thus there subsists between the two princes a passive convention, giving a new force to the natural obligation. ib.

62. The question of which we have been treating [Immunities of Public Ministers] has been debated in England and France, on two famous occasions. In London, on account of John Lesly, bishop of Ross, ambasador from Mary, queen of Scotland. This minister was continually intriguing

*NOTE. In Ward's Law of Nations the case is thus stated

In the year 1567, Leslie Bishop of Ross, came to the Court of England, in behalf of his mistress the unfortunate Queen of Scots; who, although she was detained prisoner by the English, was allowed to send him, to plead before the Commissioners appointed to examine into her cause. Nothing was determined by the commission; but Leslie continued at Court, and exercised the office of Ambassador of MARY for the space of one year, when being concerned in raising a rebellion against the English government he was committed to the custody of the Bishop of London. From this he was soon liberated, and returning to his function of Ambassador, continued to preserve it near two years longer. At that time, being detected in the attempt to raise a serious conspiracy in favor of MARY against ELIZABETH, he was once more committed; and the following questions concerning him, as appears from Lord Burleigh's State Papers, were propounded to David Lewis, Valentine Dale, William Drury, William Aubrey, and Henry Jones, learned civil lawyers.

1. "Whither an Embassador procuring an insurrection or rebellion in the Prince's cowntrey, towarde whome he is Embassador, is to enjoye the priviledge of an Embassador?" II. "Whither he may not, jure gentium et e ivili Romanorum, be ponished as an enemy, traitor, or conspirator, ageinst, that Prince, notwithstandinge he be an Embassador?"

"To these two questions they answered: Touchinge these two questions, we are of opynnyon, that an Embassador procuringe an insurrection, or rebellion, in the Prince's cowntrey towards whome he is Embassador, ought not, jure gentium, et civili Romanorum, to enjoye the privileges, otherwise dew to an Embassador; but that he maye, notwithstandinge, be ponished for the same."

"Whither, if the Prince be deposed by the comen Authoritie of the Bealme, and

against queen Elizabeth, and the tranquillity of the state, forming conspiracies, and exciting the subjects to rebellion.

Five of the most able civilians

an other elected and invested of that Crowne; the solicitor, or doer of his causes, and for his ayde, (although the other Prynce do suffer such one to be in his Realme) is to be accompted an Embassador?"

To this they answered "We doe thinke, that the sollicitor of a Prince lawfully deposed, and an other being invested in his place, cannot have the privilege of an Embassador, for that none but Prynces, and such other as have Soverayntye, may have Embassadors."

IV. "Whither a Prynce, comynge into an other Realme, and remayning there under custodye and garde, ought, or may have there his sollicitor of his causes, &c. yf he have, whither he is to be cownted an Embassador?"

To this they answered, "We doe thinke that a Prynce comynge iuto an other Prynce's Realm, and being there under guarde, and custodye, and remayning till a Prynce, may have a solicitor there; but whither he be to be accompted an Embassador, that dependeth on the nature of his comyssion.

V. "Whither if such a solicitor be so appointed by a Prynce so flyenge, or comynge into an other Prynce's Realm; if the Prynce in whose Realm, the Prynce so in grade, and his solicitor is, shall deuownce, or cause to be denownced, to such a Solicitor, or to such a Prynce under custodie, that his said solicitor shall hereafter be taken for no Embassador; whither then such sollicitor or agent can justly clayme the priviledge of Embassador?"

To this they answered, "We doe thincke that the Prynce to whom any person is sent in message of Embassador, may for causes forbidd him to enter into his lands, or when he hath receyved him, comaunde him to departe; yet so long as he doth remayne in the Realme, and not excede the bounds of an Embassador, he may clayme his privilege as Embassador, or sollicitor, according to the qualitie of his commission.

VI. “Whither, if an Embassador be confederacy, or be ayder, or comforter of any traytor, knowinge his treason towarde that Prynce, towarde whome, and in whose Realme he pretendeth to be Embassador: ys not punishable by the Prynce in whose Realme and ageinst whom such treason is committed, or confederacy for treason conspired?"

And to this they answered, "We doe thincke that an Embassador aydinge and comfortinge any traytor in his treason towarde the Prynce with whom he pretendeth to be Embassador in his Realme, knowinge the same treason is punishable by the same Prynce ageinst whome suche treason is comytted."

These answers of the Civilians were supposed to be so decisive in favour of the intentions of the Court, that the Bishop was sent for from his confinement in the Isle of Ely, and after being sharply rebuked, was told he should no longer be considered as an Ambassador, but but severely punished as one who well deserved it. He, however, answered with much firmness and apparent knowledge of the law of natious, that he was the Ambassador of an absolute Queen, and of one who was unjustly deposed, and had, according to his duty, carefully endeavoured to effectuate the delivery of his Princess, and the safety of both kingdoms. That he came into England, with the full authority of an Ambassador, upon public warrandise, or safe conduct, which he had produced; and that the sacred privileges of Ambassadors were by no means to be violated. Burleigh in return, observed that no privilege or public warrandise could protect Ambassadors that offend against the public Majesty of a Prince, but they are liable to penal actions for the same; otherwise lewed Ambassadors might attempt the life of princes without any punishment. The Lishop persisted in his positions and maintained that the privileges of Ambassadors had never been violated via juris fed via facti, not by regular form of trial, but by violence. This boldness, or the true view which he seems to have taken of this nice subject, appears so far to have weighed with the Ministers of Elizabeth, that they did not dare to put him to death, with the Duke of Norfolk and other conspirators, but after detaining him for some time in prison, banished him the country in 1573.