standard of estimation afforded is the judgment of its own tribunals. The possible results of such a stipulation may be illustrated by referring to a law adopted by the Ecuadorian Congress in 1888. By the first article of that law it is declared that the nation is not responsible for losses and damages caused by the enemy, either in a civil or international war, or by mobs, riots, or mutinies; or for those which may be caused by the government in its military operations, or in the measures it may adopt for the restoration of public order. Neither natives nor foreigners shall have any right of indemnity in such cases.' The government of the United States, in common with other foreign governments, has protested against these and other provisions of the statute in question as being in contravention of the principles of international law, but it has not as yet been informed that the tribunals of Ecuador would not hold themselves bound to apply, as an obligatory domestic enactment, this unusual decree, in any matter of national liability which they might be called upon to decide. But if, as I am compelled to hold, the law is internationally invalid, the judgments of the courts of Ecuador cannot give it international force. This example I cite for the purpose of illustration. "The general principle which I maintain is that the judgments of the courts of a country can not be accepted as finally determining its international duties and liabilities. Once admit that they are to be so accepted, each nation is left to fix the standard of its conduct and the measure of its obligations.

"Without proceeding to the consideration of the remaining articles I regret to find myself precluded by the objections above stated from entertaining the proposition, as now presented, for the conclusion of a convention supplementary to the treaty of June 13, 1839."

Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Caamano, March 19, 1890, MS. Notes to
Ecuador, I. 130.

See supra, § 1, I. 6.

With reference to a telegram from the American minister at Caracas indicating a probable attack by pillagers on the property of the New York & Bermudez Company, an American corporation, at Bermudez Lake, an asphalt deposit, in Venezuela, the Department of State expressed the opinion that the minister's request for the assistance of a naval vessel should be granted, and that the gunboat should also protect all existing rights and maintain the status quo pending an investigation and decision as to an attempt which was alleged then to be in contemplation to deprive the company of its property by executive action.

Mr. Hay, Sec. of State, to Sec. of Navy, Dec. 28, 1900, 250 MS. Dom. Let. 8, enclosing a telegram from the American minister at Caracas of Dec. 26, 1900.

2. DENIAL OF JUSTICE.

§ 913.

"A foreigner, before he applies for extraordinary interposition, should use his best endeavors to obtain the justice he claims from the ordinary tribunals of the country."

Mr. Jefferson, Sec. of State, to the British minister, April 18, 1793, 5
MS. Dom. Let. 88.

A nation ought not to interfere in the causes of its citizens brought before foreign tribunals, except in a case of refusal of justice or of palpable injustice.

Bradford, At. Gen., 1794, 1 Op. 53.

When a suitor applies to a foreign tribunal for justice, he must submit to the rule by which that tribunal is governed. (Ibid.)

"Since your letter of the 10th of February last was received, all the papers which had been previously transmitted by you to the Department have been carefully examined and considered. Although your case is one which is calculated to excite a deep sympathy, and although the individuals by whom your person and property were so cruelly assailed deserved the severest punishment, yet no circumstances are perceived in your narrative of the outrage which would render it a proper subject of complaint by the government of the United States to that of Spain. It does not appear that the injury which you suffered was instigated, or sanctioned, by the public authorities of Cuba, and it is therefore to be considered as an offence committed by private individuals in opposition to the laws of the island, which, it is taken for granted, afford adequate redress for such gross violations of the order and peace of society. It was from those laws then, through the proper tribunals, that reparation should have been sought for the injury inflicted upon your person and property, and it was only after a participation by those tribunals in the wrong committed by a palpable denial of justice, that the government of the United States could have been properly called upon to interpose its influence. Although a government is bound to protect its citizens, and see that their injuries are redressed, where justice is plainly refused them by a foreign nation, yet this obligation always presupposes a resort, in the first instance, to the ordinary means of defence, or reparation, which are afforded by the laws of the country in which their rights are infringed, to which laws they have voluntarily subjected themselves, by entering within the sphere of their operation, and by which they must consent to abide. It would be an unreasonable and oppressive burden upon the intercourse between nations, that they should be compelled to investigate

and determine, in the first instance, every personal offence, committed by the citizens of the one against those of the other. An attempt is made to implicate the captain-general of the island in the case which you have presented, but there is no satisfactory proof that he had any knowledge of what was going on in time to prevent the injury that was done. On the contrary, it is stated by Mr. Horvillis, one of the consignees of the vessel you commanded, who applied to the captaingeneral for assistance, that he had scarcely presented his statement of the grounds which led him to apprehend a serious disturbance, when a messenger arrived with information of the tumult which was feared having already taken place, and that, upon proceeding immediately to the wharf with one of the aids of the captain-general, he found that the mob was dispersed, and that you had been removed to the hospital. The vicinity of the residence of the captain-general, which appears to be the circumstance principally relied upon to prove that he was not ignorant of the violence that was about to be committed, is not sufficient to sustain that conclusion. Even if the assemblage of disorderly persons upon the wharf were within his view, although it might have given rise very naturally to an apprehension that some breach of the peace would be committed, it is not to be presumed that he knew, or even suspected, that an attack was about to be made upon you or your vessel, without which, however negligent he might have been as a guardian of the peace of the city, he could not be considered as affording his countenance to an assault which you regard as a national insult.

"Your subsequent detention by the authorities of the island is easily explained by the circumstance of two men having been shot in the affray, one of them by your own hand. In our own country such an ocurrence would have produced a similar detention, until the affair could have been judicially investigated. The injury which Mr. Morris may have suffered by the refusal to permit his vessel to leave the port, for some days after the disturbance, and from the necessity imposed upon his agents of shipping new officers and crew is not taken into consideration, on the present occasion, as no complaint has been made by him to the Department on the subject. The opinions which have been expressed relate only to your own case, and it is hoped that the full explanation which has been given of the views of the Department will satisfy you that, under existing circumstances, it would not be expendient or proper for the government to interfere. The report of the Secretary of State, made to the Senate in the year 1823, upon the reference to which you allude in your letter of Jan. 4, 1831, was adverse to your claim, and three several decisions have been pronounced by Congress on the subject, all of which were unfavorable. It might have been sufficient for the Department, in reply to your recent letter, barely to refer you to those proceedings, but with a view

of affording you all the satisfaction possible, a careful examination of your case has been made, and the grounds upon which the former determinations are approved, have been particularly stated to you in the present communication."

Mr. McLane, Sec. of State, to Mr. Shain, May 28, 1834, 26 MS. Dom. Let. 263.

"It appears that your claim was adjudicated by a court of unquestioned authority; that the usual forms of proceeding were observed; that in consequence of your dissatisfaction with the decision, repeated and earnest application was made by Mr. Brent in your behalf to the government of Portugal; that the petition which he submitted in your name was received with all the respect and attention which were to be expected from the friendly relations subsisting between the two countries; that the judgment of which you complained was referred to the high court of the Dezintargo de Paco, and was by that tribunal pronounced to be just; and finally that this decision was approved and solemnly confirmed by the King himself. In addition to all this, it appears that you had a right of appeal in the regular course of legal proceedings from the sentence complained of, and that this right still exists, unless it has been lost through your own neglect. Under these circumstances, jealous as this government is known to be of the rights and interests of its citizens, there is no view which it has taken of your case that would seem to justify its further interference in the matter."

Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Welsh, March 14, 1835, 27 MS. Dom.
Let. 261.

See Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Miller, Aug. 28, 1838, 30 MS. Dom.
Let. 11.

March 12, 1841, Mr. Fox, British minister at Washington, demanded of the United States "formally, in the name of the British government, the immediate release" of Alexander McLeod, a British subject who had been arrested in the State of New York and indicted in a local tribunal for the crime of murder, alleged to have been committed at the cutting out of the steamer Caroline in the port of Schlosser, in that State. McLeod's release was demanded on the ground that the transaction on account of which he was arrested was an act of public force by the British authorities, in respect of which no individual concerned in it could, according to the just principles of the law of nations, be held personally answerable in the ordinary courts of law as for a private offense. Owing to the fact that the case was pending in a State court, it was beyond the power of the President of the United States directly to interfere in it. The Attorney-General was, however, directed to attend the trial and to com

municate to the State court authentic evidence of the demand of the British government. In a letter to the Attorney-General, in which these instructions were given, Mr. Webster said: "If this indictment were pending in one of the courts of the United States, I am directed to say that the President, upon the receipt of Mr. Fox's last communication, would have immediately directed a nolle prosequi to be entered."

Webster's Works, VI. 265.

The Reverend Jonas King, a citizen of the United States, complained of the action of the Greek government, on account (1) of the appropriation of his land to public purposes, and (2) his trial and sentence of banishment for alleged offenses against the established religion of the state. It was alleged that the trial of Dr. King, of which his sentence was the result, was unfairly and illegally conducted. On the ground that, while missionaries were entitled to all the protection which the law of nations allowed the government to extend to American citizens in foreign countries, yet it would be a source of endless embarrassment to attempt to reverse the decisions of regular tribunals as to questions connected with doctrinal belief, Mr. Everett, as Secretary of State, decided that it would be inexpedient to require any pecuniary indemnity for Mr. King on account of his trial. But, with reference to his sentence of banishment and the taking of his property, Mr. Everett said:

"There is a single point only in which, at first view, Dr. King's claim upon his own government to interfere in his behalf may seem premature, and that is his omission to seek redress by bringing an action against the Greek government, as authorized by the code of civil procedure. The rule of public law is settled, that a private citizen in a foreign country is not entitled to the forcible interference of his government to procure him redress of wrongs till justice has been denied him by the local tribunals. This consideration would perhaps prevent the President, at this time, from interfering, had not the conduct of the courts of Greece, in the trial of Dr. King, sufficiently shown that he could not expect justice at their hands. The rule of public law to which I have referred takes for granted that the tribunals are entitled to confidence, and the President can place no confidence in those of Greece in any case where Dr. King is concerned. Besides, the government of Greece has never placed its refusal to indemnify Dr. King on the ground that his claim had not been duly adjudicated by the tribunals, but has positively disclaimed all responsibility, and attempted to turn him over to the municipality of the city of Athens, by which, in turn, he is thrown back upon the general government. Such being the state of things, the President feels it his duty to interfere to procure redress to Dr. King.