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was declaratory, and occasioned by a particular incident. That the law of nations was to be collected from the practice of different nations, and the authority of writers.' Accordingly, he argued and determined from such instances, and the authority of Grotius, Barbeyrac, Bynkershoek, Wiquefort, etc., there being no English writer of eminence upon the subject.

"I was counsel in this case, and have a full note of it.

"I remember, too, Lord Hardwicke's declaring his opinion to the same effect; and denying that Lord ChiefJustice Holt ever had any doubt as to the law of nations being part of the law of England, upon the occasion of the arrest of the Russian Ambassador."

The term

Jus gentium and the modern law of nations. jus gentium appears in the historical and legal nomenclature of ancient Rome as a system of formalities governing conduct in war and treaty relations (jus belli, jus fetiale); its more familiar signification, however, identifies it with aspects of private jurisprudence developed, in contrast with the unyielding rigidity of jus civile, from a realization of "the nature of things and the general sense of equity which obtains among all men; . . . the jus gentium was and never had been anything else but a portion of positive Roman law which commercial usage and other sources of law, more especially the prætorian edict, had clothed in a concrete form" (Sohm's Institutes of Roman Law, 2d Oxford edition, 1901, page 73). The increasing prevalence of such principles among all peoples coming into contact with Rome gradually led to a conception of jus gentium as cognate to the law of nature-the law universal.

Such identification, although more philosophic than practical, was destined to exert a far-reaching influence upon the mediæval seeker for a system clothed with authority superior to human enactment. So it was that in a later age, as theological or ethical writers arose seeking to develop rules of right conduct and humane action in international affairs whether of peace or war, appeal was

made to this vanished aspect of Roman jurisprudence supposed to possess the quality of universal obligationthe jus gentium whose name at least was preserved in the Roman law collections familiar to medieval scholars. Earliest among these were Spanish and Italian writers on theology and morals, as well as compilers of comprehensive collections of available knowledge. The seventh century finds Isidore, Bishop of Seville, laying down, in his encyclopedic work on etymologies and origins, some chief divisions of jus gentium as found in Ulpian's Institutes. In the middle of the twelfth century, Gratian of Bologna adopts, in his decretals, kindred classifications of a law of nations, together with a jus militare. Similarly St. Thomas of Aquinas, in the following century, Bartolus and John of Legnano (fourteenth century), Martinus of Pavia (fifteenth century), illustrated the laws of war and embassy; nor does the Siete Partidas, the Code of Alphonso X. of Castile (1254-1284), omit to carefully treat these subjects. In a slightly later age, Balthazar Ayala (1548-1584) produced a work which is still read on the laws and duties of war (De Jure et Officiis Bellicis), and Ferdinand Vasquez (1509-1556) published a diplomatic treatise: Illustrium Controversiarum aliorumque usu frequentium Libri tres.

In a related field of thought are parts of the works of three eminent professors of Salamanca: Francisco à Victoria, Relectiones Theologica (1557); Domenico Soto (1494-1560, De Justitia et Jure), appointed by Charles V. to arbitrate between the grasping Spanish colonists and Las Casas, who sought to protect the Indians of the New World; Francisco Suarez (1548–1617), De Legibus ac Deo Legislatore. Among Italian writers are to be noted the celebrated Christine, daughter of Thomas of Pisa (1363-1431), who, upon becoming the widow of Étienne du Castel, found occupation and maintenance in the production of both poetry and law. Her book, Le Livre des Faits d'Armes et de Chevalerie, was translated into English and published by Caxton in 1489. Its text was adapted

from the Rei Militaris Instituta of Vegetius (circ. A. D. 380), who had brought together materials collected from Cato the Censor (De Discipline Militari) and others. In 1563 Belli published a work on a kindred topic, De re Militari et de Bello, thus preceding by but few years Alberico Gentili (1551-1608) of Ancona, who, as a Protestant, found refuge and fame at Oxford, where he became professor of civil law and the retained counsel of the Spanish crown in prize causes. In 1583 he produced his first work of note, De Legationibus. The German Brunus had, twenty-five years earlier, written a work with the same title. In 1589 Gentili published the book which has given him a lasting reputation, and which, as furnishing inspiration and material to Grotius in the succeeding generation, should properly give to its author a just claim to be considered the first of moderns in the field of international jurisprudence, although both Vasquez and Suarez distinctly grasp the conception of a law between nations as the essential basis on which could be developed a conception of freedom from any ecclesiastical or secular claims to world dominion. Jus gentium here becomes, consequently, a foundation of that national independence which came in some measure to a practical realization at the Peace of Westphalia. These early writers or precursors of Grotius are all noticed and commented upon in the recent and comprehensive treatise of Professor Nys of Brussels-Le Droit International, vol. i. pp. 224 et seq. The Westphalia treaties signed at Münster and Osnabrück in the autumn of 1648 possess special significance as asserting the principle of an independence of the empire on the part of the numerous smaller German states; it marks a date, also, from which may be reckoned the modern organization of diplomatic representation. This period, too, marks the rise of the modern school, and the study of international relations now finds expositors destined to rank as classics: Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) published in 1625 the De Jure Belli ac Pacis, which within a century following had passed

into forty-five Latin editions and had been translated into the leading modern languages; Zouch (1590-1660), successor of Gentili in the Oxford professorship and judge of the British Admiralty Court, wrote a more comprehensive work than had hitherto appeared on the subject with the significant title, Juris et judicii fecialis sive juris inter gentes et quæstionum de eodum explicatio; Wicquefort

(1598-1682), historiographer of Holland, produced his classic treatise, De l'ambassadeur et de ses fonctions. This was followed by three works of the first order from German jurists: Rachel (1628-1691), De Jure Naturæ et Gentium duæ Dissertationes; .. Pufendorf (1632-1694), De Jure Naturæ et Gentium; and Leibnitz (1646–1716), Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus. Not merely did the era of the Westphalia treaties effect a modification of European usage in the aspects just noted, but it also witnessed the strengthening of the Supreme Court of the German Empire (Reichskammergericht) as furnishing an interstate tribunal for the settlement of disputes which at an earlier age had scattered the seeds of private warfare throughout the Empire, and there also emerged the true conception of a balance of power (æquilibrium justæ potestatis) destined to find express recognition in the treaties signed at Utrecht in 1713 at the close of the war of the Spanish Succession, and which thereafter for a century may be said to have furnished the special inspiration of European diplomacy. We have here arrived at the threshold of the modern period in the science of international relations when the freedom of the seas, mutual rights of ocean fishery, the relations of belligerents and neutrals as to contraband and blockade, the exemption of river navigation and the navigation of marine straits or sounds from oppressive dues, have claimed the earnest attention of publicists and formed the subjects of international adjustment through treaties or the resolutions of international conferences such as that held at Vienna, 1814-1815. The literature of international law was enriched with the productions of Van

Bynkershoek of Holland (1673-1743); Burlamaqui of Geneva (1694-1748); Wolff of Breslau (1679-1754); Vattel (1714-1767), the Swiss writer and diplomat who succeeded in bringing the substance of Wolff's colossal work, which had filled eight quarto volumes, into a single volume of moderate size, thus producing a treatise destined to become a favorite and standard book throughout the world; Heineccius of Eisenberg (1681-1741); Barbeyrac of Béziers (16741744), translator of Grotius; De Réal of Sisteron (16821752), author of Le Science du Gouvernement; De Mably of Grenoble (1709-1785); Moser of Stuttgart (1701-1785); Hübner (1724-1795), Danish ambassador to France, who wrote De la saisie des bâtiments neutres; De Rayneval (1736-1812), long a resident of Regensburg as French diplomatic envoy; Lampredi (1761-1836), an Italian jurist, author of a treatise on "Neutral Commerce in Time of War"; Azuni (1760-1827), whose Principles of Maritime Law were translated into English by Johnson of New York at the opening of the nineteenth century, and at once took the highest rank in its special field; William Frederic de Martens of Hamburg, whose fame rests not only on his remarkable summary of international law (1789), but whose collection of treaties and state documents, begun at the same time (1791-1800), has been continued to our day as the standard publication in its field. His nephew, Charles de Martens, attained equal distinction. In our own day the late Prof. F. de Martens of St. Petersburg was a leading authority.

With the advance of western exploration and commercial expansion in the Orient, as the nineteenth century draws towards a close, there appear the doctrines of penetration through spheres of influence and protectorates leading to annexation, and which serve to lay foundations of vast colonial empires, while upon the Asiatic coast the specious fiction of an international lease allows a practically permanent appropriation of salient shore positions. The early nineteenth century also witnesses the devel

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