afterwards authenticated by the fignature of the post master general; the collector then attefts the account, and delivers it with the vouchers into the office of the commiffioners for auditing the public accounts. He gives fecurity in the fum of 2,000l. with two fureties; his attendance is conftant, and his falary is 150l. He has in this department two fub-collectors, with falaries of 110l. and 100%. There are also in the office four principal clerks, window men, forters, infpectors of dead letters, and stampers. The deputy poft mafters at home and abroad are very numerous, being between 7 and 800. The packets and other charges attending the conveyance of letters to the colonies and to foreign countries are also very heavy, but the service is performed with great precision and dispatch. The agents established are as follow: At Dover, to receive and forward the French and Flanders mails; Harwich, to receive and forward the mails, and other public dispatches, to and from Holland, and the northern parts of Europe; and Falmouth, to receive and forward the public dispatches to and from Lisbon, the West India Islands, and America; to mufter the men on board the packets before they fail, and on their arrival; to fend copies of the mufters to the post master general; to keep a journal, and report daily to the board, a ftate of the winds and weather, of the arrival and failing of each packet, the names and condition of thofe in the harbour, and to tranfmit the fame every poft to the poft mafter general; alfo of the number of mails at Falmouth; to keep an account of all money received for freight or paffage; to pay the neceffary difburfements, fend an account of the fame to the poft master general at the end of every quarter, attefted on oath; and generally to fuperintend and direct the commanders according to the orders he receives from the board. 15. THE TREASURER OF THE NAVY, is alfo a distinguished officer of government, but as the bufinefs of the offices with which he is connected relates to the details of the naval fervice, a defcription of his duties is referved till the navy is exprefsly under confideration. EMBASSADORS -Although thefe perfons are not properly within the defcription of officers, whofe council is fuppofed to aflift, or whofe refponfibility is engaged in the tranfactions of, the cabinet, ftill the information they convey, and the corre fpondence they maintain in various directions, form the grounds of many decifions which they influence more effectually than they they could by their votes. Of thefe officers it may be fit first to take notice, as they are established by the general law of all civilized people, and next, as they are particularly protected by the law of England. A brief account is alfo added of fome other minifters of inferior degree, employed in the correspondence between nations. It is neceffary, that nations fhould hold intercourfe together, in order to promote their interefts, to avoid injuring each other, and to adjust and terminate their difputes. But nations, or fovereign ftates, do not treat together immediately; and their rulers or fovereigns cannot well come to a perfonal conference in order to treat of their affairs. Such interviews would often be impracticable; and, exclufive of delays, trouble, expence, and many other inconveniences, it is rarely, that any good effect could be expected from them. The only expedient, therefore, which remains for nations and fovereigns, is to communicate and negotiate by the agency of delegates charged with their commands, and vefted with their powers, that is to fay, public minifters. These, every sovereign state has a right to send and receive; nay, princes or communities not poffeffed of fovereign power, may enjoy the right by the conftitution of the ftate, the conceffion of the fovereign, or by reservations which the fubjects have made with him. For where the members of any general union have retained feparate and independant rights of fovereignty, fuch as thofe of granting fuccours of troops, or contracting alliances, it feems neceflarily to follow that they must also have the power of appointing and receiving embaffadors, or other minifters, for the adjustment and maintenance of treaties on those important points. Sometimes, this power has been delegated to viceroys, or chief governors of extensive provinces; during an interregnum it reverts to the nation, or devolves on thofe whom the law has invefted with the regency of the state; a fovereign who attemps to hinder another from receiving or fending public minifters, offends against the law of nations; and fo effentially is this right interwoven with that of fovereignty de facto, that if the embaffador of an ufurper is received, the legal prince, if reftored, has no right to complain of it as an injury or difrefpect to himfelf. A fovereign cannot, with propriety, refufe to receive the minifter of a friendly ftate, though he may, if he fees caufe, object to his long refidence in his dominions. The embaffador is a minifter of the firit rank, his appointment places him above all other minifters, who are not invested with the fame character, and precludes their entering into competition with him. At prefent, there are embaffadors ordinary and extraordinary; but this is no more than an accidental diftinction, diftinction, merely relative to the fubject of their mission, The peculiar honours paid to embaffadors, depend entirely on cuftom; but in general, they are entitled to thofe civilities and diftinctions, which the ufage and prevailing manners of the times have pointed out as proper expreflions of the respect due to the reprefentative of the fovereign; and when a practice is fo eftablished, as to impart, according to the ufages and manners. of the age, a real value and a fettled fignification to things in their own nature indifferent, it is neceffary to act with refpect to fuch things, as if they really poffeffed all that value which the opinion of mankind has annexed to them. For instance, according to the general ufage of all Europe, it is the peculiar prerogative of an embaffador to wear his hat in the prefence of the prince to whom he is fent. This right expreffes that he is acknowledged as the reprefentative of a fovereign; to refufe it therefore to the embassador of a state, which is truly independent, would be doing an injury to that ftate, and, in fome measure, degrading it. The ceremonials of public deference must be regulated by this principle, for the honour of a nation would be fenfibly wounded by a flight fhewn to its embassador, and an offence fo given would be a proof of wanton contumely, or inconfiderate railinefs. The refpect due to fovereigns fhould redound to their reprefentatives, and efpecially to their embaffadors. Whoever offends or infults a public minifter, endangers his country and his fovereign, and fhould therefore be punished with feverity; and the state, at the expence of the delinquent, fhould give full fatisfaction to the fovereign who has been offended in the perfon of his minifter. If the foreign minifter is himself the aggreffor, the citizen may oppofe him, without departing from the refpect due to his character, and may prefer a complaint to his own fovereign, who will demand for him an adequate satisfaction from the minifter's mafter; but he must not entertain those thoughts of revenge which the point of honour might suggest, although they fhould in other refpects be deemed allowable. Even according to the maxims of the world, a gentleman is not difgraced by an affront for which it is not in his own power to procure fatisfaction. The neceffity and right of embaffies being established, the perfect fecurity and inviolability of embaffadors and other minifters is a certain confequence of it: for if their perfons be not protected from violence of every kind, the right of embaffy becomes precarious, and the fuccefs very uncertain. Whoever offers violence to any embaffador, or to any other public minifter, not only injures the fovereign whom that minifter reprefents, but alfo attacks the common fafety and well-being well-being of nations: he becomes guilty of an atrocious crime against mankind in general. This fafety is particularly due to the minister from the fovereign to whom he is fent, who by admitting and acknowledging him, engages for his protection and fafety. This duty extends beyond the protection due to perfons in general, refident within his dominions; an act of violence committed on one of them is an ordinary tranfgreffion, which, according to circumftances, the prince may pardon; but if done to a public minifter, it is an offence against the law of nations, to be pardoned only by him who has been offended in the perfon of his reprefentative. Although the minifter's character is not difplayed in its full extent, and does not thus enfure him the enjoyment of all his rights, till he is acknowledged and admitted by the fovereign, to whom he delivers his credentials; yet, on his entering the country to which he is fent, and making himself known, he is under the protection of the law of nations; until he has had his audience of the prince, he is, on his own word, to be confidered as a minifter; and befides, exclufive of the notice of his miffion usually given by letter, the minifter has, in cafe of doubt, his paffports to produce, which will fufficiently certify his character. Thefe paffports fometimes become neceffary to him, in the countries through which he paffes on his way to the place of his deftination; and, in cafe of need, he fhews them, in order to obtain the privileges to which he is entitled. It is true, indeed, that the prince alone to whom the minister is fent, is under any obligation, or particular engagement to enfure him the enjoyment of all the rights annexed to his character; yet the others, through whofe dominions he paffes, are not to deny him those regards to which the minifter of a fovereign is entitled, and which nations reciprocally owe to each other. In particular, they are bound to afford him perfect fecurity. To infult him would be injuring his master, and the whole nation to which he belongs; to arrest or offer him violence, would be infringing the right of embaffy which belongs to all sovereigns, Thefe obfervations however apply only to nations at peace with each other. On the breaking out of a war, we ceafe to be under any obligation of leaving the enemy in the free enjoyment of his rights; on the contrary, we are juftifiable in depriving him of them, for the purpose of weakening, and reducing him to accept of equitable conditions. His people may alfo be attacked and feized wherever we have a right to commit acts of hoftility. Not only, therefore, may we juftly refuse a paffage to the minifters whom our enemy fends to other fovereigns, we may even arreft them if they attempt to pafs privately, and without permiffion, through places belonging to our jurisdiction. The The inviolability of a public minifter, or the protection to which he has a more facred and particular claim than any other perfon, whether native or foreigner, is not the only privilege he enjoys; the univerfal practice of nations allows him an entire independence on the jurifdiction and authority of the ftate in which he refides. But this independency is not to be converted into licentioufnefs, it does not excufe him from conforming with the laws of the country in all his external actions; fo far as they are unconnected with the object of his miffion and character, he is independent, but he has not a right to de whatever he pleafes. Thus for inftance, if there exifts a general prohibition against paffing in a carriage near a powder magazine, or over a bridge, againft walking round and examining the fortifications of a town, &c. the embaffador is bound to refpect fuch prohibitions. Should he forget his duty, fhould he grow infolent, and be guilty of irregularities and crimes, there are, according to the nature and importance of his offences, various modes of repreffing him. As to what concerns the prince to whom he is fent, the embaffador fhould remember that his miniftry is a miniftry of peace, and that it is on that footing he is received. This reafon forbids his engaging in any evil machinations let him ferve his mafter without clandeftinely or treacherously injuring the prince who receives him. Should an embaffador forget the duties of his station, should he render himself difagreeable and dangerous, fhould he form cabals and schemes prejudicial to the peace of the citizens, or to the ftate or prince to whom he is fent, there are various modes of punishing him, proportionate to the nature and degree of his offence. If he maltreats the subjects of the state, if he commits any acts of injuftice or violence against them, the mjured fubjects are not to feek redrefs from the ordinary magiftrates, fince the embaffador is wholly independent of their jurifdiction; and for the fame reafon thofe magiftrates cannot proceed directly against him, but they must apply to their fovereign, who demands juftice from the embaffador's mafter, and in cafe of a refufal, may order the infolent minister to quit his dominions. Should a foreign minifter offend the prince himself, fhould he fail in the refpect he owes him, or by his intrigues embroil the ftate and the court, the offended prince, from a with to keep meafures with the offender's fovereign, fometimes contents himself with fimply requiring his recal, or if the tranfgeffion be of a more serious nature, forbids his appearance at court in the interval while his master's answer is expected; and in cafes of a heinous complexion, he even expels him from his territories. Every fovereign has an unquestionable right to proceed in this manner, for being mafter in his own dominions, по |