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to have the same force everywhere, so far as they do not prejudice the powers or rights of other governments or of their citizens. "Rectores imperiorum id comiter agunt, ut jura cujusque populi intra terminos ejus exercita teneant ubique suam vim, quatenus nihil potestati aut juri alterius imperantis ejusque civium præjudicetur." (De Conflictu Legum, 1. 1. tit. 3. § 2.) The rules which are to govern such questions are those which arise from mutual interest and utility, from a sense of the inconvenience which would result from a contrary doctrine, and from a sort of moral necessity to do justice in order that justice may be done to us in return.

But every nation is at liberty to judge for itself to what extent it will recognise foreign laws, as they affect the state and condition of persons; and the obligation of the laws of one nation is not admitted, when they are contrary to the policy or prejudicial to the interests of another nation. In the silence of any positive rule repugnant to or restraining the operation of foreign laws, courts of justice everywhere expound and administer them, presuming the tacit adoption of them by their own government, and so acting upon them as a part of the voluntary Law of Nations. The doctrine of Mr. Justice Story in this respect is identical with the decisions of Lord Mansfield and Lord Stowell; and it has been followed by M. Fœlix, in his useful treatise on private international law, which may be studied with advantage as furnishing, from various European sources, a complement to Mr. Justice Story's Commentaries. (Traité du Droit International Privé, Paris, 1843.)

With regard to the rules which regulate the intercourse of nations, it may have occurred to many persons that there is a difficulty in discovering any

power to enforce them as law; and Mr. Austin, in his work on jurisprudence, seems disposed to banish the term "international law" from the vocabulary of jurisprudence, and to substitute "international morality." Law in general has been defined to be "the external freedom of the moral person." This law may be sanctioned and guaranteed by a superior authority; or it may derive its force from self-protection. The Jus Gentium is of the latter description. A nation associating itself to the great family of nations, thereby at once submits itself to the law or body of rules common to them all, and by which its international life is to be regulated. It cannot violate this law without exposing itself to the hazard of suspending its own international life, and of incurring the hostility of other nations, which may coalesce to punish it, or even to terminate its existence as an independent state. The motive, which induces each particular nation to observe this law, is founded upon its persuasion that other nations will observe towards it the same law.

The Jus Gentium "Reciprocity or

is founded upon reciprocity of will. mutuality" writes Sir J. Nicholl, "has always been considered as one of the leading principles of justice in questions arising between nation and nation. For example, by our municipal law this country established the principle of restitution upon payment of salvage, in cases of the recapture of British property from the enemy, notwithstanding pernoctatio infra præsidia, or any of those ancient general rules by which the property of the former owners was held to be extinguished; but the application of this rule to the property even of our allies in the late war was held to depend entirely upon its reciprocity. Thus, in the case of the St. Jago, a Spanish vessel (cited in the

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Santa Cruz, 1 Rob. 63.), the property was condemned as prize to the recaptors, on the ground of its not being shown that restitution of the property of an ally, upon payment of salvage, was the rule of Spanish law; and in the case of the Santa Cruz itself, the same principle was applied with respect to Portugal; but upon that country afterwards engaging prospectively to restore, upon payment of salvage, British property after recapture by Portuguese subjects, the rule was made mutual."

The Law of Nations, in fact, has neither lawgiver nor supreme judge, since independent states acknowledge no superior human authority. Its organ and regulator is public opinion. Its supreme tribunal is history, which forms at once the rampart of justice, and the Nemesis by which injustice is avenged. Its sanction, or the obligation of all nations to respect it, results from the moral order of the universe, which will not suffer nations or individuals to be isolated from one another, but constantly tends to unite the whole family of mankind in one great harmonious society. Its province is to supply a secure foundation for building up the universal fellowship of the human race by the intercourse of nations and states; and its strength and efficacy is such, that no individual nation can lawfully prejudice it by any particular law or ordinance of its own. And whilst by observation and meditation we ascertain what rules of international conduct best promote the general happiness of mankind, by applying those rules as opportunities for carrying them out present themselves, we shall make progress towards that admirable order wherein God has disposed all laws, and to which order, to use the golden words of Hooker, "all things in heaven and earth do homage, both angels, and men, and creatures of

what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy."

The international jurist is by his vocation placed sentinel upon the outworks of this system; and no nobler end can be proposed to his ambition or sense of duty than to keep vigilant watch, ready to defend the weaker state against the aggressions of the more powerful, and to control the spirit of war and conquest, when it attempts to overthrow the established doctrines of public law; and when war has commenced, his province is to restrain the combatants within just limits, and to stay the arm of the belligerent when it would encroach upon the liberties of the neutral. Our lot has been cast in a period when the study of International Law commends itself at once to us, for Western Europe has taken up arms to avenge a great offence against the Law of Nations. No one can venture to say that such offences will altogether cease to be committed, even if the principles of that Law were more widely spread and more accurately understood; but thus much may be hazarded, that the more generally those principles shall be diffused, and the more deeply they shall take root, the more difficult will the wrong-doer find it to retain any portion of the sympathy of other nations. The apprehension of perfect isolation may in this way operate as a counterpoise to the suggestions of covetousness or the promptings of ambition, and the conscience of a nation, as of an individual, may ultimately become a LAW UNTO ITSELF.

THE END.

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