alteration of the fewest possible words, of Mr. Seward's bellicose instruction to our representative at the Court of St. James, stamped him as one possessing diplomatic skill of the highest order. The place in history of our versatile President, William McKinley, would be secure with nothing further to his credit than his conduct of the questions which arose out of our war with Spain. President Roosevelt astonished the world by bringing about a prompt termination of the Russian-Japanese war in 1905. William H. Taft, although not at any time connected with our Diplomatic Service, has had entrusted to him and has conducted to a successful conclusion negotiations of the greatest delicacy and importance in relation to Cuba, the Philippines and Panama. CHAPTER II. OUR DIPLOMATIC SERVICE A state has no voice by which it can speak for itself. It must speak and act through agents. The intercourse of states is conducted through authorized agents called diplomatic officers. Diplomacy is the art of negotiation or of conducting such intercourse. In ancient times the intercourse between nations consisted largely of wars, stratagem and spoils. Terms of peace or conditions of battle were agreed upon through the medium of heralds sent forward while hostilities were suspended for the purpose. These heralds were the precursors of modern diplomatists. With the development of civilization commerce sprang up between states and new and complex questions arose which could not be adjusted in such a primitive or summary way. The practice grew up of sending persons as representatives of the state abroad to negotiate treaties or to do some special business, upon the completion of which they would return to their own country. While the custom of sending and receiving diplomatic representatives has existed from the earliest recorded history, the establishment of resident diplo matic missions at foreign courts was not generally adopted until the sixteenth century. Louis XI. of France is said to have been the first sovereign to adopt permanent embassies, and his object was to have chartered spies at the courts of his powerful neighbors. He said to his ambassadors, when sending them abroad: "If they lie to you, lie still more to them." Stubbs, in his "Mediaval History," defines an ambassador as "a person sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." An ambassador might cheat or deceive. In fact, as Lord Palmerston remarked, he might break all the commandments in the Decalogue except the eleventh, which was, "Thou shalt not be found out." To show the unscrupulous conduct of some of the early European diplomatists, John Bassett Moore, in his "American Diplomacy," relates how Hugh Elliot, the British Minister at Berlin, in 1777, obtained information of the negotiations of the United States with the Prussian Government looking to the obtaining of the support of the latter government against England. Arthur Lee was sent by our government to Berlin, and the British Government feeling great concern as to the possible course of Prussia, directed its diplomatic representative at Berlin to give proper attention to Lee's conduct there and to the impression which it might make. Elliot, a young man of twentyfour, desirous of making a reputation, set about his task with diligence and enthusiasm. Through a German servant in his employ, Elliot gained the co-opera- · |