FROM THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA, 1648, TO THE TREATY OF UTRECHT, 1713.

International Jurisprudence received considerable cultivation, a natural result from the increased intercourse between European nations, both in Europe and in their colonies.

Puffendorf, in 1672, published his once admired, and still celebrated work, De Jure Naturæ et Gentium: it had the merit of stating boldly that Natural Law was binding upon nations as well as upon individuals.

It would indeed be hardly fair to say that Grotius had altogether omitted Natural Law from the sources of International Jurisprudence; but certainly Puffendorf is entitled to the merit of having supplied, by greater precision of statement, a philosophical defect upon this subject in the work of his predecessor. In other respects, however, the disparaging opinion of Leibnitz upon the work of Puffendorf has been generally confirmed; it is, in truth, very inferior to the treatise of Grotius.

Leibnitz, whose Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus was published in 1693, manifested in his preface, and in other passages scattered about his works, a profound and just acquaintance with the principles of the science which we are considering, and left posterity for ever to regret that the fuller prosecution of it was swallowed up in the variety and vastness of his other studies.

THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE TREATY OF

UTRECHT, 1713, AND OF PARIS, 1763.

In 1740-43, Wolff, a disciple of Leibnitz, published the fruit of his enormous labours in nine quarto volumes, Jus Naturæ Methodi Scientificè Pertractatum, &c. An abridgment of his work, dealing separately with the question of Jus Gentium, subsequently appeared. He prided himself on accurately distinguishing the Natural from the Voluntary, Consuetudinary, and Conventional Law of Nations. His work had two great defects the application of technical and mathematical terms to moral subjects, and the assumption of the false hypothesis that there existed de facto a great republic of which all nations were members. The latter error, however, does not in reality affect the force of his general position, and exists, perhaps, more in the pedantry of the language than in the spirit of the argument which he derives from it. The work of Wolff, with all its meritsand it had many-would probably have been both unread and unknown to modern readers, but for his abridger Vattel, who, departing in some points from his original, has melted down his ponderous quartos into the concise, readable, practical, sensible, but superficial work, which still retains its popularity. I must, however reluctantly, pass by Montesquieu.

Bynkershoek ranks next to his illustrious fellowcountryman Grotius, whom he delighted to call uéyas, and for whom, though not unfrequently dissenting from his opinions, he entertained the reverence which one great jurist naturally feels for another.

The Quæstiones Juris Publici appeared in 1737 ;this work, and the two treatises by the same author, De Dominio Maris and De Foro Legatorum, are among the most valuable authorities which this science can claim.

THE INTERVAL BETWEEN THE TREATY OF PARIS, 1763, AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789.

Italy furnishes us with Lampredi and Galliani; Germany with Moser and Martens. The latter has obtained, not undeservedly, a place among the classics of International Law. But this interval is chiefly memorable in its effect upon this science, for the event of the independence of the North American Republics, accompanied by the distinct recognition of the authority and principle of Christian International Law in another quarter of the globe, and by a cultivation of that law which has already produced no less eminent professors of it than a Story, a Kent, and a Wheaton.

FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789, TO THE PRESENT TIME.

Germany has furnished many writers upon International Law. Two appear to me worthy of especial notice-Klüber, whose work, in spite of leaning to the doctrines of the Holy Alliance, is of great value; and Heffter, who is still enjoying the reputation which he has acquired.

England, to pass by for the moment the achievements of her distinct International profession, has made no mean contributions to the cultivation of International Jurisprudence, in the writings of

Bentham, Ward, Mackintosh, Mr. Manning, Mr. Reddie, Mr. Wildman, and Mr. Bowyer.

Private International Law (jus gentium) has greatly flourished, thanks to the transfusion of Hertius, Huberus, Rodenburghius, Voet, and other Latin authors, into the well-arranged and carefully-reasoned works of Story, Wächter, Savigny, and Falix; of the first and the last of these authors we have but lately deplored the death.

It will be seen that I have been compelled to omit the mention of many authors, whom I have consulted, whose names will be found below in the catalogue of authorities, and to whom I owe a debt of much gratitude.

HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL JURISPRUDENCE IN ENGLAND.

It remains only to invite attention to a subject which, however little known, is not without interest to the historian, the jurist, and the statesman, namely, the existence in England of a distinct Bar for the cultivation of International Jurisprudence (o).

It cannot be denied that the Common Law of England has hitherto been, to a certain extent, like the territory in which it prevails, of an insulated and peculiar character. It must be acknowledged that it has borrowed less than any other State in Christendom from the jurisprudence of ancient and modern Rome. The fountains of wisdom, experience, and written reason, at which the European continent in former

(0) The following sketch, with slight alterations, has appeared in a letter from the author to Mr. Gladstone, published in 1848.

and America in later times have so largely drunk, were passed by in England with a hasty and scanty draught. The Gothic conquerors of continental Europe fell by degrees and from a variety of causes under the dominion of the laws of the vanquished. "Capta ferum victorem cepit" was eminently true of the restoration of the Civil Law during the middle ages in every country, but our own; and yet, for more than three centuries, England had been governed by the Civil Law. It is a very remarkable fact, that, from the reign of Claudius to that of Honorius (a period of about 360 years), her judgment-seats had been filled by some of the most eminent of those lawyers (p) whose opinions were afterwards incorporated into the Justinian compilations. But all germs of such jurisprudence would have perished with every other trace of civility under the rude incursions of Saxons and Danes, had not the tribunals of the clergy afforded them shelter from the storm (q). Occasionally, too, some maxims of the Roman Law, admitted either from their intrinsic merit, or through the influence of the clergy, enriched the then meagre system of English law. The Norman invasion was attended with a memorable change in the constitution as it then existed. The Bishop and the Sheriff had heretofore sat together in the Court of Justice, administering with equal jurisdiction the law upon temporal and spiritual offences; by the charter of William the Conqueror, the Eccle

(p) Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian. Vide Duck, De Usu ac Autor. Juris Romani, 1. ii. c. 8, pars secunda, s. 7.

(q) Blackstone, vol. 4. 410; Preface by Dr. Burn, to his Ecclesiastical Law; Millar's Historical View of the English Government, vol. iii.; Burke's Fragment of the History of England.