Catholic, whose policy led him to entertain [ambassadors] at various courts, as a kind of honorable spies; " but Flassan1 makes Louis XI. of France, Ferdinand's earlier contemporary, the introducer of the new usage. "Before him ambassadors had only temporary and limited missions, but this prince judged it best to multiply them, and to prolong their stay abroad, especially at the courts of Burgundy and England. As these courts penetrated into his design, they in turn despatched to him permanent ambassadors, who converted diplomacy into intrigues and trickeries. Louis XI., on sending the Sieurs du Bouchage and De Solliers to the Dukes of Guienne and of Brittany, gave them for their instructions, If they lie to you, lie still more to them.'" But the residence of ambassadors at foreign courts did not become the common practice until after the Reformation. Henry VII. of England "would not in his time, suffer Lieger ambassadours of any foreign king or prince within his realm, or he with them, but upon occasion used ambassadours." 2 In the middle of the seventeenth century, it was said in Poland of a French envoy, that as he did not return home according to the custom of ambassadors, he ought to be considered as a spy. And a century afterwards Bynkershoek ("De For. Leg.," § 1) defines ordinary legates as those who "non unius sed omnium rerum, atque adeo et explorandi ergo in amicorum aulis habentur." Grotius affirms (Cent. XVII., in the middle) that legationes assiduæ may, without infringement of rights, be rejected by nations, being unknown to ancient practice (ii., 18, 3). But the usage is now fixed among all nations of European origin; and ambassadors by remaining in foreign countries serve the interests of their own state in various ways, far more than persons could who should be sent abroad on special occasions. In fact, to attempt

1 Diplom. Française, i., 247.

2 Coke's 4th Inst., 155, cited by Ward, u. s., who says that Lieger is derived from the Dutch. But the true explanation is to be found in the word Leger of German origin, used in the trading marts to denote an agent of foreign merchants resident in a town where they had a depot of their goods (called a leghaus), and transferred to the agent of a prince. See Hüllmann, Städtewesen des Mittelalters, i., 202.

to break away from the usage might be regarded as indicating a want of comity, if not of friendship. But although the sending of ambassadors and even of resident ambassadors seems almost essential to a participation in the international law of Christendom, there are some few in this circle of nations who have held no such communication with each other. England and some other Protestant states entertained no ministers at the Pope's court, nor did he at theirs. On the other hand, the principal Christian states keep up diplomatic relations with some states out of their pale of civilization and religion, as with Turkey, Persia, China, and Japan, between which latter country and the United States, by the treaty of 1858, diplomatic intercourse was established.

Is there any

receive ambassadors.

§ 89.

The question, whether a nation is bound to receive the ambassador of another, depends on the question of the obligation to right of intercourse which has been already considered. Nor is it impossible that intercourse commercial, if not political, might subsist without such an agent. But if a nation has already entered into diplomatic ties with another, to dissolve them is a breach of friendship, and is often the step immediately preceding war. By treaty or usage a right had sprung up, which, together with the duty of comity, the dismissal of an ambassador invaded.

But these are exceptions to the rule that nations cannot suspend their diplomatic intercourse, when already established, without offense. (1.) A nation may refuse to receive any ambassador when the sovereignty of the party sending him is doubtful. This may happen when a state is convulsed by civil war, both factions in which claim to exercise sovereignty, and when a new government after a revolution is not yet fully established. (2.) A nation or sovereign may refuse to receive a particular individual as the representative of a foreign power without giving cause of offense. Thus, it is held that a sovereign is not bound to receive his own subject in this capacity, on the ground that the privileges of his office would place him

beyond the reach of the native jurisdiction. So a person who has rendered himself obnoxious, or is of a notoriously bad character, may be rejected.1 Richelieu told the English ambassador at Paris, that the Duke of Buckingham would not be accepted as ambassador extraordinary; and at an earlier date, Francis I. of France refused Cardinal Pole as the Pope's legate, on the ground of his being a personal enemy of the king's ally, Henry VIII. of England. (3.) A state or sovereign may refuse to receive a minister sent on an errand inconsistent with its dignity or interests. The United Provinces, during their struggle for independence, declined treating with envoys from friendly German powers, bearing proposals of peace incompatible with their honor; and Elizabeth of England rejected the nuncio of Pius IV., sent to invite her to appoint deputies for the Council of Trent, because his mission might have the ulterior object of stirring up disaffection among the English.

§ 90.

Right of

bassadors.

The right of sending ambassadors is an attribute of sovereignty, but the power of appointing them may be vested in some representative of the sovereign. Thus, sending amin this country, it is exercised by the President and Senate, or during the recess of the Senate by the President alone, subject to their confirmation or rejection; and it has sometimes been intrusted to the commander of an army. Can a deposed sovereign, a monarch without a kingdom, perform this function? In the case mentioned by Mr. Ward (ii., 292295), of Leslie, Bishop of Ross, calling himself ambassador of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was then after dethronement a prisoner in England, the lawyers consulted by the government decided, that "the solicitor of a prince lawfully deposed, and another being invested in his place, cannot have the privilege of an ambassador, for that none but princes and such other as

1 Mr. Burlingame, a citizen of the United States, was received, not as an ambassador, but only as a special agent from China. Citizen Genet was recalled by the French government in 1793, at the request of Washington. So was M. Catacazy, a few years since. Comp. § 178.

have sovereignty may have ambassadors." The word lawfully seems to make the opinion futile, for who is to decide. The word actually would have better agreed with that safe usage, which is a part of international law, of acknowledging the sovereign de facto, and to which the United States have ever adhered.1 When James II. lived in exile, his ambassadors were received as those of the sovereign de jure by a part of the European states. The more common practice we apprehend to be for sovereigns who sympathize with a deposed prince to hold communications with him by persons not openly sustaining the character of envoys. The whole matter may be disposed of in a word: nations and sovereigns, according to their biases, will be quick or slow to recognize a revolutionary government; some will cling to the old as long as they can, others will fall into the current of things sooner or later, but fall into it at length they will. And if an actual sovereign feels himself injured by the acknowledgment of the claims of a deposed one, such conduct will be attributed to hostile feeling, and may provoke war. The acknowledgment of the sovereignty of a new state is sometimes first made by receiving its ambassadors.

A protected or dependent state may employ political and other agents, but generally cannot send ambassadors either to the principal state or to third powers without the consent of the former.2 The peace of Kainardji, in 1774, allowed the

1 Thus Mr. Seward, when secretary of state, refused to receive a commissioner from the government of Maximilian in Mexico, on the ground that our government could hold no communications with parties in an attitude of revolution towards the authorities of a state with whom we were in friendly diplomatic intercourse. He also added that it was a fixed habit of this government to hold no unofficial or private interviews with persons with whom it cannot hold official intercourse. (Dana on Wheaton, note 41.)

2 Bynkershoek disposes of this subject as follows (Quæst. J. P., ii., § 3): “I should not be willing to say, as some do, that no one rightfully sends legates saving the sovereign, for thus we should have to do away with legates of provinces and towns, of whom there has been, and still is, a great abundance. I should rather say, that every one can send legates in the discharge of that business which he has the power of doing, but that according to the dignity of the sender they have different rights, and are held in different degrees of honor. If a prince in his own right sends them, they have the full rights of legates; if another, the

Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia to send each a chargé d'affaires of the Greek religion, and with the privileges conceded by the law of nations, to Constantinople. The members of a confederation may, or may not, exercise this right, according to the nature of the compact: no state of our confederation "shall, without consent of Congress, enter into any agreement or compact with a foreign power," or "enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation ;" and the power of appointing ambassadors being vested elsewhere, they are perhaps, by that provision of the Constitution also, cut off from the exercise of a similar function. But the members of the German confederation could severally entertain their representatives at foreign courts.

A messenger sent from a province, or revolted portion of a country to the sovereign, not being an ambassador, has no rights of one. Bad, then, as the act was, when Philip II. of Spain detained two noblemen sent from the Low Countries in 1566, and finally had them put to death, it was no offense against the rights of legation. (Bynkersh., "Quæst. J. P.," ii., § 3.)

An ambassador being the representative of a sovereign, it follows that the power of choice lies with him, and thus, as it respects the country, religion, rank, etc., of the ambassador, no complaint can be made by the foreign state, except so far as a slight or intention to insult may be inferred from the circumstances of the case.1 Formerly it was not an unfrequent thing for a native of one country to serve as the ambassador from another in the land where he owed allegiance. But, as we have already said, some nations—as France, under the whole thing depends on the will of him to whom they are sent," etc. But thus the question becomes one of words. Have these legates the privileges of ambassadors, and is a prince or state in any way bound to receive them? If not, can they be ranked in the same class?

1 Even women have been acknowledged as representatives at foreign courts, ⚫but more frequently have been secret emissaries. The wife of Marshal Guebriant acted in this capacity for France, at the court of Ladislas IV., King of Poland, in 1646. The noted Chevalier d'Eon, who, after inferior diplomatic employments, was appointed French ambassador at London, was thought to be a woman, but was not. Comp. Klüber, § 186, note.