Ferguson, and others, have treated of the Laws of Nature, as they should govern the intercourse of States; and on the questions of neutral commerce we have the excellent works of Lord Liverpool, Mr. Ward and Dr. Croke. It is curious too, that England may be considered as the cradle of a science, which we have yet so little cultivated in its maturity,-Albericus Gentilis, a foreign refugee who was domesticated, and who wrote, in England, being the first writer on the Law of Nations whose treatises have any claim to notice: and Dr. Zouch, who wrote immediately after Grotius, expounded in different treatises various parts of the Law of Nations, in a manner that had a better application to practice than the same divisions of his acknowledged leader.

The fact of the systematic writers on the Law of Nations having been all foreigners, is, I think, chiefly attributable to the similarity of the method of studying the Law of Nations, and that adopted in the study of the Roman Law, the basis of jurisprudence on the continent. A constant reference to general principles, and a deduction of the details of practice from abstract propositions, characterise the determinations of the Roman Law and of the Law of Nations. But, to whatever the mental habit may owe its origin, I believe that no one conversant with the political writings of the continent will deny, that a tendency to refer to general principles marks foreign discussions of political questions, while an impatience of abstract propositions characterises English debating. Yet it is to the former description of reasoning that recourse must be had in discussions on the Law of Nations. The case of Scotland may be objected to me, as a country where the Roman Law is still in some measure the study of the bar, while the Scotch bar has produced no treatises upon the

Law of Nations. But the absence of a resident court in Scotland during two centuries, has removed the cognizance of international questions to the English seat of legislature: and I think that as far as Scotland proves anything, it is in favour of the above observations, as the love of abstract reasoning is more common among the Scotch than among the English, being, as on the continent, co-existent with the habits of the study of the Roman Law, if it be not the consequence of that study.

We have works on parts of the Law of Nations, by two writers, who, at one period of their lives, contemplated publishing complete treatises on this subject. The first of these is Sir James Mackintosh, who has left, to all who are acquainted with his writings, the regret which he himself felt and expressed that he did not leave behind him greater results as the monuments of his labours. It is unfortunate that the influence which he held in his own time, has not been perpetuated to a future age by greater published records of his genius, those which exist being nearly all fragmentary. Sir James Mackintosh writes, in his correspondence, of regarding the composition of a great work on morals as "the final cause of his being." A short essay, published in an Encyclopedia, is all that he has left us of this great intention. In the earlier part of his career he delivered a course of lectures on the Law of Nature and Nations. A pamphlet of a few pages, containing the introductory lecture, and a few passages quoted in his memoirs, are the only published relics of these labours. From the sketch of his method given in his introduction, his lectures must have embraced the whole scope of political equity, commencing with the foundations of universal morality, and applying the injunctions derived from that source to the duties of a State to its subjects, of subjects

towards each other, and finally of independent States as connected in their various relations of war and amity. Had Sir James Mackintosh, in his later years, given the matured powers of his mind to the pursuit of such inquiries, the result must have been most valuable. His study of the philosophy of morals would have well fitted him for that branch of the Law of Nations which depends on the abstract principles of equity, while his knowledge of history would have richly supplied him with facts for that branch which is elucidated by induction, and the charms of his eloquence would have enabled him to make a study engaging which is not usually regarded as interesting, even among politicians. In those of his speeches in Parliament, in which he discussed international questions, he displayed the enlarged grasp of mind, comprehending alike the near and the remote bearings of his subject, which marks the statesman as distinct from the politician of the day: and seldom has a man appeared in public life who has derived such practical benefit from abstract studies; his various opinions seemed separate parts of one whole system, of which the principles were so sound, that the deductions referred to them bore the double test of consistency with theory and utility in application, his principles illustrating, not interfering with, a far-sighted expediency: and he was at once dispassionate in the pursuit of truth, and eager in its assertion when it was discovered. What a loss, that of the labours of such a mind, so expressly adapted to instruct mankind in political morality, which he himself felt to be his particular vocation, nothing should be left but unfinished fragments. But in morals, as in physics, momentum depends on the joint influence of the weight of the material, and the impulse with which it is propelled, and the powers of Sir James Mackintosh's really great mind have been attended with most incommensurate results, from

a want of energy to force those powers into action. Yet the fragments which he has left behind will still vindicate to a future age the deservedly high rank which he held among his contemporaries, for they show him to have united high capacity with the highest character, and to have constantly had, for the proposed end of his labours, that noblest intent of human genius, the improvement of his fellow-men.

*

The other author to whom I refer, is still, and will I trust long continue, a living writer, Mr. Ward, who has long deserted the less interesting discussion of law, to "teach truth through the medium of fiction," and who is known to a most extensive circle of readers by his delightful novels. His essays, published nearly forty years ago, on the questions of neutral commerce, leave little to desire on the topics which they embrace, excepting such additions as the experience of later times suggests; and his treatise on the Law of Nations as existing previous to the time of Grotius, is the most interesting book on the Law of Nations that I have ever met with. It is merely an introduction to the science, but it makes the reader regret that the same author did not complete an entire treatise on the subject, which Mr. Ward, in his preface, declares it to have been at one time his intention to have written, under the title of "A Treatise of Diplomatic Law." It might be difficult to trace, in the strict reasoning of the essays on neutrality, any germs of the powers which have since been so happy in the creations of fancy, but in the Introductory Treatise we find the same tendencies directing both productions. In this treatise, as in his novels, Mr. Ward supports the dictates of an exalted morality by the invaluable, and in my opinion necessary, confirmation

Mr. R. P. Ward died in August, 1846, aged 81.

of revealed religion; and in his Treatise, the lover of romance is shewn, in the fondness with which he lingers over the dreamy charms with which fancy has invested the days of chivalry. Not that Mr. Ward conceals the barbarism of those times, which had indeed much influence in instituting chivalry itself, part of the duties of which were those of a rude police, made necessary by the grossness of the times and the difficulty of redress; but, in common with every youthful mind, Mr. Ward dwelt with most delight on those passages of history which tell of the results of individual effort and enterprise, as contrasted with these later times when almost everything seems to be done by bodies of men; and in thinking of the days of chivalry, a little confusion results from our conveying feelings arising from the present state of civilization, and which did not then exist, to a period when certainly the generous and heroic parts of our nature were more constantly in action. In tracing the faint observance of the Law of Nations maintained in those times, Mr. Ward gives most interesting illustrations from that debateable ground between history and romance, where fancy illumines the haze which inquiry attempts to dispel. I do not wonder at the interest he found in such pursuits; I only regret that his labours ceased there, and that he did not continue his inquiries to the extent to which he himself once proposed, and which his studies so well qualified him to make at once valuable and interesting. Had either Mr. Ward, or Sir James Mackintosh, completed their purposed labours, there would have been no occasion for the present treatise, which would have been superseded by productions that, with no feigned diffidence, I feel must have been more valuable.

There was also another of our countrymen who, like the two above-named authors, once conceived the design