ral subsequent ordinances issued in the sixteenth century.h The sea laws and treaties of England about the same period evidently suppose a commission or letters of marque from the sovereign, (issued by the Lord High Admiral,) as essential to the validity of captures in war, and provide for the adjudication of the prizes thus taken before his lieutenants or deputies in like manner as in France.i Valin, Commentaire sur l'Ordonance de la Marine, liv. 3, tit. 9, des Prises, art. 1. ¡ Martens, Prises et Reprises, ch. 1, § 1. Robinson, Collectanea Maritima, Advertisement, p. vii. HISTORY OF THE MODERN LAW OF NATIONS. 4 PART FIRST. HISTORY OF THE LAW OF NATIONS IN EUROPE FROM THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA, 1648, TO THE PEACE OF THE peace of Westphalia, 1648, may be chosen as the Peace of Westepoch from which to deduce the history of the modern sci- phalia. ence of international law. This great transaction marks an important era in the progress of European civilization. It terminated the long series of wars growing out of the religious revolution accomplished by Luther and Calvin, and the struggle commenced by Henry IV. and Richelieu, and continued by Mazarin against the political preponderance of the house of Austria. It established the equality of the three religious communities of Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists in Germany, and sought to oppose a perpetual barrier to further religious innovations and secularizations of ecclesiastical property. At the same time it rendered the states of the empire almost independent of the emperor, its federal head. It arrested the progress of Germany towards national unity under the Catholic banner, and prepared the way for the subsequent developement of the power of Prussia-the child of the Reformation-which thus became the natural head of the protestant party and the political rival of the house of Austria, which last still maintained its ancient position as the temporal chief of the Catholic body. It introduced two foreign elements into the internal constitution of the empire-France and Sweden as guarantees of the peace, and Sweden as a member of the federal body-thus giving to these two powers a perpetual right of interference in the internal affairs of Germany. It reserved to the individual states the liberty of forming alliances among themselves as well as with foreign powers, for their preservation and security, provided these alliances were not directed against the emperor and the empire, nor contrary to the public peace and that of Westphalia. This liberty contributed to render the federative system of Germany a new security for the general balance of European power. The Germanic body, thus placed in the centre of Europe, served by its composition, in which so many political and religious interests were combined, to maintain the independence and tranquility of all the neighbouring states.& The peace of Westphalia confirmed the political revolutions by which the Swiss Cantons and the United Provinces of the Netherlands had been severed from their ancient connexion with the empire. By recognizing the independence of these federal republics, so long existing in fact, and so long contested in right by the two branches of the house of Austria, it in effect recognized the principle of the right of popular resistance to intolerable oppression on the part of rulers. The new communities thus brought into existence, together with the free cities of Germany, (confirmed a Herzberg, Dissertation sur la Balance du Commerce et celle du pouvoir lue devant l'Académie des Sciences et des Belles Lettres à Berlin, 1786, p. 15. Schoell, Histoire abrégée des Traités de Paix, tom. i. p. 182. Hegel's Werke, 9. Band, § 434, Philosophie der Geschichte. in their regalian rights by the peace,) long served as places of refuge where the victims of religious and political intolerance in other lands found asylums, the security of which was seldom violated, and where the liberty of the press enabled them to appeal to the public opinion of Europe against the sentences of their powerful persecutors. The peace of Westphalia continued to form the basis of the conventional law of Europe, and was constantly renewed and confirmed in every successive treaty of peace between its central states until the French revolution. The peace of Westphalia was followed by that of the Pyrenees between France and Spain. The treaty of the Pyrenees, 1659, decided the long struggle for supremacy between the two monarchies, and prepared the way for the accession of the house of Bourbon to the Spanish throne by the marriage of Louis XIV. with the infanta Maria Theresa. The pacification of southern Europe was thus completed, whilst that of the north was secured by the treaties. of Oliva and Copenhagen, 1660, terminating the contest between the ancient and the new religion in the Scandinavian kingdoms; confirming the succession of the house of Wasa to the throne of Sweden; and regulating the distribution of power and territory between Sweden, Denmark, and Poland. The peace of Westphalia, closing the age of Grotius, coincides with the foundation of the new school of public jurists, his disciples and successors in Holland and Germany. The peace completed the code of the public law of the empire, which thus became a science diligently cultivated in the German universities, and which contributed to advance the general science of European public law. It also marks the epoch of the firm establishment of permanent legations, by which the pacific relations of the European states have been since maintained; and which, together with the appropriation of the widely diffused language of France, first to diplomatic intercourse, and subsequently to the discussions of international law, contributed. |