plating nations in a state of war, surrounded by, or in intercourse with, other nations at peace with them, we have to consider:-1st. The legal relations of the belligerent nations towards each other. 2d. The reciprocal rights and obligations of the belligerent and neutral nations. 3d. The termination of this extraordinary state of warfare, and restoration to the ordinary state of peace.

SUB-SECTION I.

Rights and Obligations of Belligerent Nations between or among themselves.

In arranging the reciprocal rights and obligations of belligerent nations, we may consider them first at the origin or commencement, and next in the prosecution of the war. Under the first head may be investigated:1st. The right of war, and the conditions under which the exercise of the right is legally justifiable; whether it belongs only to the sovereign power of a state, and the different kinds of war, defensive and offensive. 2d. The preliminary measures for vindicating the violated right, or accomplishing the object in view, or incipient warfare, retorsio facti, reprisals, arrest, and detention of persons or effects, embargo on vessels. 3d. Declaration or commencement of war; its immediate effects; orders by the belligerent governments to their subjects; prohibiting intercourse with the enemy. Under the second head, may be investigated the legitimate mode of carrying on war, as justified by the principles of

reciprocity and general expediency, on which international law is founded, and as recognised in the practice of the European and other civilized nations-the lawful means of annoying the enemy; 1. With regard to persons, the person and family of the hostile. monarch or prince, or chief magistrate, ambassadors, subjects of the hostile government, unarmed people, armed force, prisoners of war; 2. With regard to the territory and property, moveable effects, and other estate, and rights of the hostile nation; foraging, carriages, requisitions, booty or prize money, conquests regained from the enemy, jus postliminii, validity of acts of government in a conquered country, after it has been re-conquered by its former sovereign; pillage and devastation, privateers under letters of marque, pirates; 3. Military operations, stratagems of war, scouts, refugees and deserters, combatants, troops, regular and irregular; 4. Military aid by foreign powers; general alliance, no separate peace; partial aid, auxiliary troops, ships of war, subsidies; 5. Conventions between belligerent powers, military arrangements, passports, safeguards, convention of neutrality, ransom and exchange of prisoners of war, exactions and contributions as ransom from pillage, cartels, capitulations, treaties of armistice or truce, general or particular.

SUB-SECTION II.

Reciprocal Rights and Obligations of Belligerent and Neutral Nations.

If the disputes which have arisen among contending nations, be not settled amicably, or by recourse to the preliminary compulsory measures before referred to, these nations, we have seen, pass into a state of actual warfare; and this state affects not merely themselves, but likewise other nations adjacent to, or connected with, or having intercourse with them.

In contemplating the reciprocal rights and obligations of belligerent and neutral nations in relation to each other, the legal doctrines may be comprehended under the following heads :-1st. The right of neutrality; neutrality natural and voluntary, or conventional and obligatory, entire and complete, or limited, general or partial, armed, continental and maritime; 2d. General obligations of belligerent powers towards neutrals, and of neutral powers towards belligerents; 3d. Rights of neutral states in relation to belligerents, in neutral territory, in the country of the enemy, in relation to commerce; 4th. Conveyance of merchandise and goods generally by neutrals to the enemy, warlike stores, contraband of war; 5th. Rights and obligations of belligerents and neutrals in maritime commerce, visitation and search of neutral merchant vessels, procedure relative to maritime prizes, competent judicial tribunals in prize causes; commerce, with blockaded ports; rules

actually observed with regard to hostile goods in neutral vessels, and neutral goods in hostile vessels; 6th. Conventional system of armed neutrality for the protection of the neutral flag, its principles and progress, superseded by new conventions, adopted anew, and a second time abandoned; 7th. Farther restrictions on neutral maritime commerce, in the long struggle and contest between Great Britain and France; French continental system; British extended system of blockade; cessation of both these systems.

The interesting doctrines here merely enumerated, in exposition of a classification of the constituent parts of international law as a whole, we may perhaps have an opportunity of illustrating in a historical view of the maritime law of nations.

SUB-SECTION III.

Termination of Hostile Relations, and of the Extraordinary and Temporary state of War, and Reestablishment of the Ordinary state of Peace.

When the enforcement of the violated right, or reparation for that violation; when the objects of the defensive or offensive war have been attained, or so far attained, or have been found practically unattainable; and when the strength of the belligerents has been considerably exhausted, the inducements to prosecute hostilities in a great measure cease; and there arises a desire, frequently on both sides, to return to the happier state of peace. The legal doctrine on this

head, may be arranged as follows:-Approach to reconciliation; preparatory negotiations with a view to peace, by means of a congress, or otherwise; mode of negotiating at a congress, or between court and court; preliminary and definitive treaty of peace; signature of treaty; separate articles; general, common, and joint, or principal and accessory treaties of peace; form of accession; guarantee of treaties; validity, interpretation and execution of treaties of peace; contemplated perpetual peace, and tribunal of nations.

CONCLUSION.

Such seem to be, if not the whole component parts, as ascertained by an exhaustive logical analysis, at least, the principal component parts of international law, as ascertained from observation and experience, and arranged in an order, which observation and experience suggest as natural. And we may conclude with repeating, that these component parts, taken as a whole, constitute, in combination, the natural and positive law of nations.

Under the former of these denominations, are comprehended, those juridical relations, and consequent rules of conduct, between, or among, the assemblages of men, occupying particular portions of this globe as territory, united in domestic and civil society, under one government, and forming states, independent of