a part of the law of every country. The subjects of every country are bound by it, whether on the open sea, in their own country, or in any foreign land, in their conduct, contracts, and social relations to all their fellow-creatures, whether of a different country or their own.

568. No legislature of one or more nations can alter the law of nations, or make a valid ordinance to bind any, except their own subjects, in contravention of the maritime or any other department of this supreme law, either upon the open sea or in the territories of any other state.

569. Any nation affected by such attempted alteration has a right to reparation for any injury which she or her subjects may thereby sustain.

570. It must however be observed, that neither the subjects nor even the judicial tribunals of any country can refuse to obey or enforce the clearly expressed law or ordination of its legislature, although in contravention of this supreme law.

571. The judges of each country must assume that its legislature does not intend to legislate for the government of the territories of other countries, or the subjects of other countries within foreign territories, or on the common area of the open sea, and therefore that its ordinances do not affect them; but such assumption must yield to the incontrovertible language of the law.

572. Judges, in the exercise of their functions, cannot assume the office of legislation, far less can they assume the correction of the laws which the legislature of their country has ordained.

573. If the legislature has usurped the office of enacting laws to govern foreigners in their mutual relations on the open sea, or even in the dominions of their own states, the judge can act only as the minister of the law, he cannot hold it void or oppressive; he is the officer for the construction and administration, and not for the abolition or modification of the positive law; when the mandate is express, he must perform it. (See Zollverein; Johannes; Annapolis; Cope v. Doherty.)

574. The judges of one country are bound by no allegiance or duty to the legislature of another; they would hold such inconsistent ordinance simply null and void.

575. As the legislature of one country cannot make a valid ordinance to bind any except its own subjects, in contravention of the maritime law, either on the open sea or on the waters of another nation, it clearly follows that the executive authority of one nation, whether a king in council, or of any other designation, does not possess such power. The officers under the direction of the Executive are bound according to the relations between them; but the rest of the subjects are not bound by such invalid ordinance, and the judges are not bound to enforce it, but ought to regard it as void. It must however be borne in mind that if such ordinance by the Executive is made in strict accordance with, and under a power vested in it by the legislature, it must be regarded as imposing the same obligation on the subjects and tribunals as if it had been the direct expression of the legislative voice.

576. It must further be assumed that a nation does not by its municipal law legislate so as to impose on its own subjects on the open sea, or in a foreign dominion, an obligation to act in a manner inconsistent, in the first case, with the general law, or, in the second, with the law of the foreign nation.

577. It is competent to several nations by agreement to constitute laws for the government of their respective subjects, and also for the government of the subjects of each other, within such limits of space and matters of legislation, and on such conditions, and with such mutual or reciprocal powers of enforcement, and by such tribunals, and with such aid to each other, as their legislatures may ordain. Such conventions are binding upon, and constitute the laws of all the nations, and subjects of the nations parties to the contract; but in no manner affect any other nation or people. As we shall have to refer to such conventions, we

will designate the nations parties to them "associated nations," for want of a better term.

578. It is further competent to a nation not only to exempt the subjects of other nations residing within its limits from its municipal laws, or the jurisdiction of its tribunals, but to authorize other nations not only to make laws binding on their subjects within its dominions, but to constitute tribunals there for the administration of such laws among their subjects, or even between their subjects and its own. It cannot authorize one foreign nation to make laws or constitute tribunals within its dominions, for the regulation of transactions by which the subjects of another nation are affected, without the concurrence of such other nation.

579. Limited concessions of this character were frequently made in the Middle Ages, not only to foreign states, but to foreign towns and trading communities, as to the Hanse Towns collectively, as though they had formed an aggregate state, or to some of them severally, in almost every country of Western Europe. English, Flemish, and French towns held similar privileges and jurisdictions in foreign countries in which they had permission to trade; indeed, some degree of internal independent government seems to have been the almost uniform attendant of such permission.

580. Such concessions existed in a more conspicuous form in the Venetian and Genoese establishments at Constantinople before the fall of the Empire; and the Sultans, with the oriental respect for trade, have conferred extensive privileges on various maritime states.

581. The Queen of England is empowered by Parliament (6 & 7 Vict. c. 94, s. 1) to exercise any jurisdiction which she then had or might thereafter acquire in any country out of her dominions, in the same and as ample a manner as if such power or jurisdiction had been acquired by cession or conquest. An Order in Council, 27 August, 1860, prescribes the exercise of such jurisdiction to be in accordance

with the rules of equity, common and statute law, and other laws in force in England. Under these sanctions on the part of England, and the concession of the Sublime Porte on the part of Turkey, the Consul-General holds a supreme consular court at Constantinople, as a court of law and equity, and with an Admiralty jurisdiction over all British shipping in the Turkish waters of the Levant. Nor is this privilege accorded exclusively to the English; and between the different consulates, customs and usages and a comity have grown up convenient for navigation, though in some respects, but for such comity, inconsistent with strict international rights. (See Laconia.)

582. The comity of nations acquiesces to some extent in the legislation of other nations for the protection of its revenues, as by prohibiting the hovering of foreign ships on the frontier of their marine dominions, although beyond the presidial line. But, at least in dealing with her own subjects, a nation does not regard a foreign revenue law.

583. A nation has a right to legislate as to the conduct, the rights and liabilities of foreign ships and persons, either as to their relations with each other, or with the national ships, within its own waters, its own presidial line. It has a right to impose just and reasonable conditions on all foreigners and their vessels, as the terms on which they shall participate in the enjoyment of its commerce and its protection, and to require conformity with its laws. Such provisions prevail in maritime nations in respect of clean bills. of health, pilotage regulations (Annapolis); and many other nautical requirements. But in all legislation to bind foreigners, particularly on the verge and frontier of its marine territory, where the law of the sea and the municipal law may come into collision, especial regard ought to be had to the maritime law.

584. Although no nation has a right of legislation over any part of the dominions, or in respect of the conduct of the subjects of any other nation, except as to their conduct

within its own dominions, yet it has power of legislation in aid of the laws of foreign nations, and of the general law, and for the enforcement within its realms, and by its tribunals, of the rights arising out of the contracts and relations of foreigners towards each other, or towards the subjects of its own realm, whether they arose within the limits of the foreigner's own nation, or of a different nation, or on the open sea; but only for the enforcement of rights recognized by the nation in which such contract was made, or such relation was created, and of the rights recognized by the general law, when such rights have arisen on the open sea. In such cases, the municipal is ancillary to the supreme law.

585. It is not peculiar to maritime affairs; it is a universal principle of law and common sense, that the contract, express or inferred from the relations of the parties, is to be construed according to the law of the country or place in which it arose; to be enforced according to the law, rules, and practice of the country before whose tribunal it is tried..

586. In the application of international law, the state is to a great extent responsible for the conduct of its subjects. They are therefore bound to adopt the interpretation which it imposes on that law.

587. THE LAW OF THE SEA.-The law maritime governs all ships on the open sea, in waters of communication, and even in all national waters, except where and so far as it is altered or modified by local customs, which may indeed be regarded as parts of that law, or by laws of convention between different nations, or by municipal laws.

588. ON THE OPEN SEA, the ships of different unassociated nations in relation to each other are governed exclusively by the maritime law; the ships of the same nation in relation to each other are governed by the maritime law in every respect, except where their rule of conduct is prescribed by their own municipal law. The ships of associated nations are bound by the maritime law in all respects, except where their rule of conduct is prescribed by laws