jurisprudence of nations, seem to render it proper, in offering to the public the first American edition of his great work, that has appeared since Mr. Wheaton's death, to furnish a brief sketch of his public career and preliminary pursuits. Those who are acquiring from his labors the fundamental principles of that science, of which he was not only a teacher, but which he successfully applied to the service of his country, may well desire a personal acquaintance with the author. It will, it is believed, at least, tend to dispel the illusion, that eminence in diplomacy is attainable by different means from those which are required in other pursuits of life, and show that a minister, worthy of the name, is no more to be created by an executive fiat than a general or an admiral.

Henry Wheaton was born at Providence, in the State of Rhode Island, on the 27th of November, 1785. He was descended from a family identified with that Commonwealth from its earliest colonization. His father, Seth Wheaton, acquired, by commerce and navigation, a fortune sufficient to enable him to afford to his son those advantages of liberal culture and early foreign travel, that so eminently contributed to his success in the subsequent pursuits of life. The elder Mr. Wheaton maintained, during a long business career, a distinguished position among his fellow-citizens; and he held, at the time of his death, the Presidency of the Rhode Island Branch of the Bank of the United States, a station which, from the controlling influence possessed by the parent institution over the currency of the country, till its fatal contest with the government of the Union, in President Jackson's administration, was regarded as the most honorable distinction that could be conferred on a retired merchant.

Mr. Wheaton's mother is represented to have been a woman. of strong intellect and of rare delicacy and refinement; and it was by the intercourse with her brother, Dr. Levi Wheaton, not only eminent as a physician, but distinguished for his literary culture, and who, afterwards, became his father-in-law, that our

author's early taste for knowledge was stimulated and encouraged.

Mr. Wheaton, after receiving the ordinary preliminary instruction, graduated at the College of his native State, now Brown University, in 1802. During the ensuing three years he prepared himself, in the office of Nathaniel Searle, then among the prominent practitioners at Providence, for admission to the bar. His studies were, from his earliest days, of a character appropriate to the education of a publicist. Besides his proficiency in the classical and mathematical departments, he was particularly distinguished, at school and college, for his fondness for general literature, and especially for historical research and the investigation of the political annals of nations.

In the spring of 1805, he went to Europe, and though his desire for intellectual improvement and his sound moral principles would, probably, have proved an adequate protection against all improper temptations, it was, perhaps, well for his future success that his father's moderate views of expense did not permit him, at once, to luxuriate in a great metropolis. He established himself at Poitiers, where there was a school of law. His object seems to have been to acquire a familiarity with the use of the French language, in which he had been early instructed; while he availed himself of the opportunity to frequent the tribunals and study the civil law. Indeed, in this branch of jurisprudence, Mr. Wheaton might almost be deemed a pioneer among his countrymen. Even Pothier, whose works contributed so largely to the Napoleon Code, had not then been made accessible to the American lawyer. Nor had Kent and Story, whose decisions derive so much value from their abundant stores of continental lore, and both of whom had repeated occasion to appreciate the early studies of Mr. Wheaton, then assumed their places in the tribunals, which they subsequently illustrated the one as Chancellor of New York, the other as a member of the Supreme Federal Judiciary.

At the time of Mr. Wheaton's residence in France, the

legislation, substituting a uniform system for the somewhat diversified modifications of the civil law, existing before the Revolution in the several provinces, had only been a year in operation. He was thus induced, at an early day, to study the codes which had not then been rendered into English, and of which he made a translation, the publication of which was only prevented by the accidental destruction of the manuscript. A witness of the transition from the droit coutumier, and from a system composed of the Roman civil law and of royal ordinances and local regulations, to a uniform written law, he was preparing himself to exercise an enlightened judgment on codification a subject which, as a Commissioner of New York, under the first law passed by any State of the Union, for the liberal revision of its statutes, he had, twenty years afterwards, occasion to discuss, with a view to its practical application.

After visiting Paris, where General Armstrong, with whom he was in after life brought into intimate relations, represented the United States, he went to London. He was very kindly received there by our minister, Mr. Monroe, subsequently President of the United States, and he passed six months in that metropolis. As he was in England during the change of Ministry, when Mr. Fox came into power, and during the proceedings against Lord Melville, in which the judicial authority

1 By the law of 21st March, 1804, the Roman law, the ordinances, the general and local customs, the statutes and réglemens, ceased to have the force of general or particular law upon the matters, which form the subject of the civil code; but the code itself frequently refers to local customs or usages, which are founded on the ancient coutumes or laws. France had been divided into two great systems, that of the pays coutumier and that of the pays de droit écrit. Each of these systems was subdivided into an infinite number of branches. There were more than one hundred and eighty coutumes générales, which were modified by a great number of local customs. The droit écrit, also, varied in different places. The jurisprudence of the parliaments and the local usages had modified, in diferent ways, the Roman law, from which the droit écrit was drawn. There were, moreover, royal decrees, and ordinances. The different countries, successively incorporated with France, had also their usages and laws. Pailliet, Droit François, Introduction, p. 4, note.

of the House of Lords was exercised, on the presentation of the Commons, as the grand inquest of the nation, he had a favorable opportunity of studying the constitutional system of our mother country, the knowledge of which is so essential to the thorough understanding of our own. He was, also, enabled to compare the practical working of the common law, in the country to which we refer its origin, with the administration of the civil law, whose tribunals he had just quitted.

But it was not merely by the study of the constitutional and municipal jurisprudence of what were then the two greatest nations of Europe, that his foreign residence was beneficial to the future diplomatist. Paris was the centre of all that was attractive, of all that was interesting on the Continent of Europe. The Italian campaigns had already embellished her palaces and her museums with the chefs d'œuvre of art, which centuries. had accumulated in the capital of the ancient world, and in the most favored cities of the Republics of the Middle Ages. The territorial arrangements, which the Treaty of Utrecht was supposed to have settled on a firm basis, were, despite the successive coalitions to uphold the obsolete fabric of European organization, at an end. Even England had recognized, in 1802, by the short-lived peace of Amiens, concluded with the First Consul, the new order of things, to which every other power had previously given its adhesion. The French Revolution itself had been, it was supposed, brought to a close by the assumption, on 18th of May, 1804, with the almost unanimous approbation of the people, of the sceptre by Napoleon, and by his coronation, under circumstances of peculiar solemnity, on the 2d of December following, as Emperor of the French.

It was while the American student was still at Poitiers, that, by the battle of Austerlitz, the undisputed sway of the Continent, and which was scarcely affected by the untoward movements of Prussia, terminating in the Treaty of Presburg and the affiliation of the French and Russian Emperors, became of Napoleon. On the other hand, by the battle of

the

property

b*

Trafalgar, contemporaneous with the capitulation of Ulm, the dominion of the sea was secured to England.

A state of war is emphatically the period for the practical application of the law of nations. The relations of his country towards the great European powers, which divided the supremacy of the world, were well calculated to lead an inquisitive mind to the investigations on which Mr. Wheaton's lasting fame reposes. The accession of Mr. Fox, who was understood not to coincide, as to many points affecting neutral rights, with the administration which had preceded him, inspired at Washington new confidence of a settlement of all pending difficulties. This expectation was, also, strengthened by the prospect of a general European pacification, as the members of the new government, when out of office, had been opposed to the policy that had prevailed in reference to the French Revolution. These hopes, however, were destined to an early disappointment.

The Treaty of 1794 with England, objectionable as it was in other respects, had established a joint commission to ascertain the amount of damages sustained by citizens of the United States, for irregular and illegal captures and condemnations, under color of British authority, and for which adequate compensation could not be obtained in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.1 Between 1793 and 1800 serious injuries had, also, been inflicted on our commerce, by the capture and condemnation of our vessels and the seizure of our property by France, in violation of the law of nations and existing treaties. All demands for redress were, however, met by counter claims of that power, growing out of the alleged infraction, on our part, of the stipulations of the treaties of alliance and of commerce, of 1778, and of the consular convention of 1788. After hostile measures, extending even to what our author terms an imperfect war,2 had been resorted to by the United States,

1 United States Statutes at Large, vol. viii. p. 121.

2 Part IV. c. 1, § 7, p. 365, note 1. See also for acts passed on this subject,