e
political institutions which, in every country that had been over-run by
the Gothic conquerors, bore discernible marks (which the revolutions of
succeeding ages had obscured, but not obliterated) of the rude but bold
and noble outline of liberty that was originally sketched by the hand of
these generous barbarians. These and many other causes conspired to
unite the nations of Europe in a more intimate connexion and a more
constant intercourse, and of consequence made the regulation of their
intercourse more necessary, and the law that was to govern it more
important. In proportion as they approached to the condition of
provinces of the same empire, it became almost as essential that Europe
should have a precise and comprehensive code of the law of nations, as
that each country should have a system of municipal law. The labours of
the learned accordingly began to be directed to this subject in the
sixteenth century, soon after the revival of learning, and after that
regular distribution of power and territory which has subsisted, with
little variation, until our times. The critical examination of these
early writers would perhaps not be very interesting in an extensive
work, and it would be unpardonable in a short discourse. It is
sufficient to observe that they were all more or less shackled by the
barbarous philosophy of the schools, and that they were impeded in their
progress by a timorous deference for the inferior and technical parts of
the Roman law, without raising their views to the comprehensive
principles which will for ever inspire mankind with veneration for that
grand monument of human wisdom. It was only indeed in the sixteenth
century that the Roman law was first studied and understood as a science
connected with Roman history and literature, and illustrated by men
whom Ulpian and Papinian would not have disdained to acknowledge as
their successors.[8] Among the writers of that age we may perceive the
ineffectual attempts, the partial advances, the occasional streaks of
light which always precede great discoveries, and works that are to
instruct posterity.

The reduction of the law of nations to a system was reserved for
Grotius. It was by the advice of Lord Bacon and Peiresc that he
undertook this arduous task. He produced a work which we now indeed
justly deem imperfect, but which is perhaps the most complete that the
world has yet owed, at so early a stage in the progress of any science,
to the geni