st barbarous tribes; of the second, every
well-informed man perceives the important use, and they have generally
been respected by all polished nations; of the third, the great benefit
may be read in the history of modern Europe, where alone they have been
carried to their full perfection. In unfolding the first and second
class of principles, I shall naturally be led to give an account of that
law of nations, which, in greater or less perfection, regulated the
intercourse of savages, of the Asiatic empires, and of the ancient
republics. The third brings me to the consideration of the law of
nations, as it is now acknowledged in Christendom. From the great extent
of the subject, and the particularity to which, for reasons already
given, I must here descend, it is impossible for me, within any moderate
compass, to give even an outline of this part of the course. It
comprehends, as every reader will perceive, the principles of national
independence, the intercourse of nations in peace, the privileges of
embassadors and inferior ministers, the commerce of private subjects,
the grounds of just war, the mutual duties of belligerent and neutral
powers, the limits of lawful hostility, the rights of conquest, the
faith to be observed in warfare, the force of an armistice, of safe
conducts and passports, the nature and obligation of alliances, the
means of negotiation, and the authority and interpretation of treaties
of peace. All these, and many other most important and complicated
subjects, with all the variety of moral reasoning, and historical
examples, which is necessary to illustrate them, must be fully examined
in this part of the lectures, in which I shall endeavour to put together
a tolerably complete practical system of the law of nations, as it has
for the last two centuries been recognised in Europe.

"_Le droit des gens_ est naturellement fonde sur ce principe, que les
diverses nations doivent se faire, dans la paix, le plus de bien, et
dans la guerre le moins de mal, qu'il est possible, sans nuire a leurs
veritables interets."

"L'objet de la guerre c'est la victoire; celui de la victoire la
conquete; celui de la conquete la conservation. De ce principe et du
precedent, doivent deriver toutes les loix qui forment _le droit des
gens_."

"Toutes les nations ont un droit des gens; les _Iroquois_ meme qui
mangent leurs prisonniers en ont un. Ils envoient et recoivent des
embassades; ils connoissent les droits de la