Essays on Church, State, and Politics

Chapter IX

u chapter ix u On Duties Toward Legates§1. There remains the society of nations, in which as we have already said above no new purpose or new precepts are to be expected, only the application of the general precepts set out in the second book to two of the more important parts of the law of nations, those concerning legations and the right of burial.§2. For there will be no need here to resort to some human positive law because as we have shown from the beginning the law of nations does not belong to positive law but is a form of natural law.§3. Yet the subject matter itself tells us that when we are concerned with the society of nations we want to speak of the legates of different commonwealths , not of legates who connect the society of God with that of humans, or of those who link individual humans living in a single civil society, or individual humans in different commonwealths.§4. We must, therefore, leave aside the titular legation of those who go to another commonwealth purely for the sake of private business, and who enjoy the favor and honor that go with the title of legate but are sent to the other commonwealth without any mandate.§5. Again, among those who are sent from one commonwealth to the other, some either represent, by means of a legal fiction, the common544 book iii 545 wealth or the prince they have been sent by, and they are called legates in the simple and strict sense; or they execute a public mandate without representing their commonwealth or prince.§6. Examples nowadays are the people called agents, who are used in peacetime, while heralds, trumpeters, and drummers are used when there is a state of unrest or war.§7. The former legates are, according to our customs, either temporary and extraordinary and are termed ambassadors; or they are perpetual and ordinary and are called residents.§8. We shall discuss both kinds of legates, those who represent the prince and those who do not, but above all the former, because they are the nobler species.§9. These can be considered in two ways, in relation to what they represent or in relation to their own person.§10. And if you look at the connection that exists between a legate and his fellows, his family, and things, then he can be considered either in a completely physical sense, that is, in his own person alone, which does not exclude what he represents, or in a completely moral sense, and thus with regard to those things that are linked to him.§11. Legates come either from a hostile or from a friendly prince. By the latter we also mean someone who is not an enemy and who declares war on certain conditions, just as the former is an enemy even if he puts forward plans for peace. You can say that the former is a legate in war, the latter a legate in peace.§12. Finally, the legate can be considered in relation to the sender, or to him to whom he has been sent, or to him whose territory he travels through. 546 institutes of divine jurisprudence§13. The first relation is not relevant here, because the person who sent the legate lives with him in a civil society, not in the society of nations. The other two are relevant here, above all the second.§14. The duty toward legates consists above all in two points: their admission and their inviolability. I take admission here in a broad sense that comprehends the right to be received and to be allowed to leave.§15. The precept on being received is as follows: “Legates are not to be turned away without just cause.”§16. The basis for this is the precept on performing the duties of humanity . For commonwealths are linked to each other by various ties and by mutual duties, and in order to sustain these it is necessary for one commonwealth to signify its will to the other. But this cannot be conveniently done either through conversations between the princes themselves or in letters. It can, however, be done very conveniently through messengers. He who rejected legates without just cause would thus be sinning against the duties of humanity.§17. I also extend this to those who are sent from one enemy to another. For in the...