he Levant, of which she was not slow to take
advantage. Her success culminated in the capitulations signed in 1604,
under the terms of which her consuls were given precedence over all
others and were endowed with diplomatic immunities (e.g. freedom from
arrest and from domiciliary visits), while the traders of all other
nations were put under the protection of the French flag. It was not
till 1675 that, under the first capitulations signed with Turkey,
English consuls were established in the Ottoman empire. Ten years
earlier, under the commercial treaty between England and Spain, they had
been established in Spain.

The frequent wars of the succeeding century hindered the development of
the consular system. Thus, though the system of consuls was regularly
established in France by the ordinance of 1661, in 1760 France had
consuls only in the Levant, Barbary, Italy, Spain and Portugal, while
she discouraged the establishment of foreign consuls in her own ports as
tending to infringe her own jurisdiction. It was not till the 19th
century that the system developed universally. Hitherto consuls had, for
the most part, been business men with no special qualification as
regards training; but the French system, under which the consular
service had been long established as part of the general civil service
of the country, a system that had survived the Revolution unchanged, was
gradually adopted by other nations; though, as in France, consuls not
belonging to the regular service, and having an inferior status,
continued to be appointed. In Great Britain the consular service was
organized in 1825 (see below); in France the series of ordinances and
laws by which its modern constitution was fixed began in 1833. In
Germany progress was hindered by the political conditions of the country
under the old Confederation; for the Hanse cities, which practically
monopolized the oversea trade, lacked the means to establish a consular
system on the French model. The present magnificently organized consular
system of Germany is, then, one of the most remarkable outcomes of the
establishment of the united empire. It was initiated by an act of the
parliament of the North German Confederation (Nov. 8, 1867),
subsequently incorporated in the statutes of the Empire, which laid down
the principle that the German consulates were to be under the immediate
jurisdiction of the president of the Confederation (later the emperor).
The functions, duties and