perhaps consuls may be arrested and incarcerated, not merely on criminal
charges, but for civil debt; and that, if they engage in trade or become
the owners of immovable property, their persons certainly lose
protection. This question of arrest has been frequently raised in
Europe:--in the case of Barbuit, a tallow-chandler, who from 1717 to
1735 acted as Prussian consul in London, and to whom the exemption
conferred by statute on ambassadors was held not to apply; in the case
of Cretico, the Turkish consul in London in 1808; in the case of Begley,
the United States consul at Genoa, arrested in Paris in 1840; and in the
case of De la Fuente Hermosa, Uruguayan consul, whom the _Cour Royale_
of Paris in 1842 held liable to arrest for debt. In the same way consuls
are often exempt from all kinds of rates and taxes, and always from
personal taxes. They are exempt from billeting and military service, but
are not entitled (except in the Levant, where also freedom from arrest
and trial is the rule) to have private chapels in their houses. The
right of consuls to exhibit their national arms and flag over the door
of the bureau is not disputed.

Until the year 1825 British consuls were usually merchants engaged in
trade in the foreign countries in which they acted as consuls, and their
remuneration consisted entirely of fees. An act of that year, however,
organized the consular service as a branch of the civil service, with
payment by a fixed salary instead of by fees; consuls were forbidden
also to engage in trade, and the management of the service was put under
the control of a separate department of the foreign office, created for
the purpose. In 1832 the restriction as to engaging in trade was
withdrawn, except as regards salaried members of the British consular
service.

The duty of consuls, under the "General Instructions to British
Consuls," is to advise His Majesty's trading subjects, to quiet their
differences, and to conciliate as much as possible the subjects of the
two countries. Treaty rights he is to support in a mild and moderate
spirit; and he is to check as far as possible evasions by British
traders of the local revenue laws. Besides assisting British subjects
who are tried for offences in the local courts, and ascertaining the
humanity of their treatment after sentence, he has to consider whether
home or foreign law is more appropriate to the case, having regard to
the convenience of witnesses and the time re