public repose; and shall suffer such penalties and corporal punishment
as the lord chancellor and the two chief justices, or any two of them,
shall think fit. But it is expressly provided, that no trader, within
the description of the bankrupt laws, who shall be in the service of
any embassador, shall be privileged or protected by this act; nor
shall any one be punished for arresting an embassador's servant,
unless his name be registred with the secretary of state, and by him
transmitted to the sheriffs of London and Middlesex. Exceptions, that
are strictly conformable to the rights of embassadors[r], as observed
in the most civilized countries. And, in consequence of this statute,
thus enforcing the law of nations, these privileges are now usually
allowed in the courts of common law[s].

[Footnote n: 4 Inst. 153.]

[Footnote o: Mod. Un. Hist. xxxv. 454.]

[Footnote p: A copy of the act made upon this occasion, very elegantly
engrossed and illuminated, was sent him to Moscow as a present.]

[Footnote q: 7 Ann. c. 12.]

[Footnote r: _Saepe quaesitum est an comitum numero et jure habendi
sunt, qui legatum comitantur, non ut instructior fiat legatio, sed
unice ut lucro suo consulant, institores forte et mercatores. Et,
quamvis hos saepe defenderint et comitum loco habere voluerint legati,
apparet tamen satis eo non pertinere, qui in legati legationisve
officio non sunt. Quum autem ea res nonnunquam turbas dederit, optimo
exemplo in quibusdam aulis olim receptum fuit, ut legatus teneretur
exhibere nomenclaturam comitum suorum._ Van Bynkersh. _c._ 15. _prope
finem_.]

[Footnote s: Fitzg. 200. Stra. 797.]

II. IT is also the king's prerogative to make treaties, leagues, and
alliances with foreign states and princes. For it is by the law of
nations essential to the goodness of a league, that it be made by the
sovereign power[t]; and then it is binding upon the whole community:
and in England the sovereign power, _quoad hoc_, is vested in the
person of the king. Whatever contracts therefore he engages in, no
other power in the kingdom can legally delay, resist, or annul. And
yet, lest this plenitude of authority should be abused to the
detriment of the public, the constitution (as was hinted before) hath
here interposed a check, by the means of parliamentary impeachment,
for the punishment of such ministers as advise or conclude any treaty,
which shall afterwards be judged to derogate from the honour and
interest of t