municipal laws of the different countries in the world, as the Romans held it to be applicable in relation to the authority of their magistrates. But the comity of nations, with a view to the comfort and convenience of their respective subjects, has rightly conceded that there should be some exceptions to this strict rule of the territorial law; and these exceptions form the subject of international law. They present many questions of great difficulty which have long exercised, and still continue to exercise, the ingenuity of the most acute minds, conversant with all that exists of the mass of accumulated learning upon matters of this sort.

International law has never been treated at large as a system, by the writers on the laws of these realms. It is only in modern times, that questions of this kind have attracted the attention of our courts of law; several centuries after the wants of continental Europe had made the subject of international law familiar to their writers.

In their disquisitions upon matters of international law, and the rules by which these were to be governed, the continental writers have endeavoured to get rid of many of the difficulties of their subject, by classing it under the heads of personal, real, and mixed statutes. They use this word statute in a different sense from that in which it is used by British writers with us it is commonly applied to acts of the legislature, in contradistinction to the rules of the common law with them it is applied to the whole municipal law of any particular state, from whatever source derived. (d) Personal statutes are held by the continental writers to be of general obligation, in so far as the person or status of

(d) In some writers the word statute is used to signify the particular municipal law of any state, by way of distinction from the Roman imperial law, styled the common law. Voet. de Statutis, c. 1. s. 4., defines a statute to be jus particulare, ab alio legislatore quam Imperatore

any individual is concerned. Real statutes are applied to property, whether moveable or immoveable, and are not otherwise connected with individuals: they are held to have no force extra territorium within which the property is situated. Mixed statutes are those which at once concern persons and property of any description.

In the application of this classification to particular cases, there has been a great diversity of opinion among the most distinguished of the foreign jurists, from Bartholus and Baldus in the fourteenth century, to Heineccius and Boullenois in the eighteenth. They were never able to lay down any certain and satisfactory rules for distinguishing personal from real statutes; nor to show, in regard to mixed statutes, whether the personal or real portions of these should have preponderance.

It would be out of place here, to enter into any inquiry in regard to the conflicting opinions of civilians upon this intricate subject (e); their doctrines upon personal, real,

(e) In the treatise prefixed to Mr. Henry's Demerara case of Odwin and others v. Forbes, we have, for the first time in the English language, an explanation of the personal, real, and mixed statutes of the continental jurists. (Chap. 1, 2, 3, 4.)

But in the United States of America we find these subjects treated more at large, and in a more scientific way. The same causes which have made the doctrines of international law familiar upon the continent of Europe, have rendered it necessary to study them in America. There appears to be a great diversity in the municipal laws of the several states forming the American Union, some of these having been transplanted from the different countries of Europe, which originally gave law to those territories.

This has already produced among them writers who have treated of these important subjects, of distinguished name. We have learned the respect that is due to Professor Kent, the late chancellor of the state of New York, author of the " Commentaries on American Law," a name probably not inferior, as a legal writer, to any of the present day. The treatise of the late Samuel Livermore, of New Orleans, "On the "Contrariety of Laws," and the commentaries of Dr. Story," On the

and mixed statutes, have very rarely been matter of inquiry in the British courts of law.

It may be noticed, however, that Huber, a distinguished writer of the seventeenth century, and much referred to in the British courts, has laid down certain axioms, which appear to have received very general concurrence; and which apply, amongst others, directly to the doctrines of international succession in moveable estate. The first of these axioms is, that the laws of every state are of force within its own bounds, and towards its own subjects, but no farther. 2. That those are to be held subjects of any state, who are found within its limits, whether their residence be permanent or temporary. 3. That the rulers of nations act with comity, when they admit that the laws of every people exercised within their own limits should have every where the like force, in so far as they do not prejudice the power or rights of other states, or their citizens. (ƒ)

"Conflict of Laws, Foreign and Domestic," are still in few hands in this country. They introduce us to the study of the foreign jurists, in a way hitherto unknown in our common language. These writers have the additional advantage of bringing to the consideration of these subjects, an intimate acquaintance with all that has been written and decided in regard to the different systems of laws obtaining in Great Britain. Their works form an important accession to the legal knowledge of the present age. Inquiries of this kind present a new field for the generous rivalry of kindred nations.

(f)" 1. Leges cujusque imperii vim habent intra terminos ejusdem republicæ, omnesque ei subjectos obligant, nec ultra. 2. Pro sub "jectis imperio habendi sunt omnes, qui intra terminos ejusdem repe"riuntur, sive in perpetuum, sive ad tempus ibi commorentur. 3. "Rectores imperiorum id comiter agunt, ut jura cujusque populi intra "terminos ejus exercita teneant ubique suam vim, quatenus nihil potes"tati aut juri alius imperantis, ejusque civium præjudicetur." (Huber, lib. 1. tit. 3. de conflictu legum, s. 2.) These axioms are disputed by other writers. Hertius appears to have been opposed to them. After quoting them he asks, " Si sola populorum conniventiâ id niti dicamus,

These axioms may be applied to all the variety of topics which have arisen, or may arise, upon the subject of international law. In a particular manner they are applicable to the subject of our present treatise.

It relieves this part of our subject from difficulty, that the Continental writers appear to concur in their views upon questions of international succession. It is clearly laid down by them all, 1. That immoveable or heritable property is in all things to be governed by the law of the country in which it is situated; 2. That in regard to moveable or personal property, it is held, by a fiction, that it has no situs, but that it is attached to the person of the owner, and is subject to the law of that country in which the owner had his domicil at the time of his death, if the law of the country of the domicil be not contrary to some special rule of law of the state within which the property may happen to be. (g)

quæ juris erit efficacia." But they appear to have obtained in our own courts, in other questions of international law.

Livermore, the American jurist, objects strongly to the idea of a court of justice acting upon comity; he thinks that it is their business solely to administer justice according to law. (Livermore "On the "Contrariety of Laws," p. 26.) But what law can have effect extra territorium unless ex comitate?

(g) I am not aware that there is any difference of opinion among the Continental jurists upon this subject. A few of their dicta may be stated here.

Again,

Paul Voet says, " Ut immobilia statutis loci regantur ubi sita." (De Statut. et eor. concursu, § 9. c. 1. n. 3.) Again, "Verum mobilia ibi censeantur esse secundum juris intellectum, ubi is cujus ea sunt sedem atque "larem suarum fortunarum collocavit." (Ibid. § 4. c. 2. n. 2.) "Verum an quod de immobilibus dictum, idem de mobilibus statuendum "erit? Respondeo quod non: quia illorum bonorum nomine, nemo " censetur semet loci legibus subjecisse. Ut quæ res certum locum non "habent, quia facile de loco in locum transferuntur, adeoque secundum "loci statuta regulantur ubi domicilium habuit defunctus.” (Ibid. § 9. c. 1. n. 8.)

John Voet writes on the same subjects: "In successionibus, testandi "facultate, contractibus, aliisque, mobilia ubicunque sita regi debere do

By this fiction as to the situs of the moveable property, the Continental jurists have avoided the operation of their own

"micilii jure; non vero legibus loci illius in quo naturaliter sunt con"stituta." (Voet. ad Pandectas, lib. 1. tit. 4. pars 2. de statut. s. 11.) Again," Sed considerandum quadam fictione juris, seu malis, præsum❝tione, hanc de mobilibus determinationem conceptam niti; cum enim "certo, stabilique hæc situ careant, nec certo sunt alligata loco, sed ad "arbitrium domini undequaque in domicilii locum revocari facile ac "reduci possint, et maximum domino plerumque commodum adferre "soleant cum ei sunt præsentia, visum fuit hanc inde conjecturam surgere, quod dominus velle censeatur, ut illic omnia sua sint mobilia, "aut saltem esse intelligantur, ubi fortunarum suarum larem, summamque constituit, id est, in loco domicilii." (Ibid.)

When treating of what was considered moveable by the law of the domicil, but immoveable by the lex loci rei sitæ, he says, "Quo posito, "necesse fuerit, ut quæ in domicilii loco mobilia habentur, immobilia vero illic ubi sunt, regantur lege loci in quo vere sunt, magistratu ne ex comitate quidem permissuro ut quasi mobilia domicilii dominici sequerentur jura." (Ibid.)

Again, "Etenim regulariter mobilia ubicunque naturaliter exsiterint, "illic censentur esse, ubi dominus domicilium fovet: immobilia illic, "ubivere sunt; indeque immobilia regenda lege loci in quo sita ર sunt; mobilia vero ex lege domicilii domini." (Ibid. lib. 1. tit. 8. s. 30.)

Huber, when treating of the same matters, says, "Communis et "recta sententia est, in rebus immobilibus servandum esse jus loci in દ quo bona sunt sita; quia cum partem ejusdem territorii faciant diversæ jurisdictiones legibus adfici non possunt." (Præl. Jur. Civ. pars 1. lib. 3. tit. 13. s. 21. de success.)

Again," Verum in mobilibus nihil esse causæ cur aliud quam jus "domicilii sequamur, quia res mobiles non habent affectionem versus territorium, sed ad personam patrisfamilias duntaxat ; qui aliud quam «quod in loco domicilii obtinebat voluisse videri non potest.” (Ibid.) Vattel says, on the same subject, Puisqué l'étranger demeure citoyen de son pays, et membre de sa nation, les biens qu'il delaisse en mourant dans un pays étranger, doivent naturellement passer ceux qui sont ses heritiers suivant les loix de l'état dont il est mem"bre: mais cette règle générale n'empêche point que les biens immeubles ne doivent suivre les dispositions des loix du pays où ils sont situés." (Vattel, Droit des gens, liv. 2. c. 8. s. 110.)

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Pothier writes on the same subject: "Pour sçavoir à l'empire de quelle contume une chose est sujette, il faut distinguer celles qui ont