Henry Wheaton. ports are models of what law reports should be,—clear, concisely giving all the facts, making adequate summaries of the ar guments of counsel, and embellishing the cases with valuable notes and a wealth of learned research. But he never derived the income that was his due from these labors. For his suc cessor, Peters, reëdited and abridged his reports in a cheaper edition,—much to his indignant sorrow. He sued to stop the piracy, but Peters had the law on his side. Wheaton was a poor man with a growing family, and he sorely needed the money. While he was reporter he argued many cases before the Supreme Court of the United States with such ability and success that, upon the death of Mr. Justice Living ston in 1823, he was prominently mentioned for the vacant place, to which Mr. Justice Thompson was appointed. During these years he also served as a member of the Constitutional Convention of New York in 1821, where he advocated a general cor poration law and tenure for judges during good behavior. In 1824 he was elected by the New York Legislature a member of the commission of three to draw up the civil and criminal code of the State. This was the first attempt made by any State at codification, and Wheaton brought to the aid of his colleagues, Duer and Butler, a broad and philosophical conception of jurisprudence, which was of great value. He, however, was sent to -Copenhagen in 1827, two years before the code was finished. Meanwhile Wheaton had been busy writ ing upon a variety of subjects. In 1820 he delivered a discourse before the New York Historical Society on The Science of Pub lic and International Law, which apparently was the crystallized beginning, as his Treat ise on the Law of Maritime Captures and Prises was the embryo, of the great work which was to make his name famous
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through all time. In 1824 he made another address upon the opening of the New York Athenaeum, and in 1826 he published his Life of William Pinkney. Even in that he showed predilection for public law and large questions of politics by emphasizing them to the exclusion of much else. In 1827 Wheaton entered upon a new and greater career, and one for which he was peculiarly and preeminently fitted both by temperament and education. John Quincy Adams, President of the United States, in recognition of some slight political service, as well as of his extraordinary adaptability for diplomacy, sent him to Denmark' as chargé d'affaires. The principal work which presented itself at that time to the man oc cupying that mission was the adjustment of the idemnity for vessels flying the flag of the United States which had been seized by Denmark during the late war between France and England. Three years were consumed in these negotiations, and by the convention which was finally signed the Government of the United States obtained nearly all that it had demanded. This was a satisfactory exhibition of Wheaton's tal ent for diplomacy. Always an accomplished linguist, during his stay at Copenhagen he did not neglect his literary pursuits or his historical re searches. Assiduously he studied the liter- ature and history of northern Europe, and as a result thereof he gave to the world in 1831 The History of the Northmen, which was an epoch-making work. Eleven years after ward an enlarged second edition was printed, in which Wheaton definitely gave his adherence to the proposition that the Northmen discovered America before Co lumbus. With these literary and scientific tastes he gained the acquaintance of the most distinguished men in Denmark, and was elected to the Scandinavian Society and Icelandic Literary Society. With what
