98
The Literature of International Relations
such a peculiar nature, as to supersede authority, and preclude the application of established principles. Exactly in the same manner reasoned M. Genet: "I would throw Vattel and Grotius into the sea," said that minister, "whenever their principles interfere with my notions of the rights of nations". Just so my honourable friend seems disposed to treat them whenever they controvert his ideas of those principles which ought to regulate our conduct in the present moment. Thus both, in order to suit their own convenience in departing from the established standard, give their sanction to a new code. I, however, more inclined as I am to adhere to the ancient standard, and to follow established rules of judging, hold the opinions of eminent men, dispassionately given on subjects which they have accurately studied, to be of considerable importance. I consider those opinions formed under circumstances most favourable to the discovery of truth, to be the result of unbiased inquiry, and minute investigation, and therefore entitled to great weight in regulating the conduct of nations. Those writers, in laying down their maxims, were not distracted by local prejudices or by partial interests; they reasoned upon great principles, and from a wide survey of the state of nations, and comparing the result of their own reflections with the lessons taught them by the experience of former ages, constructed that system, which they conceived to be of most extensive utility and universal application. From the system of such men I should be cautious to deviate.'[1]
Appeal to the natural justice on which Vattel founded was more appropriate to the generous mind in politics, and especially to the exercise of that mind in Opposition in the person of Charles James Fox, than to the prudent temper and sagacious outlook of Pitt, the administrator, the pilot of the State amid the storms of war.
An example of the use of Vattel in the official conduct of international relations may be taken from the course of the controversy regarding contraband after the outbreak of the wars of the French Revolution. In April 1795 an Order in
- ↑ Speeches, v. 155–6.
