278 RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



country did not become general until the sixteenth 

 century, and especially from the reign of Louis XIV., 

 and in the course of a short time all the trading 

 nations sent consuls to one another and conferred 

 upon them prerogatives more or less extensive. 



Colbert was the true organiser of the consulates, 

 and his memoir of March 15, 1669, "upon the steps 

 to be taken by consuls of the French nation abroad 

 to keep his Majesty informed of all that occurs," was 

 the first outcome of the measures which this en- 

 lightened Minister had adopted for improving the 

 consular institution. Soon afterwards, the funda- 

 mental ordinance of 1681, which was also his handi- 

 work, placed the consulates in a position to render 

 genuine service to French commerce, and formed for 

 more than a century the legislation by which French 

 consular establishments were governed : up to the 

 reforms which were commenced in 1803 and have 

 been gone on with ever since. 



The Spanish Government has not yet carried out 

 its project of publishing a set of rules in which the 

 ancient ordinances relating to consulates will be 

 fused, in order to provide a general body of instruc- 

 tions for all its agents. 



The general purpose of a consul is to act as com- 

 mercial agent for his Government in a foreign port or 

 place of trade, to keep an eye upon the commercial 

 interests of his country, to endeavour to develop them, 

 and above all to uphold before the local authorities 



