126 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [voL. 48 
ing by all honorable means the interests of American agriculture, 
manufactures, and commerce. The value of this kind of service 
was amply shown by the late Townsend Harris, in Japan. Having 
been sent to that country by President Peirce and Secretary Marcy, 
as Consul General, he was afterward given the powers of a special 
envoy, and finally promoted to the position of a Minister Res- 
ident. To him, more than to any other man, is due the opening of 
Japan to the commerce of America and of the world. His high 
character and skill inspired a confidence which enabled him to make 
that great treaty which marks a new point of departure in modern 
civilization. The value of the diplomatic service to commerce was 
also shown more recently by the successful efforts of our ministers, 
Mr. Reid at Paris and Mr. Phelps at Berlin, in breaking the Euro- 
pean barriers hitherto maintained against some of the principal 
products of American agriculture. 
And, finally, perhaps the highest incidental work in which a diplo- 
matist can engage is the development of international law. 
The Law of Nations is not made; it grows,—and in many ways; 
among others, by the labors of men employed in making treaties, or 
in conducting negotiations between different governments. The 
development of international law since the great work of Grotius in 
the seventeenth century is one of the noblest things in human his- 
tory. In no field, perhaps, has so much been done to diminish un- 
merited suffering. Among those who have taken noble part in it 
are such as Franklin, Jefferson, John Adams, Jay, and, in more 
recent times, Wheaton, Dana, Lawrence, Bancroft, and Schenck. 
Of these, Henry Wheaton, who represented the United States from 
1827 to 1846 at Copenhagen and Berlin deserves special mention. 
His works on International Law have become classics,—held in 
high honor at Oxford and Cambridge, at Paris and London, and 
even at Pekin, where his principal work has received the honor of a 
Chinese translation. 
Nor is this good development by any means ended. It may be 
within the power of any diplomatist, at any time, to exert a control- 
ing influence in favor of arbitration between states which might 
otherwise be plunged into war, and thus to promote the substitution 
of arbitration for war in the gradually strengthening code of Inter- 
national Law. 
And there is yet another great principle to be pressed upon the 
world, and an especially American principle. I refer to the exemp- 
tion from seizures on the high seas of private property, not contra- 
band of war. This is one of those. great, steady, efforts for the 
