près de trois siécles.76 This work, in six volumes, covered the period from 1435 to 1690, and did much to establish treaty collections among the regular offerings of publishers. It was prefaced with a historical introduction, which had been separately published in 1692, by Abraham Nicolas Amelot de la Houssaye," who for fifteen years at least had used Léonard's library.

The year 1693 is an important date in the history of treaty publication. Léonard's French collection is, for practical purposes, the first of the state collections. In the same year Leibniz issued his Code: Juris Gentium Diplomaticus and Rymer in England was authorized to begin his monumental Foedera. Three years before Daniel von Nessel (1644-99), librarian to the emperor of Austria, had projected a chronological index from 400 to 1685.78 Leibniz was encouraged by the success of his Codex 79 of 1693 to add a second volume in 1700. The two volumes included some material hitherto unprinted, but the texts were not always accurate. The work was republished in 1747, but has since then been more valued for its preface than for its contents, which are largely available in subsequent works.

80

Léonard and Leibniz gave a strong impetus to the public appetite for the literature of treaties. Through the efforts of a succession of printers and booksellers, of whom the leader was Adriaan Moetjens, The Hague became the headquarters on the Continent for the printing of works of this sort, and so remained for fully half a century. These business men saw the opportunity to consolidate Léonard's and Leibniz's works, with additions from elsewhere, and in 1700 brought out the Recueil edited by Jacques Bernard (1658-1718). Its four volumes were successful enough to warrant the issuance of a popular one-volume summary in 1707, which has no other interest than that Jean Dumont edited it. Diplomatic memoirs and compilations on recent and current peace settlements supplemented the treaty collections.

Jean Dumont 81 (1666–1727) remains the chief compiler of treaty collections. His Corps universel diplomatique covers a longer period than any similar work; it set new standards of accuracy; and it had the additional advantage of being conceived and executed as

76 Cf. No. 888, supra.

77 "Observations historiques et politiques sur les traitez des princes." Also reprinted in Jacques Bernard's Recueil des traitez de paix, ii, pp. i-lx, and in Dumont's Corps universel diplomatique, ii, 1, pp. i-lxxxiv.

78 Cf. No. 80, supra; Leibniz, Mantissa Codicis Juris Gentium, p. [xii]. 79 Cf. No. 81, supra. Vide Ernest Nys, "Leibnitz et son 'Codex juris gentium diplomaticus,"" in the Revue de droit international, xxvii, pp. 404-407.

80 Moetjens seems to have flourished from 1682 to 1741. Arie Cornelis Kruseman, Aanteekingen betreffende den Boekhandel van Noord-Nederland, p. 538. No memoir of him seems to have been published, but the extent of his activity is indicated by the fact that in 1732 he held a sale from February 11 to March 5 in the Groote Zaal at The Hague in which 9336 items were offered. Cf. Bibliotheca exquisitissima insignium et praestantissimorum librorum, in omnibus Facultatibus é Linguis (Hagae Comitum, 1732).

81 On his life vide Georg Friedrich von Martens, "Recherches sur la vie et les écrits de Jean du Mont," in Supplément au Recueil des principaux traités, i, pp. lxiv-xciv.

a whole. Dumont was an expatriate Frenchman who, after following a military career for some time, settled abroad and became known for his hostility to Louis XIV. His literary career began with the publication of a volume entitled Nouveau Voyage au Levant (La Haye, 1694), which was reprinted with additions in four volumes in 1699 under the title of Voyages en France, en Italie, en Allemagne, à Malta, et en Turquie. In the same year he published the Mémoires politiques pour servir à la parfaite intelligence de l'histoire de la paix de Ryswick, which, as its title accurately enough indicates, dealt with the antecedents of the peace rather than with the negotiation of the treaty itself. He was appointed historiographer to the Holy Roman Emperor with the title of Baron Carelscroon. It was perhaps in this capacity that he prepared his book on the peace of Ryswick and its successor, Mémoires sur la guerre présente, published at The Hague in 1703. More closely connected with the duties of his office was the publication in 1710 of a Nouveau recueil de traitéz d'alliance, de trêve, de paix, de garantie, et de commerce, faits et conclus entre les rois, princes, et etats souverains de l'Europe, depuis la paix de Munster. But since 1699 he had been collecting material relative to treaties, and the publication of the Recueil of 1710 had only served to prove to him how greatly needed was a collection which should be as complete as possible. This project became practicable when a second edition of Bernard's Recueil of 1700 seemed needed. Martens thinks that his arrangements with the booksellers were made about 1716. At any rate, he had great difficulty in making them agree to publish the work which he was preparing. 82 This was none other than the presentation of the documents of international law from the beginning of the records down to the present, including related material. The booksellers finally capitulated to the author, assenting to the publication of the whole, but dividing the work so as to make the main part an enlarged second edition of Bernard, completed by a series of supplements. Dumont, who took all pains to secure correct texts, was not simply a compiler. He contemplated a work which should do for the facts of international relations what Grotius ninety years before had done for the philosophical theory. Yet, as the first of the effective advocates of positive international law, he saw no conflict between himself and the natural school:

83

International law, in my opinion, may and should be defined as the law respecting peoples one toward another, and also among themselves, and

82 "The fact is that the booksellers with whom I had treated in advance for a second edition of the great collection of 1700 did not like the new plan which I had formed. They wrote that they absolutely could not load themselves with so large a work; that it would take too long to print it; that the price of it would be too high for most purchasers; and that it was proper to have regard to the convenience of everybody; that, moreover, I had promised them an edition of the great collection; that they had engaged with their correspondents to furnish that to them; that they wanted to keep their word, and hoped I would also keep mine; that, if I wished, the book might well be given the title of Corps universel diplomatique des droit des gens; etc."

83 Cf. No. 86, supra.

this law is either natural or contractual. Natural international law reduces itself simply to this excellent precept, Do nothing to another which you would consider unjust and unreasonable if done to you; and contractual international law, which derives and takes all its force from that, consists in the contracts, agreements, pacts, concessions, donations, and renunciations which princes and peoples make among themselves, either as guaranty from an evil feared or to procure a benefit desired, or for both together."

Dumont saw only four volumes of his projected work through the press, but at his death the manuscript for four more was with the booksellers. Jean Rousset de Missy (1686-1762) succeeded him as editor and completed the publication, with the exception of the Histoire des anciens traitez, the first volume of the supplements, which was prepared by Jean Barbeyrac (1674-1744).

Rousset had started his Recueil historique d'actes, negociations, memoires, et traitez in 1728 and Guillaume de Lamberty his Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du XVIII siècle in 1724. Both of these were semi-diplomatic collections on topics substantially current. Lamberty's work ended in 1740, while Rousset's continued till 1758. These and the preceding collections called forth the inevitable academic handbook in the form of the Corpus Juris Gentium of Johann Jacob Schmauss (1690-1757), which was standard from its publication in 1730 until Wenck issued a supplement in 1781-95. They paved the way for the next great continuator of Dumont, Georg Friedrich Martens, who at the age of thirty-five began at Göttingen his Recueil des principaux traités. This work, in several series,85 has been continued down to the present day under various editors.

Until the World War broke out it had a single rival as a general collection of treaties. "In 1825, [Lewis Hertslet] originated, compiled, and edited, during his leisure hours at home, a work now universally well known and appreciated, entitled British and Foreign State Papers. The object of the work was to collect together, in a convenient form, the principal Treaties between foreign Powers, and documents, which had been made public, relating to the political and commercial affairs of nations, and to their relations with each other, from the termination of the war in 1815 to the latest period. The work was originally printed exclusively for the use of H. M.'s Government and H. M.'s Diplomatic Agents abroad, but the general interest which was attached to the collection, after the issue of the first few volumes, led to its being published and placed on sale. . . . About the same time Lewis Hertslet further undertook, with official sanction, also during his leisure hours at home, another work on treaties, to which he gave the title of Hertslet's Commercial and Slave Trade Treaties." 86

We have seen that the publication of treaty collections got its first real impetus from popular interest in the great events of the seventeenth century, and that the development of these collections oc& Corps universel diplomatique, i, p. 1.

85 Cf. No. 92, supra.

86 Sir Edward Hertslet, Recollections of the Old Foreign Office, pp. 145-146; cf. No. 94, supra.

curred under the encouragement of the French crown, to be rapidly widened into a series of works worthy of their subject matter and covering the whole period of history down to the present. We now turn to Rymer's Foedera, the first deliberately planned national collection of treaties under official auspices. The conception of the idea was due to Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax (1661-1715), and John Somers, Baron of Evesham (c. 1651-1716),87 both of whom had influence at court. At the time Thomas Rymer (1641-1713) was historiographer royal, an office with vaguely defined duties which had been previously held by James Howell, Sir William Davenant, John Dryden, and Thomas Shadwell. Rymer was a literary worker, a writer of dramas, poetry, and criticism. Eight months after his appointment as historiographer royal, he was directed on August 26, 1693, under the sign manual of Queen Mary, "to transcribe and publish all the leagues, treaties, alliances, capitulations, and confederacies which have at any time been made between the crown of England, and any other kingdoms, princes, and states, as a work highly conducing to our service and the honour of this our realm." For this purpose he was empowered to "have free liberty and accesse from time to time to search into the Records in" any "place where Records are kept, for such Records as we have or shall direct, and the same to transcribe." 88 He adopted Leibniz's Codex juris gentium diplomaticus as the prototype of his own work: "I am most obliged in many ways to you, who have shone with such great praise as my guide and predecessor in this province. I feel the greatest possible gratitude to you on that account." 89 Leibniz, in fact, speaks at length and very highly of Rymer's project in the preface of his Mantissa codicis, printing in Latin a second draft of the title page forwarded by Rymer.90 We trust other nations will be excited by the example of England to publish their manuscript treasures for the use of history and international law," wrote Leibniz.91

As Rymer's collection was printed entirely at public expense, it is possible to give some idea of the cost of such a work. The historiographer royal received £200 a year as salary, £200 a year as editor of the Foedera, and twenty-five copies of each volume, which may be valued at £83 additional. The salary payments were made from 1703 to Rymer's death in 1713, making a total of £4830 of the money of the period. Before printing commenced Rymer received no remuneration, but payments of £2263 were employed to pay clerks and engravers at £40, equal to £67 at pre-war rates, per year.92 The entire cost of printing the seventeen volumes, including all extras, was £10,

87 Hardy, op. cit., i, pp. vii-xiv, liii-liv.

88 Ibid., pp. xxvi-xxvii, cxvi.

89 Rymer to Leibniz, Hardy, op. cit., i, p. xxviii.

90 Mantissa Codicis, praefatio, p. [xiv]; in Latin and English, Hardy, op. cit. i, pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.

91 "Exemplo Angliae speramus alias Gentes excitatum iri, ut proferant chartaceos istos thesauros, in Historiae jurisque gentium usum." Mantissa Codicis, p. [xiv]. 92 Hardy, i, pp. xliii, lxxix.

615 12s. 6d. Robert Sanderson succeeded Rymer as editor in 1713 and continued until 1717. His presumptive salary at £200 per year would add another £800. This gives a total for compiling and printing of £18,508 in the money of the period. If Rymer had been paid, as he should have been, for his labors from 1693 to 1703, the period of collecting materials, another £2000 would have been added. This £20,508 of 1720 would be equal to £34,180 at pre-war rates, or $166,337.

The work itself, in seventeen volumes, was valued at 100 guineas per set. It became scarce, and Jacob Tonson projected a second edition, for the exclusive publication of which he secured a royal license for fourteen years from May 24, 1723. This edition was edited by George Holmes, who added three additional volumes. A third edition was undertaken at The Hague by John Neaulme in 1737, as soon as the English licence expired, and completed in 1745, in an attempt to supply the keen demand caused by the scarcity and cost of the two previous editions. This Hague edition compressed Holmes's twenty volumes into ten, and was published at a subscription price of 134 florins and 3 sols per copy. 94

The facts that Rapin Thoyras's history of England and Stephen Whatley's translation were both based upon Rymer gives some idea of the demand for the literature of treaties in the first half of the eighteenth century.

The modern era of treaty publication may be dated from the entrance into force of the Constitution of the United States in 1789. That document, in article vi, section 2, provides that "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land." In accord with this provision, treaties are included in the volumes of laws. Latin America shortly became independent and set up governments of its own. They copied this provision into their fundamental laws, as did the other new sovereignties. Parliaments began dealing with treaties, and they were published in the same way as laws, even in states where they did not have that character. During the nineteenth century it became customary to promulgate or proclaim treaties, so that official publication constituted an element of conventional validity in many states. Official state collections therefore were a natural result.

On the other hand, treaty relations increased greatly in the second half of the nineteenth century. It became impracticable for private publishers to issue a complete series, the later series of the Martens Recueil, for instance, being very deficient in this respect as compared with the earlier ones. The feeling grew that a central publication of treaties by the familiar organization of an international bureau was desirable.

On September 7, 1892, the Institut de Droit International adopted a draft project of a convention concerning the creation of an international union for the publication of treaties, together with a règlement d'exécution. The proposition had been for some time under discussion, and as early as 1883 Professor Ferdinand Karl Ludwig von Martitz 93 Hardy, i, p. lxxxiii. "Hardy, i, pp. xcii-xcv.