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68 escaped my anxious recollection what it is that the duty of my station calls for from me, viz., to consider myself as stationed here, not to deliver occasional and shifting opinions to 'serve present purposes of particular national interest, but to administer, with indifference, that justice which the law of nations holds out without distinction to independent states, some happening to be neutral and some belligerent. The seat of judicial authority is indeed locally here in the belligerent country, according to the known law and practice of nations, but the law itself has no locality. It is the duty of the person sitting here to determine this question exactly as he would determine the same question if he were sitting at Stockholm, to assert no pretension on the part of Great Britain which he would not allow to Sweden in the same circumstances. If I state the law in this matter, I assert that which I consider, and which