Page:The Practice of Diplomacy - Callières - Whyte - 1919.djvu/119

 other is written by the hand of one of the royal private secretaries, and signed by the King himself; it is countersigned by any minister, and is usually handed direct in private audience to the foreign prince to whom it is addressed. The former type of letter is presented in ceremonial public audience. When a negotiator is appointed by his prince to a free state or an assembly, which for this purpose is treated as though it were a court, he does not receive letters of credence, but his character and identity are fully established in his full powers, which he must exchange with ministers on arriving. The document known as full powers is an authorisation by the prince to his representative abroad to undertake all kinds of public business, the results of which the sovereign himself agrees to accept by the proxy of his minister; but as a rule in such full powers the particular matter under discussion is carefully specified, and the authority to act is confined to it.

There are two kinds of full powers: one deriving directly from the sovereign and the other from his deputies, that is to say, his ministers of state who have sufficient authority to nominate plenipotentiaries in his absence. Such powers are particularly desirable where the states lie far apart from one another. In such negotiations as those between the Court of Madrid and the Low Countries, or the