Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/276

260 peaceably, they are under the king’s protection; though liable to be ent home whenever the king ees occaion. But no ubject of a nation at war with us can, by the law of nations, come into the realm, nor can travel himelf upon the high eas, or end his goods and merchandize from one place to another, without danger of being eied by our ubjects, unles he has letters of afe-conduct; which by divers antient tatutes mut be granted under the king’s great eal and inrolled in chancery, or ele are of no effect: the king being uppoed the bet judge of uch emergencies, as may deerve exception from the general law of arms. But paports under the king’s ign-manual, or licences from his embaadors abroad, are now more uually obtained, and are allowed to be of equal validity.

the law of England, as a commercial country, pays a very particular regard to foreign merchants in innumerable intances. One I cannot omit to mention: that by magna carta it is provided, that all merchants (unles publicly prohibited beforehand) hall have afe conduct to depart from, to come into, to tarry in, and to go through England, for the exercie of merchandize, without any unreaonable impots, except in time of war: and, if a war breaks out between us and their country, they hall be attached (if in England) without harm of body or goods, till the king or his chief juticiary be informed how our merchants are treated in the land with which we are at war; and, if ours be ecure in that land, they hall be ecure in ours. This eems to have been a common rule of equity among all the northern nations; for we learn from Stiernhook, that it was a maxim among the Goths and Swedes, “” But it is omewhat extraordinary, that it hould have found a place in magna carta, a mere interior treaty between the king and his natural-born ubjects; which occaions the learned Montequieu to remark with a degree of admiration, “that the Englih have made the protection of foreign “merchants