AMBALA, a city in India, capital of the district of A., 30° 24' n., 76° 49' e.; an im portant station on the Scinde, Punjab, and Delhi railway. It is a large walled town in a level and well cultivated country. The pop. is 50,662, including the English military station near by; pop. of the city, 24,040; of the district, '68, 1,035,488.
AlIBAS'SADOR is a title by which the highest order of diplomatic ministers is dis tinmukslied, and the person holding such a high commission may be defined to be an officer sent by one sovereign power to another to treat on affairs of state. In a less re stricted sense, writers on public law employ the term to denote every kind of diplomatic minister or agent. The credentials, or letters of credence, of an A. are addressed directly by his own sovereign to the sovereign to whom he is sent, and with whom he has the privilege of personal communication. In the performance of all his diplomatic duties, an A. is understood to represent, not only the affairs, but the dignity and the power of his master; and by the law of nations he has many important rights and privileges, the chief of which is exemption from the control of the municipal laws of the nation wherein he is to exercise his functions, an exemption that is not confined to the A. himself, but is extended to all his suite, including not only the persons employed by him in diplomatic services, but his wife, chaplain, and household generally. But there is a dispute among legal writers whether this exemption extends to all crinvw, or whether it is limited to such offenses as are mala prohibita, as coining, and not to those that are males in se, as murder. The law of England appears to have formerly allowed the exemption in the restricted sense only; and in the year 1654, during the protectorate of Cromwell, the Portuguese A. was tried, convicted, and executed, for an atrocious murder. But now, according to the general practice of this country, as well as that of the rest of Europe, it is considered that the security of an A. in conducting the inter course of nations, is of more importance than the punishment of a particular crime, and therefore few examples have happened in modern times where an A. has been punished for any offense. In regard to civil suits, it was at one time held and laid down by Sir Edward Coke, that an A. to the English court was answerable for any contract which was good according to the law of nations. The full exemption of an A. from h-gal process in civil cases was first recognized by 7 Anne, c. 12, a statute whose history is thus related by Blackstone: " In the reign of Queen Anne, an A. from Peter the great, czar of Muscovy, was actually arrested, and taken out of his coach in London, for a debt of •50, which be had there contracted. Instead of applying to be discharged upon his privilege, he gave bail to the action, and the next day complained to the queen. The persons who were concerned in the arrest were examined before the privy council (of which the lord chief-justice Holt was at the same time sworn a member), and seventeen were committed to prison, most of whom were prosecuted by information in the court of Queen's Bench, at the snit of the attorney-general; and at their trial before the lord chief-justice, were convicted of the facts by the jury; reserving the question of law, how far those facts were criminal, to be afterwards argued before the judges, which question was never determined. In the mean time the czar resented this
affront very highly, and demanded that the sheriff of Middlesex, and all others con cerned in the arrest, should be punished with instant death. But the queen (to the amazement of that despotic court) directed her secretary to inform him, that she could inflict no punishment upon any of the meanest of her subjects, unless warranted by the law of the land; and therefore was persuaded that he would not insist upon To satisfy, however, the clamors of the foreign ministers, who made it a common cause, as well as to appease the wrath of Peter, a bill was brought into parliament, and after wards passed into a law (the 7th Anne, c. 12), to prevent and punish such outrageous in solence for the future ; and with a copy of this act elegantly engrossed and illuminated, accompanied by a letter from the queen, an A. extraordinary was commissioned to appear at Moscow, who declared, that though her majesty could not inflict such a punish ment as was required, because of the defect in that particular of the former established constitutions of her kingdom, yet, with the unanimous consent of the parliament, she had caused a new act to be passed, to seree as a law for the future. "This humiliating step," says Blackstone, "was accepted as a full satisfaction by the czar; and the offenders, at his request, were discharged from all further prosecution." But although an A. is not amenable to any tribunal of the country be resides in, be cannot misconduct himself with impunity. He must respect the laws and customs of the country in which he is officially resident; and if lie violates or offends these laws and customs, he may be complained of to the court or government which he represents; or if the offense is of a very serious nature, his recall may be demanded, or the sovereign to whom he has given such offense may dismiss him peremptorily, and further require that he be brought to trial in his own country. It hardly need be added that if an A. is guilty of an offense which threatens the safety of the state, he ceases to enjoy the privi leges of the exemption in question.
There are sonic other and inferior privileges which are very generally allowed to ambassadors: they are, for instance, permitted the free exercise of their religion; they are, in general, exempted from direct taxation, they have special letter-bags, and they are usually allowed to import their goods without paying any custom-house duties—a privilege, however, which, being liable to abuse, has sometimes been limited.
Ambassadors are of two kinds—first, those who reside regularly at the court to which they are accredited; and, secondly, those who are sent on special occasions, when they receive the designation of AMBASSADORS EXTRAORDINARY. The employment of permanent ambassadors originated in modern times. Her majesty's diplomatic corps includes only five ambassadors in the more restricted sense of the word, who are accredited to the courts of Vienna, Paris, St. Petersburg, Constantinople, and Berlin respectively. Inferior diplomatic agents receive the title of charge d'affaires, minister plenipotentiary, or envoy (q.v.).