AMBASSADOR, the representat'i've of one sove reign power at the court of another. As this is the character in which an ambassador has always been view ed, great difficulties have occurred in the Asiatic king doms concerning the reception of envoys from the vice roys of the Dutch and English possessions, who claimed the character of ambassadors.
Special privileges arc conferred by the law of nations on an ambassador ; the first of these is his reception by the pow er to which he is accredited ; and therefore a refusal to receive him, is regarded as a violation of that law. As soon as his credentials are delivered, he and his whole train are exempt from the effects of the mu nicipal law of the country which he visits; and hence it is a practice in London, for persons of desperate fortunes to procure their nomination in the suit of foreign ambas sadors, in order to protect themselves from imprison ment for debt. In England, this exemption is recognized by a special statute, which sprung from the following event : In the year 1708, the Russian ambassador haying been arrested for debt and taken out of his coach, he found bail, and then complained to the queen. Seventeen persons concerned by the attorney general, and convicted ; but the question, how far they had done a criminal deed, was reserved to be argued before the judges. In the mean time, the emperor of Russia highly resented the injury, demanded, that not only the whole private individuals. but also the she riff of AIiddlesex, should be instantly put to death. The queen answered, that she could inflict no punishment, even on the meanest subject, unless when warranted by the laws of her kingdom ; but that she had caused a new act to he passed, which would guard against a similar accident in future. This act was transmitted by an am bassador extraordinary to the Russian monarch. In this act, all suits against an ambassador at the instance of a private person are declared void ; pains or penalties are decreed against the pursuer, and he is deprived of trial by jury. But there is a more difficult question, con cerning the exemption of the person of an ambassador, tow the persons of his suite, in the commission of crimes. If guilty of treason against the country that receives him, an ambassador loses his privilege. The French ambassador was beheaded by the duke of Milan for trea sonable practices. But for offences of inferior degree, it has been forcibly urged, that the right of punishment resides in the sovereign of the offender, which is cer tainly more consistent with the general faith ol nations.
At the same time there are instances of the reverse. In 1654, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador to the English court, who, it is said, was joined in the same letters of credence, was tried along with several do mestics for an atrocious murder committed in London, and was condemned to lose his head ; and this sentence was put in execution on the very day that a treaty of peace was signed between the two kingdoms. In West minster abbey, have been preserved for many years, two unburied coffins, containing the bodies of two foreign ambassadors, arrested after their death for debt.
On a declaration of war, the mutual ambassadors of the hostile powers are allowed to withdraw in safety. This, however, is infringed by the barbarous policy of the Turkish government, which seizes the ambassador, to imprison him in a castle in Constantinople, called the Seven Towers. There have formerly been examples where an ambassador was returned with his nose slit, and his cars cut off ; and Alexander the Great is known to have inflicted a cruel punishment on the city of Tyre for an offence against his ambassadors.
The ceremonies attending the reception of ambassa dors are various. It is contrary to the customs of the Birman court for an ambassador to leave his dwelling before his first presentation. In China, an ambassador must prostrate himself nine times before the throne, a humiliation to which the minister of even Peter the Great of Russia submitted; but in the recent mission from this country, the British ambassador declined doing greater homage to the emperor than his own sovereign received from his subjects: a refusal which was reluctantly sanc tioned. An ambassador, at a foreign court, has no pri vate character of his own ; he represents the person of his sovereign alone ; but if he abuses his privileges, or conducts himself offensively, he may be sent home, and accused before his master, as was done with count Gyl lenberg, the Swedish ambassador to London in 1716.
There are some instances of females of high rank having been invested with the diplomatic character. In Europe, the French ambassador, before the revolution, was allowed the precedence in other courts ; and in France, the same distinction was given to the Pope's nuncio.—See Grotius de jure bells et pads, lib. ii. cap. 19. Vattel, le Droit des Gans, 1. 4. Hale I'lacita Co ronie, vel. i. p. 99. Stat. 7. .inne, c. 12. Boyer's .Jnnals of Queen dnne.'Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 253. vol. iv. p. 85. Ilargrave's State Trials, vol. i. 2. 5. 7. (c)