AMBASSADOR (from the mediaeval Latin Ambasciator, an agent), diplomatic officer of the highest rank, the representative of one na tion at the court of another. In this capacity he is expected to support the interests and dig nity of his own state. Ambassadors are ordi nary when they reside permanently at a foreign court, or extraordinary when sent on a special occasion. When ambassadors-extraordinary are vested with full powers, as of concluding peace, making treaties and the like, they are called plenipotentiaries. Ambassadors are often loose ly styled ministers. Envoys are ministers em ployed on special occasions, and are of less dig nity than ambassadors. Until 1893 the United States had been represented at foreign courts by persons with the rank of ministers-resident, accredited in the care of the great powers as envoys-extraordinary and ministers-plenipoten tiary. In that year, however, an act of Con gress was passed allowing the President to accredit ambassadors as United States represen tatives at several of the more important Euro pean courts. When acknowledged as such, am bassadors are exempted absolutely from all allegiance and from all responsibility to the laws of the country to which accredited. Should
they be so regardless of their duty, however, and of the object of their privilege, as to in sult or openly to attack the laws of the govern ment, their functions may be suspended by a refusal to treat with them, or application can be made to their own sovereign for their recall; or they may he dismissed and required to de part within a reasonable time. An ambassador is considered as if he were out of the territory of the foreign power, by fiction of law, and it is an implied agreement among nations that the ambassador, while he resides in the foreign state, shall be considered as a member of his own country, and the government has exclusive cognizance of his conduct and control of his person. Ambassadors' children born abroad are held not to be aliens (7 Coke, 18 a). The persons of ambassadors and their domestic serv ants are exempt from arrest on civil process (3 Burr. 401, 1731).