SPRINGS, MINERAL. [WATERS, 31ms:rut.] SPY. In the discussion of this and many other questions of inter national law the terms Right, Law, Lawful, and others of the same class, must be understood in a different sense from their proper technical meaning. What writers on international law speak of as a Right is very often merely what appears fair, reasonable, or expedient to be done, or to be permitted. It is this reasonableness or expediency alone which is the foundation of those various usages which are recog nised by independent civilised nations in their intercourse among one another, and constitute what is called the Law of Nations. Thus a person or a power is said to have a right according to the Law of Nations, which means that the usage of civilised nations permits the act, and this is the least objectionable sense in which the word Right is used.
No doubt, we believe, has ever Peen ,intimated by any writer of authority on International Law, as to the right of nations at war with each other to avail themselves of the service of spies, or secret emissaries, in carrying on their hostile operations : and still more expressly is the general right of employing spies conceded to every conductor of military operations ; but it is equally admitted that spies when caught by tho enemy may be hung, and such is their usual fate. Vattel says, " A man of honour always declines serving as a spy, as well from his reluctance to expose himself to this chance of an ignominious death, as because, moreover, the office cannot be performed without some degree of treachery." In ordinary cases, he adds. " the general must be left to procure spies in the best way he can, by tempting mercenary souls by rewards." The employment of spies is conceived to be subject to certain limitations in respect to the manner of it and the object attempted to be gained by it. "We may lawfully endeavour," says Vattel, "to weaken the enemy by all possible means, provided they do not affect the common safety of human society, as do poison and assassination:: Accordingly the proper business of a spy is merely to obtain intelli gence, and such secret emissaries must not be employed to take the lives of any of the enemy, although that, done in another way, is commonly the main immediate object of the war. Yet it might be somewhat difficult to establish a clear distinction between what would be called an act of assassination by a spy, and many of those/surprises of an enemy which, so far from being condemned or deemed dis honourable to the actors, have usually been admired. A distinction
however has been taken ; and it has been maintained that an officer or soldier cannot be treated as a spy if he had his uniform on when apprehended. See Martens ` Pr6cis du Droit des Gene Modernes de l'Europe ' (traduit de l'Allemand), Paris, 1831, liv. ch. iv., § 274; where references are made to Bruckner, `Dc Explorationibus et Exploratoribus,' Jen., 1700; to Hannay., ' Gel. Anzeigen,' 1751, pp. 383 et seq. ; and, in regard to the celebrated case of Andrd in the American war, to Martens, ` Erzahlungen merkwurdiger i. 303; ' and to Kamptz, `Beytrige zum Staats and Volkerrecht,' tom. 1., No. 3.
A question closely connected with the so-called lawfulness of employing spies, and indeed forming in one view a part of that question, is that of the lawfulness of soliciting the enemy's subjects to act as spies, or to betray him. Such measures, says Vattel, are practised in all wars, but they are not honourable nor compatible with the laws of a pure conscience. "If such practices," he concludes, "are at all excusable, it can be only in a very just war, and when the immediate object is to save our country when threatened with ruin by a lawless conqueror. On such an occasion (as it should seem) the guilt of the subject or general who should betray his sovereign when engaged in an evidently unjust cause would not be of so very odious a nature." But who ever heard of a war that was not thought by those engaged in it to be a just war on their own side and an unjust war on the part of their adversaries x So that this distinction settles nothing. It is held, however, to be perfectly allowable in every point of view merely to accept the offers of a traitor.
The proper question as to the so-called law of nations with regard to spies, is what practices are sanctioned by the general usage of indepen dent civilised nations. Such practices as are now permitted by such usage constitute a part of this so-called international law. Those practices which are not generally permitted or acknowledged are not yet a part of such law. Persons who have occasion to write or think on this subject will find that much of the indistinctness and confusion observable in the treatises on the law of nations will be removed if they will first form for themselves a clear conception of the proper meaning of the word Law, and of the improper meanings which it has also acquired ;* and they will thus be enabled to give the necessary precision to those terms which are used so vaguely by writers on international law. [Law ; Rimer.]