not strictly a question of constitutional, international, or military law; and though the circumstances were so peculiar that the conclusion adopted is never likely to be referred to as a precedent, seems still deserving of a brief mention, especially as an act of Parliament was passed to sanction the decision of the cabinet.  Baffled by the vigilance of our cruisers in every attempt to escape from one of the western ports of France to America, Napoleon was at last compelled to surrender himself to a British squadron.  But, though he was our prisoner, the Prime-minister considered us, in all our dealings with him, as so bound by engagements to our allies, that he was to be regarded as “the common prisoner of all, so far that we should not give him up or release him without the joint consent of all.”  The question was full of difficulty.  There were, probably, very few persons in this or any other country who did not coincide in the impropriety of releasing him, and so putting it in his power once more to rekindle a war in Europe.  But it was a political view of the case, founded on a consideration of what was required by the tranquillity of Europe; and it was not easy to lay down any legal ground to justify the determination.  Some regarded him as a French subject, and, if that view were correct, he could hardly be detained by us as a prisoner of war after we had concluded a treaty of peace with France.  But, again, it seemed to some, the Lord Chancellor being among them, a questionable point whether in the last campaign we had been at war with France; whether, on the contrary, we had not assumed the character of an ally of France against him.  And, on the supposition that we had been at war with France, a second question was raised by Lord Ellenborough, the Chief-justice, “what rights result on principle from a state of war, as against all the individuals of the belligerent nations—­rights, whatever they may be, seldom, if ever, enforced against individuals, because individuals hardly ever make war but as part of an aggregate nation.”  The question—­as, after consultation with Lord Ellenborough and his own brother, Sir William Scott, it finally appeared to Lord Eldon, on whom the Prime-minister naturally depended, as his chief legal counsellor, though in its political aspect he judged for himself—­was, firstly, “whether it could possibly be inconsistent with justice or the law of nations that, till some peace were made by treaty with some person considered as Napoleon’s sovereign, or till some peace were made with himself, we should keep him imprisoned in some part of our King’s dominions.”  And, secondly, “whether there were any person who could possibly be considered his sovereign, after the treaty of 1814 had clothed him with the character of Emperor of Elba, with imperial dignity and imperial revenue.”  Lord Liverpool himself, however, raised another question:  whether, by his invasion of France, he had not forfeited his right to be regarded as an independent sovereign; resting this doubt on a suggestion which, among others, he proposed to the Lord Chancellor, that “at Elba he enjoyed only a limited and conditional sovereignty, which ceased when the condition on which he held it was violated.”