The reader of this book will see, at almost every stage in the questions of the last thirty years, traces of the labors of Mr. Wheaton, especially in the subjects of the abolition and capitalizing of the Sound Dues and the Scheldt Dues and the tolls on the Elbe, the extradition of criminals, and the lines of distinction established as to the exemption of naturalized citizens of the United States from certain claims of their former sovereigns. But there was scarcely a topic affecting the interests of his country, or the science of international and public law, or the political and social condition of his kind, in which he did not interest himself; contributing pamphlets to the press, articles to the leading journals of Europe and America, and maintaining a correspondence with the philosophical and literary societies on both sides of the Atlantic, of which he was an honored member. In 1831, he published his valuable History of the Northmen, which was afterwards published in French at Paris. In 1838 appeared the History of Scandinavia,—the joint work of himself and Dr. Crichton.
In 1841, Mr. Wheaton wrote an essay for a prize offered by the French Institute, on the subject, "L'Histoire du Droit des Gens en Europe, depuis la Paix de Westphalie jusqu'au Congrès de Vienne." He afterwards enlarged it into a treatise on the History of the Law of Nations in Europe and America, from the earliest times to the treaty of Washington in 1842. This was published in English, in New York, in 1845,—the preface being dated at Paris in 1843; and in French, in 1846, at Leipsic and Paris.
To his great work, the Elements of International Law, Mr. Wheaton, in some form or other, gave the greater part of his life after his twenty-fifth year. For the duties of a
