It has been said so often, that few perhaps wait to reflect whether it has been said with reason, that Mary, as an independent sovereign, was not amenable to any English jurisdiction. This, however, does not appear unquestionable. By one of those principles of law, which may be called natural, as forming the basis of a just and rational jurisprudence, every independent government is supreme within its own territory. Strangers, voluntarily resident within a state, owe a temporary allegiance to its sovereign, and are amenable to the jurisdiction of his tribunals; and this principle, which is perfectly conformable to natural law, has been extended by positive usage even to those who are detained in it by force. Instances have occurred very recently in England, when prisoners of war have suffered death for criminal offences; and if some have doubted the propriety of carrying such sentences into effect, where a penalty of unusual severity has been inflicted by our municipal law, few, I believe, would dispute the fitness of punishing a prisoner of war for wilful murder, in such a manner as the general practice of civil societies and the prevailing sentiments of mankind agree to point out. It is certainly true that an exception to this rule, incorporated with the positive law of nations, and established, no doubt, before the age of Elizabeth, has rendered the ambassadors of sovereign princes exempt, in all ordinary cases at least, from criminal process. Whether, however, an ambassador may not be brought to punishment for such a flagrant abuse of the confidence which is implied by receiving him, as a conspiracy against the life itself of the prince at whose court he resides, has been doubted by those writers who are most inclined to respect the privileges with which courtesy and convenience have invested him.[252] A sovereign, during a temporary residence in the territories of another, must of course possess as extensive an immunity as his representative. But that he might, in such circumstances, frame plots for the prince's assassination with impunity, seems to take for granted some principle that I do not apprehend.