[4] See also instructions to consuls prepared by the Board of Trade and approved by the secretary of state for foreign affairs. "CONSULATE OF THE SEA," a celebrated collection of maritime customs and ordinances (see also Sea Laws) in the Catalan language, published at Barcelona in the latter part of the 15th century. Its proper title is _The Book of the Consulate_, or in Catalan, _Lo Libre de Consolat_, the name being derived from the fact that it embodied the rules of law followed in the maritime cities of the Mediterranean coast by the commercial judges known generally as consuls (q.v.). The earliest extant edition of the work, which was printed at Barcelona in 1494, is without a title-page or frontispiece, but it is described by the above-mentioned title in the epistle dedicatory prefixed to the table of contents. The only known copy of this edition is preserved in the National Library in Paris. The epistle dedicatory states that the work is an amended version of the _Book of the Consulate_, compiled by Francis Celelles with the assistance of numerous shipmasters and merchants well versed in maritime affairs. According to a statement made by Capmany in his _Codigo de los costumbras maritimas de Barcelona_, published at Madrid in 1791, there was extant to his knowledge in the last century a more ancient edition of the _Book of the Consulate_, printed in semi-Gothic characters, which he believed to be of a date prior to 1484. This is the earliest period to which any historical record of the _Book of the Consulate_ being in print can be traced back. There are, however, two Catalan MSS. preserved in the National Library in Paris, the earliest of which, being MS. Espagnol 124, contains the two first treatises which are printed in the _Book of the Consulate_ of 1494, and which are the most ancient portion of its contents, written in a hand of the 14th century, on paper of that century. The subsequent parts of this MS. are on paper of the 15th century, but there is no document of a date more recent than 1436. The later of the two MSS., being MS. Espagnol 56, is written throughout on paper of the 15th century, and in a hand of that century, and it purports, from a certificate on the face of the last leaf, to have been executed under the superintendence of Peter Thomas, a notary public, and the scribe of the Consulate of the Sea at Barcelona.