Embargoes in anticipation of war have long since fallen into disuse, and it is now customary on the outbreak of war for the belligerents even to grant a respite to the enemy's trading vessels to leave their ports at the outbreak of war, so that neither ship nor cargo is any longer exposed to embargo. This has been confirmed in one of the Hague Conventions of 1907 (convention relative to the status of enemy merchant ships at the outbreak of hostilities, Oct. 18, 1907), which provides that "when a merchant ship belonging to one of the belligerent powers is at the commencement of hostilities in an enemy port, _it is desirable_ that it should be allowed to depart freely, either immediately, or after a reasonable number of days of grace, and to proceed, after being furnished with a pass, direct to its port of destination, or any other port indicated" (art. 1). The next article of the same convention limits the option apparently granted by the use of the word "desirable," providing that "a merchant ship unable, owing to circumstances of _force majeure_, to leave the enemy port within the period contemplated (in the previous article), or which was not allowed to leave, _cannot_ be confiscated. The belligerent may only detain it, without compensation, but subject to the obligation of restoring it after the war, or requisition it on payment of compensation" (art. 2). (T. Ba.) EMBASSY, the office of an ambassador, or, more generally, the mission on which an ambassador of one power is sent to another, or the body of official personages attached to such a mission, whether temporary or permanent. Hence "embassy" is often quite loosely used of any mission, diplomatic or otherwise. The word is also used of the official residence of an ambassador. "Embassy" was originally "ambassy," the form used in the 17th century, but by the time of Johnson considered quite obsolete. "Ambassy" is from the O. Fr. _ambassée_, derived through such forms as the Port. _ambassada_, Ital. _ambasciata_ from a lost Med. Lat. _ambactiata_, _ambactiare_, to go on a mission. (See further AMBASSADOR, EXTERRITORIALITY and DIPLOMACY.) EMBER DAYS and EMBER WEEKS, the four seasons set apart by the Western Church for special prayer and fasting, and the ordination of clergy, known in the medieval Church as _quatuor tempora_, or _jejunia quatuor temporum_. The Ember weeks are the complete weeks next following Holy Cross day (September 14), St Lucy's day (December 13), the first Sunday in Lent and Whitsun day. The Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays of these weeks are the Ember days distinctively, the following Sundays being the days of ordination. These dates are given in the following memorial distich with a frank indifference to quantity and metre-- "Vult Crux, Lucia, Cinis, Charismata dia Quod det vota pia quarta sequens feria."