"It is not for me to attempt a theme which has perhaps been exhausted by these great writers. I am indeed much less called upon to display the worth and usefulness of the law of nations than to vindicate myself from presumption in attempting a subject which has been already handled by so many masters. For the purpose of that vindication it will be necessary to sketch a ver y short and slight account (for such in this place it must unavoidably be) of the progress and present state of the science and of that succession of able writers who have gradually brought it to its present perfection."