STATE PAPERS OMITTED. 
equal to two thirds of what was 
added to old France by the treaty 
ofthe 30th of May, and in which 
should be compr hended the for- 
tresses of Condé, Philippeville, 
Marienbourg, Givet and Charle- 
mont, Sarre-Louis, Landau, and 
forts Joux and L’Ecluse. 
2. The demolition of the for- 
tress of Huninguen. 
3. The payment of two sums: 
the one of 600 millions, under 
the denomination of indemnity ; 
the other of 200 millions, to 
serve for the construction of for- 
tresses in the countries contermi- 
nous with France. 
4, The military occupation, 
during sever years, of the for- 
tresses of Valenciennes, Bouchain, 
Cambray, Maubeuge, Landrecy, 
Lequesnoy, Avesne,  Rocroy, 
Longwi, Thionville, Bitche, and 
the téte-du-pont of Fort Louis, as 
well as of a line along the north- 
ern and eastern frontiers, by an 
army of 150,000 men, under the 
orders of a General nominated 
by the Allies, and to be subsisted 
by France. 
His Majesty, ardently desirous 
of hastening as far as lies in his 
power, the conclusion of an ar- 
rangement, the delay of which 
has caused to his people so many 
evils which he daily deplores, and 
has prolonged in France, and still 
prolongs, that internal agitation 
which has excited the solicitude 
of the Powers, but still more ani- 
mated bya desire to'make known his 
good dispositions tothe sovereigns 
his Allies, has wished that the 
undersigned should communicate 
without delay to their Excellen- 
cies the.Plenipotentiaries of the 
four Courts, the principles on 
which he thinks the megociation 
605 
ought to be prosecuted, relatively 
to each of the bases proposed, by 
ordering the undersigned to pre- 
sent the following considerations 
on the first of these bases,—that 
respecting territorial cessions,— 
in which that important object is 
examined, in the twofold rela- 
tions of justice and utility, which 
it would be so dangerous to se- 
parate. 
The want of a common Judge, 
having authority and power to 
terminate the disputes of Sove- 
reigns, leaves no other course 
when they cannot come to an ami- 
cable agreement, but that of re- 
ferring the decision of such dis- 
putes to the fate of arms, which 
constitutes between them thestate 
of war. If in this state, posses- 
sions of the one are occupied by 
the forces of the other, these 
possessions are under conquest, 
by right of which the occupier 
acquires the full enjoyment of 
them during all the time that he 
occupies them, or until the re- 
establishment of peace. He is 
entitled to demand as a condition 
of that re-establishment, that the 
territory which he occupies should 
be ceded to him in whole or in 
part ; and the cession, when it 
has taken place, transforming the 
enjoyment into property, froma 
mere occupier of it he becomes 
the Sovereign. This is a mode 
of acquisition which the law of 
nations authorises. 
But the state of war, conquest, 
and the right of exacting cessions, 
are things which proceed from 
and depend upon each other, in 
such way that the first is an ab- 
solute condition of the second, 
and the latter of the third ; for 
out of the state of war, there can 
