606 
be no conquest made ; and where 
conquest has not been made, or 
no longer exists, the right of de- 
manding territorial cessions can- 
not exist, since a claim cannot be 
made to retain that which one 
has not, or that which he no 
longer has. 
There can be no conquest where 
there is no state of war, and as 
you cannot take from him who 
has nothing, you can only make 
conquest of what a man _ pos- 
sesses; hence it follows, that in 
order to constitute the possibility 
of conquest there must have been 
war by the occupier on the pos- 
sessor, that is on the Sovereign ; 
right of possession of a country 
and Sovereignty being things in- 
separable or rather identical. 
If then you make war in a 
country, and against a number 
more or less considerable of the 
inhabitants of that country, while 
the Sovereign is excepted there- 
from, you do not make war on 
the country, the latter word being 
merely a trope by which the do- 
main is put for the possessor. A 
Sovereign, however, must be con- 
sidered as excepted from the war 
which foreigners carry on in this 
country, when they acknowledge 
him and maintain with him the 
accustomed relations of peace. 
The war is then made against 
men, to the rights of whom he 
who combats them cannot suc- 
ceed, because they have norights, 
and from whom it is impossible 
to conquer what does not belong 
to them. Neither the object nor 
the effect of such a war can be 
to make conquests, but to recover. 
He, however, who recovers that 
which does not belong to him, 
€annot recover it but for him 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1815. 
whom he acknowledges as the le- 
gitimate possessor. 
To entitle you to deem yourself 
at war with a country, without 
being so with him who has been 
previously acknowledged a Sove- 
reign, two things must necessa- 
rily happen: the one is that of 
ceasing to hold him as such, and 
to regard the sovereignty, as 
transferred to those whom you 
fight against, by the very act for 
which you fight against them ;— 
that is to say, you then recognize, 
pursue, and sanction those doc- 
trines which have overthrown so 
many thrones, shaken them all, 
and against which all Europe was 
under the necessity of arming 
itself; or, you must believe that 
- the sovereignty can be double 
while it is essentially one, and in- 
capable of division ; it may exist 
under different forms, be collec- 
tive or individual, but not each of 
these at once in the same country, 
which cannot have two Sovereigns 
at the same time. 
The Allied Powers, however, 
have neither done nor believed 
either the one or the other of 
these two things. 
They have considered the en- 
terprise of Buonaparte as the 
greatest crime that could be com- 
mitted by men, and the very at- 
tempt of which alone placed him 
without the law of nations. In 
his adherents they viewed only 
accomplices of that crime, whom 
it was necessary to combat, to put 
down, and punish, circumstances 
which irrefragably exclude every 
supposition that such men could 
naturally either acquire, or con- 
fer, or transmit any right. 
The Allied Powers have not, 
for an instant, ceased to recog~ 
