312 AVES ISLAND. 



fluence, the result is, 3dly, that the State may exclude eveiy stranger, 

 not only from the occupation of things which have no owner, (adespota,) 

 and from the use of its territory in cases of necessity, but also from 

 any other use that might be made of them, without the other party 

 imflicting any injury, in any manner, upon him ; such, for instance, 

 as in cases of transit or residence, of commerce, settlement, or acquisi- 

 tion. The State is free not to allow such uses save under certain con- 

 ditions and restrictions, such, for instance, as that of allegiance, of 

 the payment of certain imposts, of subjection during sojourn in the 

 territory to the laws of the land, particularly to the right of escheat, 

 (droit d'aubaine,) to treatment as a temporary subject, &c. If, in 

 some States, policy, self-interest, or the humanity of the government 

 have induced it not rigorously to exercise those rights ; foreigners can- 

 not, therefore, require such deference as a matter of right, unless by 

 virtue of a convention, which cannot be supplied even by relations of 

 good neighborhood. To arrogate such a use to one's self would be to' 

 violate territory and incur a treatment appropriate to an offender." 



[These passages are extracted from Kliiber, Modern Law of Nations 

 of Europe, tit. 2, section 1^ chap. 1, property of the State.] 



''Every nation has a right, peculiar to itself, as well as exclusive, 

 to the dominion of the whole of the territory which it occupies. This 

 right embraces two things: 1st. The domain, by virtue of which the 

 nation may use^ for itself alone, the territory for its own wants, dis- 

 pose of it, and draw from it all the advantages of which it is capable. 

 2dly. The empire, or the right of sovereign command, by which it 

 ordains and controls, at will, everything that transpires in the land. 



"The right of absolute domain is necessarily a peculiar and exclu- 

 sive one; because, if one have a full right to dispose, as he pleases, of 

 a thing, it follows that others have obsolutely no right to that thing; 

 for, if the latter had any, the former could not freely dispose thereof. 

 The private domain of individuals may in various ways be limited and 

 restricted by the laws of the State — and it is invariably so by the emi- 

 nent domain of the sovereign — but the general domain of the nation is 

 full and absolute, seeing that there exists no authority on earth from 

 which it can receive any limitation. As a consequence, therefore, it 

 excludes all right on the part of foreigners ; and, as the rights of one 

 nation demand respect at the hands of other nations, so no nation can 

 claim any right to the country of another nation, nor dispose of it or 

 of anything which it contains, without the consent of the latter 

 nation. The national domain, by a lawful title, extends over what- 

 soever the nation may possess. It embraces its former and original 

 possessions and all the acquisitions which it may have secured by titles 

 just in themselves or admitted as such among the nations, as by 

 cessions, purchases, conquests in lawful Avar, &c. And by possessions 

 of a nation, we mean not the lands alone, but also all the rights 

 which that nation enjoys." (Vattel, Law of Nations, lib. 2, cap. 7.) 



' ' When a nation has duly occupied a territory the right of property 

 which, ipso facto, it acquires to all it parts, authorizes their use to the 

 exclusion of all strangers, and the disposal thereof in any manner, 

 provided it shall not injure the rights of third parties." (Marten's 

 Law of Nations, tome 1.) 



