l64 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [^462 



same right respectively was granted to the Catholic inhabi- 

 tants of the territories where the official cult was that of 

 the Protestant ruler. Stoerk denies to these cases the char- 

 acter of precedents for the modern practice of option. The 

 motive prompting the choice of emigration, rather than of 

 remaining under unacceptable conditions, was religious be- 

 lief, not political attachment to the state in question.-^ The 

 first case of option, as defined, he sees in the Peace of 

 Hubertsburg, between Frederic II of Prussia and Maria 

 Theresa of the Germanic Empire in the year 1763, at the 

 end of the third Silesian, the so-called Seven Years War." 

 Already Article III of the Peace of Berlin of July 28, 1742, 

 terminating the First Silesian War, provided for the terri- 

 tories ceded to Prussia the choice of emigration, with the 

 time allowance of five years. In Article X of the Treaty of 

 Hubertsburg of 1763, the right of free emigration from the 

 city and county of Graz ceded to Prussia was granted. This 

 emigration had to be eflfected within two years. No emi- 

 gration tax was to be levied.-' The request for emigration 

 within a time limit of from one to two years has become the 

 basic principle of the options granted in most of the treaties 

 of cession since that time. The first use of the term option 

 is found, according to Stoerk, in the Treaty of Elisson, con- 

 cerning the frontier rectifications between France and the 

 King of Spain in the year 1785. Articles VII of this Treaty 

 reads: "Afin d'eviter tout prejudice aux sujets des deux 

 souverains . . . il a ete convenu qu'ils auront une entiere 

 liberte de rester sous la domination dans laquelle ils se trou- 

 vent, ou de passer dans cclle du souverain dans le terri- 

 toire du quel se trouveront leurs possessions. Pour I'option 



2^ Stoerk, pp. 94-95. 



2* Art. xvii of the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697 gave to the inhabi- 

 tants of Strassburg the right of emigration with their belongings 

 and without an emigration tax. This grant has been recorded by 

 Calvo as the first instance of a clause of option (Wambaugh, p. 4, 

 note 4). But, as Stoerk points out, this concession can not be con- 

 sidered as a case of option for the reason that seventeen years had 

 elapsed since France had actually possessed herself of Strassburg 

 and had, during those years, held the inhabitants in an enforced 

 allegiance (Stoerk, pp. 97-98, note 3). 



2^ Ibid., pp. 96-97. 



