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making any alterations towards favouring or opening a 
commerce with other powers. 3. There are inltances of 
powers engaging by treaty not to carry on commerce, or 
not to extend their commerce, to the Eaft Indies. 4. 
With the exception of thefe three reftriftions, the com¬ 
merce and navigation to the Eaft Indies is entirely free 
to every nation. 
The freedom of commerce in its general fenfe being 
however too undefined to give to a nation all the advan¬ 
tages which it ought to derive from commercial intercourfe, 
the powers have been obliged from time to time to have 
recourfe to pofitive treaties for their mutual benefit; and, 
•whatever difference there may be in the generality, they 
moftly apply to the regulatingof three points: 1. Commerce 
in time of peace, a. The meafures to be purfued with 
refpeft to commerce and commercial fubjefts in cafe of a 
rupture between the two ftates. 3. The commerce of 
the contrafling power that may happen to remain neuter 
while the other contrafling party is at war with a third 
power. 
With refpeft to thefe treaties of commerce, on the firft 
point above Hated it is cuitomary, 1. To afcertain in ge¬ 
neral the privileges that the contrafling powers mutually 
grant to the refpeflive fubjefts of the other ; and a claufe 
is very often inferted, declaring that the other contraft- 
ing power (hall be confidered and treated as the tnojl fa¬ 
voured nation. 2. To enter into the particulars of the 
rights and privileges which fhall be enjoyed by fuch of 
their fubjecis who may happen to fojourn or refide in the 
territory of the other power, as well with regard to their 
property (and particularly as to impofts, the droit d'aubaine, 
or efcheat of the inheritance of a foreigner dying with¬ 
out leaving heirs in the country, contifcations, fequef- 
trations, and the like) as to their perfonal rights; and par¬ 
ticular care is conllantly taken to provide for the freeex- 
ercil'e of their religion; for their right to the benefit of 
the laws of the country, and for the fecurity of their com¬ 
mercial books, papers, and writings. 3. To enumerate 
fpecincally the different kinds of merchandife which-are 
to be admitted to be imported or exported, and at what 
cufloms or other duties. , 
With refpeft to the privileges and immunities, in cafe 
of a war or rupture between the contrafling powers, the 
great ftipulations are or ought to be, 1. An exemption 
from feizure of the perfon or effefts of the fubjecis refid- 
ing in the territory of the other contrafling power. 2. 
To fettle within what time they fhall remove with their 
property out of the territory ; or fix, 3. The conditions 
under which they may be fuffered to refide in the enemy’s 
country during the war, as was done by the fecond arti¬ 
cle of the treaty between England and France in 1786. 
In ftipulating for the rights to be enjoyed by neutrals, 
it is expedient, 1. To exempt their vefleis from embargo 
2. To afcertain with precifion what kinds of merchandife 
fhall be accounted contraband of war. 3. To agree as to 
the manner in which fhips or veffels may be fearched at 
fea ; and, 4. Perhaps to declare whether neutral bottoms 
are to make neutral goods or not. 
For the proteflion of commerce, nations frequently 
permit, either from ufage or cuftom, or pofitive treaty, 
other nations to fend confuls into their territories; but the 
cuftom of receiving them is not univerfally eftablifhed. 
The rights and powers of thefe confuls, where they are 
admitted, differ very materially, in different Hates. Many 
of the confuls out of Europe exercife a very extenfive 
jurifdiflion over the fubjefts of the fovereign or Hate by 
whom they are delegated. In Europe there are fome parts 
where the confuls exercife a civil jurifdiflion, more or 
lefs limited, over their fellow-fubjefts refiding there; in 
other parts they can exercife no more than a voluntary )u- 
rifdiftion ; while in others, and which feems to be the 
moll general cafe, their funflions are confined to watch 
over the commercial interefts of the Hate, and particularly 
the due obfervan-ce of all treaties of commerce, and to af- 
fili with their advice, interpolation, and good offices, thole 
of their nation whom commercial purfuits or connexions 
have led to the place where they have to exercife their 
authority. They are authorifed to execute thofe func¬ 
tions fometimes by virtue of credentials, but more fre¬ 
quently by fimple letters of provifion , and letters of recom¬ 
mendation. Thefe confuls are under the particular pro- 
teflion of the law of nations ; but they do not poffefs the 
high privileges and advantages that the eltabliffied cuftom 
amongft all civilized nations allows to ambaffadors and 
public minifters, either as to jurifdiflion, impofts, taxes, 
religion, or honours ; fo that it can be only in a very en¬ 
larged fenfe of the expreffion that they can be termed pub¬ 
lic minifters. The greater number of the confuls out of 
Europe approximate, however, more nearly to the rank 
of minifters; and in fafl fome of them are in feveral in- 
ftances minifters and confuls at the fame time. 
Confuls-general are alfo in fome cafes appointed : thefe 
are to officiate for feveral places at the fame time, or elfe 
they are placed at the head of feveral confuls. In other 
refpefts the funflions of confuls-general do not materially 
differ from thofe of fimple confuls. 
As commerce, in the ftriftnefs of the term, is applied 
only to that trade or traffic which is carred on by fea, in 
■contradiftinflion to that carried on by land ; it is now 
neceftary to (how what the law of nations is in refpeft of 
maritime rights, 
2. Maritime Rights. The ableft writers on the law 
of nations, for the purpofe of elucidating the rights of ma¬ 
ritime powers on the feas and waters in general, have 
drawn a very effential diltinftion between property and 
empire. Property, they juftly ftate, is a right to enjoy a 
thing exclufively, with an abfolute power to difpofe of it. 
Empire, a right to demand obedience, refpeft, and honour, 
from thofe who are fubjecl to it. 
Before the civilization of mankind and their reparation 
into diftinft focieties and ftates, they very reafonably con¬ 
ceived that every thing, and confequently the fea, the ri¬ 
vers, and waters of every defcription, belonged to all the 
people of the world in common. Then no one could call 
himl'elf the foie proprietor of any thing; for, to claim a 
foie property, the party mult, 1. Be able to hold it law¬ 
fully and have a good reafon for his exclufive pofieffion ; 
which reafon may be founded on the inutility of the thing 
if its ufe remained in common, or on the fecurity of the 
poffeffor’s property, already lawfully acquired, which may 
require an exclufive pofieffion of fomething, which, of it- 
felf, he otherwife would not want. 2. It mult have been 
effeftualiy polfeffed, that is to fay, feized with an inten¬ 
tion to be kept. 3. The claimant nmft be in a fituation 
to maintain the poffeftion of the thing claimed. 
Empire may be annexed to property, (as in the cafe 
with domains;) and it may alfo be leparated from it, and 
may extend over that which is the property of others, or 
which belongs to no one in particular, but remains in the 
primitive ftate of poffeftion in common. But all empire, 
or dominion, when feparated from property, mull be taken 
to have originated in the confent, either exprefs or im¬ 
plied, of thofe over whom it is to be exercifed. 
When a ftate acquires a territorial pofieffion, and efca- 
blifties its empire over it, all that is comprehended in fuch 
dift-rift belongs to the nation. The lakes, the rivers, the 
ftreams which feparate the land, are then the property of 
the ftate or nati m, and under the empire of the fovereign. 
A nation may alfo be underftood as lawfully occupying 
the rivers on its frontiers, even to the oppofite banks; 
but, if thefe banks are occupied by another ftate or na¬ 
tion, and if it be impoffible to afcertain which of the two 
has liad the prior pofieffion ; each, in that cafe, having 
equal pretenfions; it ought to be prefutned that both took 
pofieffion at the fame inftant, and confequently that they 
met in the middle. Every nation, therefore, has a right 
to property and dominion as far as the middle of all the 
lakes and rivers that are fituated on its frontiers ; at leaft 
ad medium filum aqua, till the contrary has been proved, or 
till another divifion has been agreed on. 
Wheq 
