those taxes, and contribution is made accordingly, or you are acquiring proprety, and are at war, having the rights of belligerents, not being treated as mere rebels by persons who say they are the authorized government of the country. Other nations can have nothing to do with that matter. They say we are bound to protect our subjects who treat with the existing government; and we must give to those subjects, in our country, every right which the government de facto can give to them, and must not allow the succeeding government to assert any right as against the contracts which have been entered into by the government de facto; but, as expressed by Lord Cranworth in the case referred to, they must succeed in every respect to the property as they find it, and subject to all the conditions and liabilities to which it is subject and by which they are bound. Otherwise, I do not see any answer to Mr. James's illustration, and I do not see why there should not have been a bill filed to have the Alabama delivered up; * **because on the theory of the present plaintiffs, it was their property just as much as their cotton is now. If the case had been this (and it is the only case I can consider as making any difference, but that difference would be fatal to the plaintiffs' case in another point of view): if they had been a set of marauders, a set of robbers (as was said to be the case in the kingdom of Naples, truly or untruly), devastating the country, and acquiring property in that way, and then affecting to deal with your subjects in England, it would not be the United States, but the individuals who had been robbed and suffered, who could come as plaintiffs. The United States could only come to claim this because it has been raised by public contribution; and although the United States, who are now the government de facto and de jure, claim it as public property, yet it would not be public property unless it was raised, as I have said, by exercising the rights of government, and not by means of mere robbery and violence.

"I confess, therefore, I have so little doubt, that this agreement is one that would be binding on the plaintiffs, that I cannot act against these gentlemen without securing to them the reasonable benefit of this agreement; and I cannot put them under any terms which would exclude them from the reasonable benefit of what they are entitled to, and must be held entitled to, as I think, at the hearing of the cause."

[The Vice Chancellor then proceeds to decree that the cotton was now the property of the United States Government, but that they must take it subject to the obligations entered into respecting it by the de facto Confederate Government.

The defendant Prioleau was appointed receiver, with power to sell

the cotton, but he was required to give security for its value ultra the 20,0007., the amount of the defendant's lien.1]

SECTION 8.-TERRITORIAL WATERS OF A STATE.

(a) Rivers.

OPINION OF WHEATON.

(Wheaton's International Law, 3d Ed., 242.)

"The territory of the state includes the lakes, seas, and rivers, entirely inclosed within its limits. The rivers which flow through the territory also form a part of the domain from their sources to their mouths, or as far as they flow within the territory, including the bays or estuaries formed by their junction with the sea. *

*

"Things of which the use is inexhaustible, such as the sea and running water, cannot be so appropriated as to exclude others from using these elements in any manner which does not occasion a loss

1 In the case of the United States of America v. McRae, 1869, L. R. 8 Eq. 69, JAMES, V. C., held, "that, upon the suppression of a rebellion, the restored legitimate government is entitled, as of right, to all moneys, goods, and treasure which were public property of the government at the time of the outbreak, such right being in no way affected by the wrongful seizure of the property by the usurping government.

"But with respect to property which has been voluntarily contributed to, or acquired by, the insurrectionary government in the exercise of its usurped authority, and has been impressed in its hands with the character of public property, the legitimate government is not, on its restoration, entitled by title paramount, but as successor only (and to that extent recognizing the authority) of the displaced usurping government; and in seeking to recover such property from an agent of the displaced government can only do so to the same extent, and subject to the same rights and obligations, as if that government had not been displaced and was itself proceeding against the agent.

"Therefore, a bill by the United States Government, after the suppression of the rebellion, against an agent of the late Confederate Government, for an account of his dealings in respect of the Confederate loan, which he was employed to raise in this country [England], was dismissed with costs, in the absence of proof that any property to which the plaintiffs were entitled in their own right, as distinguished from their right as successors of the Confederate Government, ever reached the hands of the defendant, and on the plaintiff declining to have the account taken on the same footing as if taken between the Confederate Government and the defendant as the agent of such government, and to pay what, on the footing of such account might be found due from them." (Quoted from 2 Phillimore's International Law, 154.)

or inconvenience to the proprietor. This is what is called an innocent use. Thus we have seen that the jurisdiction possessed by one nation over sounds, straits, and other arms of the sea, leading through its own territory to that of another, or to other seas common to all nations, does not exclude others from the right of innocent passage through these communications. The same principle is applicable to rivers flowing from one state through the territory of another into the sea, or into the territory of a third state. The right of navigating, for commercial purposes, a river which flows through the territories of different states, is common to all the nations inhabiting the different parts of its banks; but this right of innocent passage being what the text writers call an imperfect right, its exercise is necessarily modified by the safety and convenience of the state affected by it, and can only be effectually secured by mutual convention regulating the mode of its exercise."

THE NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

(Wheaton's International Law, 3d Ed., 247.)

"By the treaty of peace concluded at Paris, in 1763, between France, Spain, and Great Britain, the province of Canada was ceded to Great Britain by France, and that of Florida to the same power by Spain, and the boundary between the French and British possessions in North America was ascertained by a line drawn through the middle of the river Mississippi from its source to the Iberville, and from thence through the latter river and the lakes of Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea. The right of navigating the Mississippi was at the same time secured to the subjects of Great Britain from its source to the sea, and the passages in and out of its mouth, without being stopped, or visited, or subjected to the payments of any duty whatsoever. The province of Louisiana was soon afterwards ceded by France to Spain; and by the treaty of Paris, 1783, Florida was retroceded to Spain by Great Britain. The independence of the United States was acknowledged, and the right of navigating the Mississippi was secured to the citizens of the United States. and the subjects of Great Britain by the separate treaty between these powers. But Spain having become thus possessed of both banks of the Mississippi at its mouth, and a considerable distance above its mouth, claimed its exclusive navigation below the point where the southern boundary of the United States struck the river. This claim was resisted, and the right to participate in the navigation of

the river from its source to the sea was insisted on by the United States, under the treaties of 1763 and 1783, as well as by the law of nature and nations. The dispute was terminated by the treaty of San Lorenzo el Real, in 1795 by the 4th article of which His Catholic Majesty agreed that the navigation of the Mississippi, in its whole breadth, from its source to the ocean, should be free to the citizens of the United States; and by the 22d article, they were permitted to deposit their goods at the port of New Orleans, and to export them from thence, without paying any other duty than the hire of the warehouses. The subsequent acquisition of Louisiana and Florida by the United States having included within their territory the whole river from its source to the Gulf of Mexico, and the stipulation in the treaty of 1783, securing to British subjects a right to participate in its navigation, not having been renewed by the treaty of Ghent, in 1814, the right of navigating the Mississippi is now vested exclusively in the United States.

"The right of the United States to participate with Spain in the navigation of the river Mississippi, was rested by the American Government on the sentiment written in deep characters on the heart of man, that the ocean is free to all men, and its rivers to all its inhabitants. This natural right was found to be universally acknowledged and protected in all tracts of country, united under the same political society, by laying the navigable rivers open to all their inhabitants. When these rivers enter the limits of another society, if the right of the upper inhabitants to descend the stream was in any case obstructed, it was an act of force by a stronger society against a weaker, condemned by the judgment of mankind. * * *

"If the appeal was to the law of nature and nations, as expressed by writers on the subject, it was agreed by them, that even if the river, where it passes between Florida and Louisiana, were the exclusive right of Spain, still an innocent passage along it was a natural right in those inhabiting its borders above. It would, indeed, be what those writers call an imperfect right, because the modification of its exercise depends, in a considerable degree, on the conveniency of the nation through which they were to pass. But it was still a right, as real as any other right however well defined; and were it to be refused, or to be so shackled by regulations not necessary for the peace or safety of the inhabitants, as to render its use impracticable to us, it would then be an injury, of which we should be entitled to demand redress. The right of the upper inhabitants to use this navigation was the counterpart to that of those possessing the shores below, and founded in the same natural relations with the soil and water.

"It was a principle, too, that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow the end. Thus a right to navigate a river draws to it a right to moor vessels to its shores, to land on them in cases of distress, or for other necessary purposes, etc. This principle was founded in natural reason, was evidenced by the common sense of mankind, and declared by the writers before quoted." (Jefferson's instructions to U. S. ministers in Spain, March 18, 1792. Waite's State Papers, vol. x. pp. 135-140.)

THE NAVIGATION OF THE ST. LAWRENCE.

(Wheaton's International Law, 3d Ed., 252.)

"The relative position of the United States and Great Britain in respect to the navigation of the great northern lakes and the river St. Lawrence, appears to be similar to that of the United States and Spain, previously to the cession of Louisiana and Florida, in respect to the Mississippi; the United States being in possession of the southern shores of the lakes and the river St. Lawrence to the point where their northern boundary line strikes the river, and Great Britain, of the northern shores of the lakes and the river in its whole extent to the sea, as well as of the southern banks of the river from the latitude 45° north to its mouth.

"The claim of the people of the United States, of a right to navigate the St. Lawrence to and from the sea, was, in 1826, the subject of discussion between the American and British Governments.

"On the part of the United States Government, this right is rested on the same grounds of natural right and obvious necessity which had formerly been urged in respect to the river Mississippi. The dispute between different European powers respecting the navigation of the Scheldt, in 1784, was also referred to in the correspondence on this subject, and the case of that river was distinguished from that of the St. Lawrence by its peculiar circumstances. Among others, it is known to have been alleged by the Dutch, that the whole course of the two branches of this river which passed within the dominions of Holland was entirely artificial; that it owed its existence to the skill and labor of Dutchmen; that its banks had been erected and maintained by them at a great expense. Hence, probably, the motive for that stipulation in the treaty of Westphalia, that the lower Scheldt, with the canals of Sas and £win, and other