vided that the United States of the Ionian Islands shall regulate, with the approbation of the protecting power, their interior organization: and to give all parts of this organization the consistency and necessary action, His Britannic Majesty will devote particular attention to the legislation and general administration of those States. He will appoint a Lord High Commissioner, who shall be invested with the necessary authority for this purpose. The fourth article declares, that, in order to carry into effect without delay these stipulations, the Lord High Commissioner shall regulate the forms of convoking a legislative assembly, of which he shall direct the operations, in order to frame a new constitutional charter for the State, to be ratified by His Britannic Majesty. The fifth article stipulates that, in order to secure to the inhabitants of the United States of the Ionian Islands the advantages resulting from the high protection under which they are placed, as well as for the exercise of the rights incident to this protection, His Britannic Majesty shall have the right of occupying and garrisoning the fortresses and places of the said States. Their military forces shall be under the orders of the commander of the troops of His Britannic Majesty. The sixth article provides that a special convention with the government of the United States of the Ionian Islands shall regulate, according to their revenues, the object relating to the maintenance of the fortresses and the payment of the British garrisons, and their numbers in the time of peace. The same convention shall also ascertain the relations which are to subsist between this armed force and the Ionian government. The seventh article declares that the merchant flag of the Ionian Islands shall bear, together with the colours and arms it bore previous to 1807, those which His Britannic Majesty may grant as a sign of the protection under which the United Ionian States are placed; and to give more weight to this protection, all the Ionian ports are declared, as to honorary and military rights, to be under the British jurisdiction; commercial agents only, or consuls charged only with the care of

§ 35a.

Status of Ionian citizens.

commercial relations, shall be accredited to the United States of the Ionian Islands; and they shall be subject to the same regulations to which consuls and commercial agents are subject in other independent States (1).

On comparing this act with the stipulations of the treaty of Vienna relating to the republic of Cracow, a material distinction will be perceived between the nature of the respective sovereignty granted to each of these two States. The "free, independent, and strictly neutral city of Cracow" was completely sovereign, though under the protection of Austria, Prussia, and Russia; whilst the Ionian Islands, although they formed "a single free and independent State," under the protection of Great Britain, were closely connected with the protecting power both by the treaty itself and by the constitution framed in pursuance of its stipulations, in such a manner as materially to abridge both its internal and external sovereignty. In practice, the United States of the Ionian Islands were not only constantly obedient to the commands of the protecting power, but they were governed as a British colony by a Lord High Commissioner named by the British crown, who exercised the entire executive, and participated in the legislative, power with the Senate and legislative Assembly, under the constitution of the State (m).

During the Crimean war two Ionian vessels were captured by British ships on a voyage to Taganrog, and their condemnation was demanded on the ground that Ionians were in the same position as British subjects as regards trade with the enemy. The Court held that the status of the Ionian Islands, and their relation to Great Britain, were regulated exclusively by the Treaty of Paris, 1815. That Great Britain had the power to make peace or war for them, but that the intention to place them in a state of war must be clearly expressed, as they did not become so ex necessitate from Great Britain being at war. The ships were therefore released, as the Ionians, being deemed neither British subjects nor allies, were entitled to trade with Russia during the war, England never having expressly declared the Islands to be at

(7) Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tome ii. p. 663.

(m) Martens, Précis du Droit des Gens, liv. i. ch. 2, § 20. Note a, 3me édition.

war with Russia (n). The Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece in 1864, and have since ceased to exist as a semi-sovereign State (0).

§ 36. sovereign

Besides the free city of Cracow and the United States Other semiof the Ionian Islands, several other semi-sovereign or States." dependent States are recognised by the existing public law of Europe. These are:

1. The principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia, under the suzeraineté of the Ottoman Porte and the protectorate of Russia, as defined by the successive treaties between these two powers, confirmed by the Treaty of Adrianople, 1829 (p).

tectorate.

$36a. The Russian protectorate over these provinces ceased in 1854, and Cession of the privileges accorded to them by the Sultan were thenceforward Russian proplaced under the collective guarantee of the five great Powers (q). By Union of a convention entered into in 1858, between Turkey and the Powers, Moldavia and Wallachia. Moldavia and Wallachia were placed under the suzerainty of the Sultan, but carried on their own administration freely, and exempt from any interference of the Sublime Porte, within the limits stipulated by the agreement of the guaranteeing Powers with the Suzerain Court. An annual tribute was paid to Turkey by each province. The executive power was vested in a Hospodar, and in the event of any of the immunities of the principalities being violated, the Hospodar was first to represent this to the Suzerain Power, and if not attended to, he might then communicate with the guaranteeing Powers. The Hospodar was represented at Constantinople by diplomatic agents (Capou-Kiaga) accepted by the Porte (r). In 1861, Moldavia and Wallachia were formed into one Principality, called Roumania. In 1877, Roumania joined Russia in the war with Turkey, and at the end of this war she declared herself independent of the Porte. This independence was recognised and confirmed by the Powers in the Treaty of Berlin, and Roumania is now no longer a semi-sovereign, but has become an independent State (s), and was declared a monarchy in 1881.

§ 36b. The history of Servia has been very similar. After various abortive Servia and efforts she at length attained to complete independence, which the Montenegro. Powers confirmed at the same time as that of Roumania (t), and in

(n) [The Ionian ships, 1 Spinks, 193. See also Forsyth, Cases and Opinions, p. 472.]

(o) [Hertslet, Map of Europe, vol. iii. p. 1610.]

(p) Wheaton's Hist. of the Law of Nations, pp. 556–560.

(9) [Hertslet, Map of Europe by

Treaty, vol. ii. p. 1225.]

(r) [Convention of 19th Aug. 1858. Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, vol. ii. p. 1329.]

(s) [Treaty of Berlin, Art. xliii. Parl. Papers, Turkey, 1878, No. 44, p. 25. See Appendix F.]

(t) [Art. xxxiv.]

Bulgaria.

Monaco.

Polizza.

The former
German
Empire.

Egypt.

1882 the prince assumed the title of king. The Treaty of Berlin also declared Montenegro to be an independent State (u).

A new semi-sovereign State was created by this Treaty, to which the name of Bulgaria was given. It has a local government and a national militia, but is tributary to the Sultan. The Prince is elected by the people, but confirmed by the Porte with the assent of the Powers. The Sultan is not permitted to keep his army in the province (v).

2. The Principality of Monaco, which had been under the protectorate of France from 1641 until the French Revolution, was replaced under the same protection by the Treaty of Paris, 1814, (Art. 3,) for which was substituted that of Sardinia by the Treaty of Paris, 1815, (Art. 1,)(x).

In 1861, the Prince of Monaco sold a portion of his territory to France, and the principality now consists of little more than the town of Monaco itself. It still continues as a semi-sovereign State (y).

3. The Republic of Polizza in Dalmatia, under the protectorate of Austria (2).

4. The former Germanic Empire was composed of a great number of States, which, although enjoying what was called territorial superiority, (Landeshoheit,) could not be considered as completely sovereign, on account of their subjection to the legislative and judicial power of the emperor and the empire. These were all absorbed in the sovereignty of the States composing the late Germanic Confederation, with the exception of the Lordship of Kniphausen, on the North Sea, which retained its former feudal relation to the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, and might, therefore, have been considered as a semiSovereign State (a).

5. Egypt had been held by the Ottoman Porte, during the dominion of the Mamelukes, rather as a vassal

(u) [Art. xxvi.]

(v) [Arts i. to xii. See also Appendix F as to this Treaty; also §§ 70a et seq. infra.]

(x) Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tom. ii. pp. 5, 687.

(y) [Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, vol. ii. p. 1462.]

(*) Martens, Précis du Droit des Gens, liv. i. ch. 2, § 20. [There is no longer any question as to Polizza. It is now absorbed into Austria. Heffter, § 20, n. 2; Wheaton, by Lawrence, n. 26.]

(a) Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht, § 19.

State than as a subject province. The attempts of Mehemet Ali, after the destruction of the Mamelukes, to convert his title as a prince-vassal into absolute independence of the Sultan, and even to extend his sway over other adjoining provinces of the empire, produced the convention concluded at London the 15th July, 1840, between four of the great European powers,-Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia,-to which the Ottoman Porte acceded. In consequence of the measures subsequently taken by the contracting parties for the execution of this treaty, the hereditary Pashalick of Egypt was finally vested by the Porte in Mehemet Ali, and his lineal descendants, on the payment of an annual tribute to the Sultan, as his suzerain. All the treaties and all the laws of the Ottoman Empire were to be applicable to Egypt, in the same manner as to other parts of the empire. But the Sultan consented that, on condition of the regular payment of this tribute, the Pasha should collect, in the name and as the delegate of the Sultan, the taxes and imposts legally established, it being, moreover, understood that the Pasha should defray all the expenses of the civil and military administration; and that the military and naval force maintained by him should always be considered as maintained for the service of the State (b).

36c. The international position of Egypt was recently discussed by Sir R. Present status Phillimore in the Admiralty Court. After examining all the firmans of Egypt. of the Porte, and the other authorities on the subject, his lordship said that "the result of the historical inquiry as to the status of His Highness the Khedive, is as follows: That in the firmans, whose authority upon this point appears to be paramount, Egypt is invariably spoken of as one of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire; that the Egyptian army is regulated as part of the military force of the Ottoman Empire; that the taxes are imposed and levied in the name of the Porte; that the treaties of the Porte are binding upon Egypt, and that she has no separate jus legationis; that the flag for both the army and the navy is the flag of the Porte. All these facts, according to the unanimous opinion of accredited writers, are inconsistent and incompatible with those conditions of sovereignty which are necessary to entitle a country to be ranked as one among the great community of States (c). The

(b) Wheaton, Hist. Law of Nations, pp. 572-583.

(c) [The Charkieh, L. R. 4 A. & E. 84.]