punished according to the laws of the United States relating to such ships or vessels and offences nmitted on the high seas.'

Prescription.

Possession through Usucapion and Prescription Usnea ion and is the right obtained on territory after long, uninterrupted and undisputed public occupation, provided this occupation of the land have been peacefully effected, through a bona fide presumed abandonment on the part of the former owner, and not by usurpation or through taking undue advantage of his error, misapprehension or weakness, or when he has been driven from the possession by force majeure or by the violence of third parties. †

pli.

§ 33. Another mode of coming into possession The fail-accom of property or right, in time of peace, is the faitaccompli, which is the occupation of contested property by unexpected proceedings or surprise, with the aim of establishing a right of possession; thus placing the opposing party face to face with an accomplished fact which can be disputed only by force.

* Wheaton, Elem. of Intern. Law. Dana's Note 104, on Guano Islands, page 255. Halleck Intern, Law. Edit. Sh. Baker. 1878. Ch. VI. Vol. I. p. 139.

WHEATON.

† VATTEL. Droit des Gens. Liv. II. Chapter XI. Elem. of Intern. Law. Part II. §§ 164 and 165. PHILLIMORE. Comm. Intern. Law. Vol. I. Edit. 1879. Part III. Chap. 13. "L'usucapion et la prescription sont même, jusqu'à un certain point, plus necessaires entre étâts souverains qu'entre particuliers. En effet, les démêlés qui s'élèvent de nation à nation ont une tout autre importance que les querelles individuelles: ces dernières peuvent se règler devant les tribunaux, tandis que les conflicts internationaux abontissent trop souvent à la guerre; il faut donc, dans l'intérêt de la paix, comme dans celui de la bonne harmonie entre les nations et des progrès du genre humain, écarter tout ce qui pourrait jeter le trouble dans le droit de possession des souverain, lequel, larsqu'il a reçu, sans conteste, la consécration du temps, doit être regardé comme imprescriptible et légitime. S'il était permis, pour établir la possession primordiale d'un état, de remonter indéfinement les cours des anneés et de se perdre dans la nuit des temps les plus reculés, peu de souverains seraient sûrs de leur droits, et la paix ici-bas deviendrait impossible." CALVO. Le Droit Intern, Theor, et Prat. Edit. 1870. Vol. Î., page 289.

Possession taken through occupation on the principle of fait-accompli, can never claim prescription to legalize the right of property.

The fait-accompli is distinct from occupation or conquest effected by virtue of open war. Though both are based on the doctrine of "Might is Right," the latter is an assumption of power openly made with a fair chance of repulse, while taking possession by a fait-accompli, involves, unless forced upon a State by the necessity of securing its good rights against an aggressive party, all the immorality attaching to treacherous usurpation of

power.

CHAPTER VII.

COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.

nisation.

§34. The original meaning of the term Colony, Origin of Colo-as the latin word colonia, derived from the verb colo or colere (to till or cultivate the ground) and colonus (husbandman) indicate,-signified the transferring of people from one country to another for the purpose of cultivating the unhusbanded soil, and the allotting of lands to such emigrants for that purpose. These people were then called coloni. Hence the term Colonist. The meaning of the word Colony was, however, extended, so as to signify the country or place where such colonists settled. The meaning which we now attach to the word Colony is quite different from that given to the word as used in ancient history with regard to the Phoenician and Grecian settlements of emigrants. The term is now used, according to its most general modern acceptation, to designate various classes of the scattered territories of a State, situated outside the original boundaries of the parent State. The political constitution of such territories may differ from that of the latter, in matters of local legislation and internal finance, in conformity with the wants and degrees of civilization on the part of the original inhabitants of the soil, but such territories form nevertheless integral parts of the parent State, as a general Body-politic. On this head our present colonial system corresponds, to a remarkable degree, with the ancient Roman colonia, a system of organized municipalities which were situated outside the parent State, yet closely connected and responsible to its Central Government, and which made the same distinctions, in

according the privilege of Citizenship, as we practice now between the natives and the white population of our modern Colonies in the East.

The Phonecians were early settlers in the fertile island of Cyprus, opposite their own coast, but their colonies extended also along the North Coast of Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules, along the coast of Spain the Balearic islands, Sardinia and Sicily. Many of these soon threw off their dependence on the Mother Country and formed themselves centres of trade and colonization. From the Greek word Metropolis comes our expression Mother Country.

The earlier Greek colonies seem to have been founded on the same plan as those of the Phonicians, especially by the emigration taking place after the Troyan war, into the Ionian islands, Creta, Rhodes, Corcyra, Aegina, Cos, and the coasts of Asia-Minor, Byzantium, Selymbra, Heraclea and other places on the coasts of the Euxine.

Then came the Roman system of colonization, for political and economical purposes, which resembles more the modern type.

The Venetian system was like that of Rome. The Venetians ruled over the people by means of their colonies and garrisons. But while the aim of the Venetians was conquest and dominion, the Genoese, who took possession of most of their colonies, principally sought to extend their commercial establishments.

With the progress subsequently made in navigation and increasing communication with distant regions, the system of colonization entered a distinctly new phase. It was no more applied to the relations of people of nearly the same race and little differing from each other in degree of civilization, but colonization was now extended

to nations, vastly differing in race and intelligence and inferior in both of these respects to the colonizers. The preponderance of the latter, naturally resulted in the demoralization and the degeneration of the system, so that there was no more question of colonization but of the exploitation of countries, newly acquired through the suppression of the rights of the aborigines. This gave an immoral bias of arbitrary power and injustice to the colonial policy of the European States, from which it is but slowly recovering at the present time.

The European colonization of the 15th and 16th centuries exhibits, in the case of the newly discovered Western Hemisphere, aspects and results differing from colonization effected in the East. In the New World, European migration resulted, to a great extent, in the complete transplanting of the race, as well as the civilization of the respective parent-countries in the new possessions, and this by extinguishing the aborigines or by absorbing them in the conquering race. In the East, on the other hand, the European civilization, which Western nations brought with them, had but slow effect on the native remnants, left after centuries of stagnation, of what was once the height of the civilization of the human race.

Modern Colonial

§ 35. Colonial Policy in general kept equal Principles of pace with the civilization of the parent-countries. Policy. The Colonial and Maritime Powers of Europe and America view, at present, the occupation of or protectorate over native Islands or States from a different standpoint than that which jealousy and competition prescribed a few centuries ago, and nowhere has civilization shown greater power of development than in the Colonial sys