be considered as a kind of interregnum which has interrupted the power of the true proprietor, but ensures to the putative proprietor the fruits of his management while he was in full authority (ƒ).

CCXCII. Günther seems to admit the position of Grotius, but asserts that the honest possessor may set off the costs of the improvements which he has effected, against the emoluments which he has received (g). Heffter takes, in effect, the same view of the matter as Barbeyrac, but without referring to him (h). Heffter founds his opinion upon the position, that the silence of the true proprietor, during the time the honest possessor was in authority, ought to secure to the latter his gains; and Barbeyrac acutely observes, what Thomasius, who followed in the wake of Grotius and Puffendorf, is obliged in his Commentary on Huber's work (i) (De Jure Civitatis) to admit, "que, quand il s'agit de voir si un possesseur de bonne foi s'est enrichi par la possession de la chose même, ou par la jouissance "des revenus qui en proviennent, c'est un examen sujet à "des difficultés infinies, et dont on ne peut presque venir " à bout."

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CCXCIII. From the practice of nations with respect to this matter in time of peace, but little aid is to be borrowed for either argument. The 13th Article, however, of the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, though it may be said more properly to refer to indemnification due from a wrong-doer to a lawful owner, may be mentioned here: "Et in quantum, per aucto"ritatem Domini Regis Christianissimi Dominus Rex Magnæ "Britanniæ impeditus fuerit, quominus frueretur reditibus, "juribus et commodis tam principatûs sui Aransionensis quam "aliorum suorum Dominiorum, quæ post conclusum Tracta"tum Neomagensem, usque ad declarationem præsentis belli

(f) Barbeyrac on Puffendorf, de Jure Nat. et Gent. 1. iv. c. xiii. s. 3. Ibid. on Grotius, de Jure B. et P. 1. ii. c. x. s. 2. (g) Günther, vol. ii. p. 214.

(h) Heffter, 73, n. 1.

(1) Barbeyrac on Grotius, 1. ii. c. x. p. 391 (notis).

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"sub dominatione prædicti Regis Christianissimi fuerunt, prædictus Dominus Rex Christianissimus Regi Magnæ "Britanniæ restituit et restitui efficiet realiter cum effectu "et cum interesse debito, omnes istos reditus, jura et com" moda secundum declarationes et verificationes coram dictis "Commissariis faciendas "(k).

CCXCIV. Property may be taken, without consent, from an individual by an act of the law, and a valid title. conveyed to another owner; so by conquest-jure victoriæ -followed by treaty, property may be taken from one State and conveyed to another; but this will be discussed at greater length in another part of this work.

CCXCV. Property may also become legally extinct by suffering a change of character, by being placed among things extra commercium, as will be explained in the next chapter.

CHAPTER XVII.

SLAVES AND THE SLAVE TRADE.

CCXCVI. THERE is a kind of property which it is equally unlawful for States as for Individuals to possessproperty in men.

A being endowed with will, intellect, passion, and conscience, cannot be acquired and alienated, bought and sold, by his fellow beings, like an inanimate or an unreflecting and irresponsible thing (a).

CCXCVII. The Christian world has slowly but irrevocably arrived at the attainment of this great truth; and its sound has at last gone out into all lands, and its voice into the ends of the world (b).

International Law has for some time forbidden the captive of war to be sold into slavery. Of late years it has made a further step; it now holds that the colour of the man does not affect the application of the principle. The black man is no more capable of being a chattel than the white man. The negro and the European have equal rights; neither is

(a) “Si vinxero hominem liberum ita ut eum possideam, an omnia quæ is possidebat, ego possideam per illum? Respondit si vinxeris hominem liberum eum te possidere non puto; quod quum ita se habeat multo minus per illum res ejus a te possidebuntur; neque enim rerum natura recepit, ut per eum aliquid possidere possim quem civiliter in mea potestate non habeo."-Dig. xli. t. ii. 23, 2.

(b) "J'ai dit que d'après les principes de l'ancienne constitution romaine la propriété des objets les plus précieux, c'est-à-dire des choses mancipi, était censée provenir de l'Etat. Mais les chrétiens n'avaient jamais cru à cette hypothèse-dans leurs principes la terre appartenait à Dieu avec tout ce qu'elle contient."-Troplong, de l'Infl. du Christ, sur le Droit civil, p. 121.

among the "res posita in commercio," in which it is lawful for States or individuals to traffic (c).

Let us cast our eyes for a moment over the progress of International Jurisprudence upon this subject, for upon none has its melioration been more striking, or more advantageous to humanity. It may be considered, first, with respect to the Slavery of the White Man; and, secondly, with respect to the Dark or Coloured Man.

CCXCVIII. First, with respect to the White Man. Bynkershoek (d), in one of his last and ablest works, maintains, even in 1737, that as the conqueror may lawfully do what he pleases with the conquered, he may lawfully put him to death: but the right he admits has become obsolete. A corollary to this absolute power of life and death over enemies is the right, according to this author, of making them Slaves. A German potentate, he says, who served in the British Army in Ireland in 1690, is said to have ordered prisoners to be transported to America, for the purpose of being sold as Slaves, and to have been only deterred by a threat of the Duke of Berwick, Commander of the French Army in Ireland, that, as a retaliatory measure, he would send all his prisoners to the galleys in France. This practice he also admits to have become obsolete amongst Christians (e). But the Dutch, having themselves no slaves, except in Asia, Africa, and America, are, he observes, in the

(c) "Regula illa juris naturalis, cognationem inter homines quandam esse a natura, ac proinde nefas esse alterum ab altero lædi."-Grotius, 1. ii. c. xv. 5, i.

(d) The Quæstiones Juris Publici appeared in 1737, when the author was sixty-four years of age; he died in 1743. The doctrine referred to in the text is to be found in the third chapter of the first book.

"Item ea quæ ex hostibus capimus jure gentium statim nostra fiunt: adeo quidem ut et liberi homines in servitutem nostram deducuntur: qui tamen, si evaserint nostram potestatem, et ad suos reversi fuerint, pristinum statum recipiunt."-Instit. 1. ii. t. i. 17.

(e) "Sed quia ipsa servitus inter Christianos fere exolevit, ea quoque non utimur in hostes captos."-Ib.

"Sic enim jus gentium de servitute captivorum in bello justo, in

habit of selling the Algerines, the Tunisians, and Tripolitans, whom they take in the Atlantic or Mediterranean, to the Spaniards as Slaves.

Bynkershoek certainly did not, by his rather faint acquiescence in the desuetude of the custom of making slaves, advance the march of this sound principle of International Law. Grotius had long ago declared (ƒ) that Christendom had abolished this pretended right, as directly at variance with the doctrine of the Founder of their Religion, and remarked, with pious and just exultation, that reverence for the law of Christ had produced that effect for which the teaching of Socrates had laboured in vain. To this prohibition to make captives slaves, like the prohibition to poison the enemy's wells, may be applied his emphatic language with respect to another infamy, the violation of women,-language which should never be forgotten by those who aspire to render any contribution, however humble, to the great fabric of International Law (g)—“ Atque id inter "Christianos observari par est, non tantum ut disciplinæ "militaris partem, sed et ut partem juris gentium."

CCXCVIIIA. The present Emperor of Russia, soon

ecclesia mutatum est, et inter Christianos id non servatur."-Suarez, de Leg. ac Deo Legisl. 1. ii. c. xix.

It is remarkable that the very able dissertations of Suarez, on Natural, Public, and International Law, are not noticed by Grotius.

See same reasoning for the enfranchisement of bondmen in England, Sir Thomas Smith, Commonwealth of England, p. 137.

(f) It is a noble passage, worthy of its illustrious author:-"Sed et Christianis in universum placuit, bello inter ipsos orto, captos servos non fieri, ita ut vendi possint, ad operas urgeri, et alia pati quæ servorum sunt merito sane: quia ab omnis caritatis commendatore rectius instituti erant, aut esse debebant quam ut a miseris hominibus interficiendis abduci nequirent, nisi minoris sævitiæ concessione. Atque hoc a majo‐ ribus ad posteros pridem transiisse inter eos, qui eandem religionem profiterentur, scripsit Gregoras, nec eorum fuisse proprium qui sub Romano imperio viverent, sed commune cum Thessalis, Illyriis, Triballis, et Bulgaris. Atque ita hoc saltem, quanquam exiguum est, perfecit reverentia Christianæ legis, quod, cum Græcis inter se servandum olim diceret Socrates, nihil impetraverat."-L. iii. c. vii. s. 9.

(g) Lib. iii. c. iv. s. 19.