1 Mi>iilton's Hist. N. Y., 27.

vided between themselves this western world. These principles formed the basis of a conventional international law wliich has been always observed in America. They define with precision, to whom the Indians could dispose of their rights to dominion and to the soil, and to whom they could not. They have been laid down by Chancellor Kent and Chief Justice Marshall in the highest courts of this State and the United States.'^

These decisions are so admirably treated by Moulton, in that most valuable fragment of his " History of New York " Mvhich is all that his early and lamented death has left to us, that his statement a little abridged will be almost all that is necessary to say on this subject here.

" Upon the discovery of this continent the great nations of Europe, eager to appropriate as much of it as possible and conceiving that the character and religion of its inhabitants afforded an apology for considering them as a people, over whom the superior

DAVID PIETERSEN DE VRIES.

genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy, adopted, as by a common consent, this principle, --

" First, that discovery gave title to the government, by whose subjects, or under whose authority it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession. Hence if the country be discovered and possessed by emigrants of an existing acknowledged government, the possession is deemed taken for the Nation, and title must be derived from the sovereign in whom the power to dispose of vacant territories is vested by law.