But the right to buy land from the Indians was not a. necessary natural right inhering in any white settler. The government, upon the well-known principle of the supreme right of discovery, assumed a fundamental authority in the disposal of lands, and hence arose the numerous land grants and land patents to specified persons, which were based, however, under both Dutch and English law, upon previous extinguishment of the Indian title by deeds of sale. It is well here to more clearly understand the principles underlying this governmental assumption. They have been thus stated : 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 genius of Europe might claim an ascendancy, adopted, as by common consent, this principle : 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 he discovered and possessed hy emigrants of an existing

ABORIGINAL

INHABITANTS

and acknowledged government, the possession is deemed taken for the nation, and title must he derived from the sovereign in whom the power to dispose of vacant territory is vested Inlaw. Resulting from this principle was that of the sole right of the discoverer to acquire the soil from the natives and establish settlements, either by purchase or by conquest. Hence also the exclusive right can not exist in government and at the same time in private individuals ; and hence also The natives were recognized as rightful occupants, hut their power to dispose of the soil at their own will to whomsoever they pleased was denied by the original fundamental principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it.