Where the price or equivalent of the property sold or exchanged has accrued to the actual use and profit of the State, the transfer may be confirmed, and the original proprietors indemnified out of the public treasury, as was done in respect to the lands of the emigrant French nobility, confiscated and sold during the revolution. So, also, the sales of the national domains situate in the German and Belgian provinces, united to France during the revolution, and again detached from the French territory by the treaties of Paris and Vienna in 1814 and 1815, or in the countries composing the Rhenish confederation in the kingdom of Italy, and the Papal States, were, in general, confirmed by these treaties, by the Germanic Diet, or by the acts of the respective restored sovereigns. But a long and intricate litigation ensued before the Germanic Diet, in respect to the alienation of the domains in the countries composing the kingdom of Westphalia. The Elector of Hesse Cassel and the Duke of Brunswick refused to confirm these alienations in respect to their territory, whilst Prussia, which power had acknowledged the King of Westphalia, also acknowledged the validity of his acts in the countries annexed to the Prussian dominions by the treaties of Vienna.1

IV. As to wrongs or injuries done to the government or citizens of another State; - it seems, that, on strict principle, the nation continues responsible to other States for the damages incurred for such wrongs or injuries, notwithstanding an intermediate change in the form of its government, or in the persons of its rulers. This principle was applied in all its rigor by the victorious allied powers in their treaties of peace with France in 1814 and 1815. More recent examples of its practical application have occurred in the negotiations between the United States and France, Holland, and Naples, relating to the spoliations committed on American commerce, under the government of Napoleon and the vassal States connected with the French empire. The responsibility of the restored government of France for those acts of the preceding ruler was hardly denied by it, even during the reigns of the Bourbon kings of the elder branch,

1 Conversations Lexikon, art. Domainen-verkauf. Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht, § 188. Kluber, offentliches Recht des deutschen Bundes, § 169. Rotteck und Welcker, Staats-Lexikon, art. Domainen-kaufer.

Louis XVIII. and Charles X.; and was expressly, admitted by the present government (Louis Philippe's) in the treaty of indemnities concluded with the United States, in 1831. The application of the same principle to the measures of confiscation adopted by Murat in the kingdom of Naples was contested by the restored government of that country; but the discussions which ensued were at last terminated, in the same manner, by a treaty of indemnities concluded between the American and Neapolitan governments.

vereign

A sovereign State is generally defined to be any § 12. Sonation or people, whatever may be the form of its States deinternal constitution, which governs itself independ- fined. ently of foreign powers.1

This definition, unless taken with great qualifications, cannot be admitted as entirely accurate. Some States are completely sovereign and independent, acknowledging no superior but the Supreme Ruler and Governor of the universe. The sovereignty of other States is limited and qualified in various degrees.

sovereign

All sovereign States are equal in the eye of inter- Equality of national law, whatever may be their relative power. States. The sovereignty of a particular State is not impaired by its occasional obedience to the commands of other States, or even the habitual influence exercised by them over its councils. It is only when this obedience, or this influence, assumes the form of express compact, that the sovereignty of the State, inferior in power, is legally affected by its connection with the other. Treaties of equal alliance, freely contracted between independent States, do not impair their sovereignty. Treaties of unequal alliance, guarantee, mediation, and protection, may have the effect of limiting and qualifying the sovereignty according to the stipulations of the treaties.

sovereign

States which are thus dependent on other States, in 13. Semirespect to the exercise of certain rights, essential to the States. perfect external sovereignty, have been termed semi-sovereign States.2

1 Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. i. chap. 1, § 4.

2 Klüber, Droit des Gens moderne de l'Europe, § 24. Heffter, Das Europäische Völkerrecht, § 19.

Thus the city of Cracow, in Poland, with its terriCity of Cracow. tory, was declared by the Congress of Vienna to be a perpetually free, independent, and neutral State, under the protection of Russia, Austria, and Prussia.1

By the final act of the Congress of Vienna, Art. 9, the three great powers, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, mutually engaged to respect, and cause to be respected, at all times, the neutrality of the free city of Cracow and its territory; and they further declared that no armed force should ever be introduced into it under any pretext whatever.

It was at the same time reciprocally understood and expressly stipulated that no asylum or protection should be granted in the free city or upon the territory of Cracow to fugitives from justice, or deserters from the dominions of either of the said high powers, and that upon a demand of extradition being made by the competent authorities, such individuals should be arrested and delivered up without delay under sufficient escort to the guard charged to receive them at the frontier.2

United States of

Islands.

By the convention concluded at Paris on the 5th of the Ionian November, 1815, between Austria, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, it is declared (Art. 1,) that the islands of Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, St. Maura, Ithaca, Cerigo and Paxo, with their dependencies, shall form a single, free, and independent State; under the denomination of the United States of the Ionian Islands. The second article provides that this State shall be placed under the immediate and exclusive protection of His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, his heirs and successors. By the third article it is provided 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

1 Acte du Congrès de Vienne du 9 Juin, 1815, Art. 6, 9, 10.

2 Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tome ii. p. 386. Klüber, Acten des Weiner Congresses, Band V. § 138. By a Convention, signed at Vienna, Nov. 6, 1846, between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the city of Cracow was annexed to the Empire of Austria. The governments of Great Britain, France, and Sweden protested against this proceeding as a violation of the Federal act of 1815.

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 colors 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 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.'

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,

1 Martens, Nouveau Recueil, tome ii. p. 663.

and strictly neutral city of Cracow" is completely sovereign, though under the protection of Austria, Prussia, and Russia; whilst the Ionian Islands, although they are to form "a single free and independent State," under the protection of Great Britain, are 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 are not only constantly obedient to the commands of the protecting power, but they are governed as a British colony by a Lord High Commissioner named by the British crown, who exercises the entire executive, and participates in the legislative power with the Senate and legislative Assembly, under the constitution of the State.1

Besides the free city of Cracow and the United States of the Ionian Islands, several other semi-sovereign or dependent States are recognized 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 Andrianople, 1829.2(a)

1 Martens, Précis du droit des Gens, liv. i, ch. 2, § 20. Note a, 3me édition. 2 Wheaton's Hist. of the Law of Nations, pp. 556–560.

(a) [Martens, Précis du Droit des Gens, liv. i. ch. 2, § 20, gives the following reference to authorities, establishing the claims of the Princes of Moldavia and Wallachia, to be included among semi-sovereign States. Le Bret, Magazin, t. i. n. 2, p. 149; Busching Magazin, t. iii. n. 3; Voyez le traité de Kainardgi, de 1774, dans mon Recueil, t. iv. p. 606, de la 1re. ou t. ii. p. 286, de la 2e edit.; la convention expl. de 1779, dans mon Recueil, t. iii. p. 349; de la 1re. t. iii. p. 653, de la 2e edit.; le hattichérif de la Porte, du 28 Decémbre, 1783; dans mon Recueil, t. iii. p. 281, de la 1re. p. 710, de la 2e edit.; le traité de Yassy, de 1792; dans mon Recueil, t. v. p. 67; le traité de Bucharest, de 1812; dans mon Nouveau Recueil, t. iii. p. 397."

The position of these principalities was altogether anomalous, even before their occupation, in 1853, by Russia. By the several treaties determining their relations to the Porte, in 1774, 1792, 1812, further confirmed by the stipulations with Russia, in 1821, it is provided among other things, that Moldavia and Wallachia shall each have a chargé d'affaires of the Greek faith at Constantinople, who shall be received with all the consideration accorded to such persons under the law of