II. Among those things, which belong to no one, there are two that may become the subjects of occupancy; and those are jurisdiction, or sovereignty and property. For jurisdiction and property are distinct from each other in their effects. The objects over which sovereignty may be exercised are of a twofold description, embracing both persons and things. But this is not the case with property, the right of which can extend only to the irrational and inanimate part of the creation. Though it might originally, for the most part, be the same act by which sovereignty and property were acquired, yet they are in their nature distinct. SOVEREIGNTY, says Seneca, belongs to PRINCES and PROPERTY to INDIVIDUALS. The sovereignty therefore, not only over subjects at home, but over those in the prince's foreign dominions passes with the hereditary descent of the crown. III. In places, where sovereignty is already established, the right to moveables by occupancy, and indeed every original right must give way to the superior sanction of law. And what any man before held by any such right, he would afterwards be considered as holding by the laws of the country. For those original rights were PERMISSIONS of the law of nature, and not commands that were to be PERPETUALLY enforced. For the continued establishment of such a right as that by prior occupancy, so far from promoting the welfare, would operate to the very destruction of human society. Although it may be said by way of objection, that the law of nations seems to admit of such a right, yet we may answer that if such a rule either is or has been commonly received in any part of the world, it has not the force of a general compact binding upon different independent nations; but may be considered as one branch of the civil law of many nations, which any state has a right to continue, or repeal according to its own pleasure or discretion. There are many other things indeed which legal writers, in treating of the division and acquisition of property, consider as forming a part of the law of nations. IV. Rivers may be occupied by a country, not including the stream above, nor that below its own territories. But the waters which wash its lands form an inseparable part of the current, making its way to the main sea. For to constitute the right to a property in its channel, it is sufficient that its sides, inclosed by the banks of that territory form its greatest part, and that the river itself compared with the land, makes but a small portion.