The law of nations, in these respects, treated persons and things in the same manner. From whence it is easy to understand, what is meant, when in another place it is said that things taken from an enemy immediately become the lawful prize of the captors, but only upon the condition of those things continuing in their possession for a reasonable and certain time. Consequently it is plain, that ships and other things taken at sea cannot be considered as really the property of the captors, till they have been carried into some of their ports, or to some place where their whole fleet is stationed. For in that case all hope of recovery seems to have vanished. By a late regulation among the European powers, it has been made an established maxim of the law of nations, that captures shall be deemed good and lawful, which have continued in the enemy's possession for the space of twenty-four hours. IV. Lands are not understood to become a lawful possession and absolute conquest from the moment they are invaded. For although it is true, that an army takes immediate and violent possession of the country which it has invaded, yet that can only be considered as a temporary possession, unaccompanied with any of the rights and consequences alluded to in this work, till it has been ratified and secured by some durable means, by cession, or treaty. For this reason, the land without the gates of Rome, where Hannibal encamped, was so far from being judged entirely lost, that it was sold for the same price that it would have been sold for before that period. Now land will be considered as completely conquered, when it is inclosed or secured by permanent fortifications, so that no other state or sovereign can have free access to it, without first making themselves masters of those fortifications. On this account Flaccus, the Sicilian, assigns no improbable conjecture for the origin of the word territory, because the enemy is DETERRED from entering it. At least there is as much probability in this conjecture, as in that of Varro, who derives it from the word _terendo_, treading the soil. Frontinus deduces it from _terra_, the earth, and Pomponius from the TERROR of judicial authority exercised in each country. Xenophon however in his book on tributes, seems to accord with the first of these opinions: for he says, that in time of war the possession of a country is kept by walls, strong holds, and barriers.