Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 1
Upon reading the first Chapt. in Heineccius,1 the following Queries (whether connected with that Subject, or not) occurr'd. Viz.
I. Whether the Aboriginals of this Country were not by Virtue of Prior Possession, the Lawful Proprietors of it, when the Europeans first arriv'd among them?
II. Whether the Posterity of those Europeans can be suppos'd to have a good Title to any more of the Country, than they have either acquired by Compact of the Natives, or won from them in a just war?
III. Whether the Natives have not a legal Right of introducing either English or French to the Possession of such Lands, as the other have not obtain'd of them by Compact, or won from them in a just War?
If therefore
IV. The English have neither acquir'd a Title to the Ohio by Compact, nor by Conquest in a just War: And the Natives are disposed to put the French in Possession of it---
In such a Case
Are the French obliged, by the Treaty of Utrecht, to refuse such a Possession? Suppose they are.
Yet the Natives are not obliged by the Treaty of Utrecht, but are vested with a Right of conveying their Lands to whom they please, and securing the Possession to them?
Is it not therefore inconsistent with the Law of Nature & of Nations for the English to interpose by the Sword in that Affair?
Your Solutions will be acceptable to your Friend and Servant,
Johann Gottlieb Heineccius (1681–1740, German jurist whose writings ''are sound and practical, and are more commonly referred to in England and the United States than any of the Continental writers" (Marvin, Legal Bibliography, 380). The work discussed here is probably his Elemento Juris Naturæ et Gentium (Hale, 1742), translated into English in 1763 as A methodical System of Universal Law; or, the Law of Nature and Nations, deduced from certain Principles, and applied to proper cases.
Timothy Harrington (1716–1795), minister of the First Congregational Church of Lancaster (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 10:188–195).