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as fixed and agreed by the King and Lord Baltimore runs
from Cinquack by a straight line to the extreme south-
western part of Somerset county, Maryland, which we find
to be the true Watkins Point of the charter, and thence by
a straight Tine to the Atlantic ocean. These lines will be
seen on the accompanying map, marked and shaded in blue.
But this is not the present boundary. How firmly so-
ever it may have been fixed originally a compact could
change it, and long occupation inconsistent with the charter
is conclusive evidence of a concession which made it lawful.
Usucaption, prescription, or the acquisition of title
founded on long possession, uninterrupted and undisputed,
is made a rule of property between individuals by the law
of nature and the municipal code of every civilized coun-
try. It ought to take place between independent States,
and according to all authority it does. There is a supreme
necessity for applying it to the dealings of nations with one
another. Their safety, the tranquillity of their peoples,
and the general interests of the human race do not allow
that their territorial rights should remain uncertain, sub-
ject to dispute, and forever ready to occasion bloody wars.
(See Vattel, Book II, chap. 11, and Wheaton, Part II,
chap. 4, sec. 4, citing Grotius Puffendorf and Rutherfortb.)
The length of time which creates a right by prescription
in a private party raises a presumption in favor of a State,
that is to &ty, twenty years. (Knapp's Rep., 60 to 73.)
It is scarcely necesaarv to add that the exercise of a privi-
lege, the perception of a profit, or the enjoyment of what
the common law calls an easement, has the same effect as
the possession of corporeal property. It behooves us, then,
to see whether the acts or omissions of these States have
or have not materially changed their original rights and
modified their boundaries as described in the charter.
We will look first at the Potomac.
The evidence is sufficient to show that Virginia, from
the earliest period of her history, used the south bank of
the Potomac as if the soil to low-water mark had been her
own. She did not give this up by her constitution of
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