Note 1 — Chapter I · 1660-67.

"The great maritime powers of Europe," said Chief Justice Marshall, "discovered and visited different parts of this Continent at nearly the same time. The object was too immense for any of them to grasp the whole; and the claimants were too powerful to submit to the exclusive or unreasonable pretensions of any single potentate. To avoid bloody conflicts, which might terminate disastrously to all, it was necessary for the nations of Europe to establish some principle which all would acknowledge and which would decide their respective rights as between themselves. This principle, suggested by the actual state of things, was, 'that discovery gave title to the Government by whose subjects or by whose authority it was made, against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession.'"