domestic regulations, by disputing their justice or validity, would be to interfere in the government of the nation, and to do it an injury (see § 54 and following of this book). The ally remains the ally of the state, notwithstanding the change that has happened in it. However, when Case where this change renders the alliance useless, dangerous, real alliances or disagreeable, it may renounce it: for it may may be resay, upon a good foundation, that it would not have entered into an alliance with that nation, had it been under the present form of government. nounced. war. We may say here, what we have said on a personal alliance: however just the cause of that king may be, who is driven from the throne, either by his subjects or by a foreign usurper; his allies are not obliged to support an eternal war in his favour. After having made Not an eternal ineffectual efforts to restore him, they must at length give peace to their people, and come to an accommodation with the usurper, and for that purpose treat with him as with a lawful sovereign. Louis XIV., exhausted by a bloody and unsuccessful war, offered at Gertruydenburgh to abandon his grandson, whom he had placed on the throne of Spain: and, when affairs had changed their appearance, Charles of Austria, the rival of Philip, saw himself, in his turn, abandoned by his allies. They grew weary of exhausting their states, in order to give him the possession of a crown, which they believed to be his due, but which, to all appearance, they should never be able to procure for him. DANGEROUS POWER. BOOK III. CHAP. III. § 45. All nations may joir.. It is still easier to prove, that should this formidable power betray any unjust and ambitious dispositions, by doing the least injustice to another, every nation may avail themselves of the occasion, and join their forces to those of the party injured, in order to reduce that ambitious power, and disable it from so easily oppressing its neighbours, or keeping them in continual awe and fear. For an injury gives a nation a right to provide for its future safety, by taking away from the violator the means of oppression. It is lawful, and even praise-worthy, to assist those who are oppressed, or unjustly attacked. SYSTEM OF EUROPE. § 47. Europe forms a political system, a body, where the whole is connected by the relations and different interests of nations inhabiting this part of the world. It is not, as anciently, a confused heap of detached pieces, each of which thought itself very little concerned in the fate of others, and seldom regarded things which did not immediately relate to it. The continual attention of sovereigns to what is on the carpet, the constant residence of ministers, and the public to pre- perpetual negotiations, make Europe a kind of a serve order and republic, the members of which, though independent, unite, through the ties of common interest, for the maintenance of order and liberty. Hence arose that famous scheme of the political equilibrium, or balance of power; by which is understood such a disposition of things, as no power is able absolutely to predominate, or to prescribe laws to others. Europe a re liberty. § 49. Confederacies would be a sure way of preserving the equilibrium, and supporting the liberty of nations, did all princes thoroughly understand their true interests, and regulate all their steps for the good of the state. CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY. BOOK III. CHAP. IX. § 165. 1 Instead of the pillage of the country, and defenceless places, a custom has been substituted more humane and more advantageous to the sovereign making war: I mean that of contributions. Whoever carries on a just war, has a right of making the enemy's country contribute to the support of the army, and towards defraying all the charges of the war. Thus he obtains a part of what is due to him, and the subjects of the enemy, on submitting to this imposition, are secured from pillage, and the country is pre 1 Contributions raised by the Duke of Brunswick in France. Compare these with the contributions raised by the French in the Netherlands.-EDIT. served: but a general who would not sully his reputation is to moderate his contributions, and To be moderproportion them to those on whom they are im ate. posed. An excess in this point is not without the reproach of cruelty and inhumanity: if it shows less ferocity than ravage and destruction, it glares with avarice. ASYLUM. BOOK I. CHAP. XIX. § 232. If an exile or banished man is driven from his country for any crime, it does not belong to the nation in which he has taken refuge to punish him for a fault committed in a foreign country. For nature gives to mankind and to nations the right of punishing only for their defence and safety; whence it follows that he can only be punished by those whom he has offended. § 233. But this reason shows, that if the justice of each nation ought in general to be confined to the punishment of crimes committed within its own territories, we ought to except from this rule the villains who, by the quality and habitual frequency of their crimes, violate all public security, and declare themselves the enemies of the human race. Poisoners, assassins, and incendiaries by profession, may be exterminated wherever they are seized; for they attack and injure all nations, by trampling under foot the foundations of the common safety. Thus pirates are brought to the gibbet, by the first into whose hands they fall. If the sovereign of the country where those crimes have been committed re-claims the authors of them, in order to bring them to punishment, they ought to be restored to him, as one who is principally interested in punishing them in an exemplary manner: and it being proper to convict the guilty, and to try them according to some form of law; this is a second [not sole] reason, why malefactors are usually delivered up at the desire of the state where their crimes have been committed. Ibid. § 230. Every nation has a right of refusing to admit a stranger into the country, when he cannot enter into it without putting it into evident danger, or without doing it a remarkable prejudice.1 FOREIGN MINISTERS. BOOK IV. CHAP. V. § 66. The obligation does not go so far as to suffer at all times, perpetual ministers, who are desirous of residing with a sovereign, though they have nothing to negotiate. It is natural, indeed, and very agreeable to the sentiments which nations owe to each other, that these resident ministers, when there is nothing to be feared from their stay, should be friendly received; but if there be any solid reason against this, what is for the good of the state ought unquestionably to be preferred; and the foreign sovereign cannot take it amiss if his minister, who has concluded the affairs of his commission, and has no other affairs to negotiate, be desired to depart.2 The custom of keeping everywhere ministers continually resident is now so strongly established, that the refusal of a conformity to it would, without very good reasons, give offence. These reasons may arise from particular conjunctures; but there are also common reasons always subsisting, and such as relate to the constitution of a government, and the state of a nation. The republics have often very good reasons of the latter kind, to excuse themselves from continually suffering foreign ministers, who corrupt the citizens, in order to gain them over to their masters, to the great prejudice of the republic, and fomenting of the parties, &c. And should they only diffuse among a nation, formerly plain, frugal, and virtuous, a taste for luxury, avidity for money, and the manners of courts, these would be more than sufficient for wise and provident rulers to dismiss them. The third article of the treaty of triple alliance, and the latter part of the fourth article of the treaty of quadruple alliance, stipulates, that no kind of refuge or protection shall be given to rebellious subjects of the contracting powers.-EDIT. Dismission of M. Chauvelin.-EDIT. ON THE CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY, PARTICULARLY IN THE LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT; ADDRESSED TO THE 1793. LETTER TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PORTLAND. MY DEAR LORD, THE paper, which I take the liberty of sending to your Grace, was, for the greater part, written during the last session. A few days after the prorogation some few observations were added. I was resolved however to let it lie by me for a considerable time; that on viewing the matter at a proper distance, and when the sharpness of recent impressions had been worn off, I might be better able to form a just estimate of the value of my first opinions. I have just now read it over very coolly and deliberately. My latest judgment owns my first sentiments and reasonings, in their full force, with regard both to persons and things. During a period of four years, the state of the world, except for some few and short intervals, has filled me with a good deal of serious inquietude. I considered a general war against Jacobins and Jacobinism, as the only possible chance of saving Europe (and England as included in Europe) from a truly frightful revolution. For this I have been censured, as receiving through weakness, or spreading through fraud and artifice, a false alarm. Whatever others may think of the matter, that alarm, in my mind, is by no means quieted. The state of affairs abroad is not so much mended, as to |