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and of course to resist. Now that they are no longer a matter of sagacity, but of experience, of recent experience, of our own experience, it would be unjustifiable to go back to the records of other times, to instruct us to manage what they never enabled us to foresee.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

EXTRACTS FROM

VATTELL'S LAW OF NATIONS.

[The Titles, marginal Abstracts and Notes, are by Mr. BURKE, excepting such of the Notes as are here distinguished.]

CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT

I

POWERS.

BOOK II. CHAP. IV. § 53.

F then there is any where a nation of a restless

and mischievous disposition, always ready to in jure others, to traverse their designs, and to raise domestick troubles*, it is not to be doubted, that all have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power to injure them. Such should be the just fruits of the policy which Machiavel praises in Cæsar Borgia. The conduct followed by Philip II. king of Spain, was adapted to unite all Europe against him; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Great formed the de

This is the case of France-Semonville at TurinJacobin clubs-Liegois meeting-Flemish meeting-La Fayette's answer-Cloot's embassy-Avignon.

To succour

sign of humbling a power, formidable by its forces, and pernicious by its maxims.

§ 70. Let us apply to the unjust, what we have said above (§ 53), of a mischievous, or maleficent nation. If there be any that makes an open profession of trampling justice under foot, of despising and violating the right of others*, whenever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human society will authorize all others to unite, in order to humble and chastise it. We do not here forget the maxim established in our preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the power of being judges of each other. In particular cases, liable to the least doubt, it ought not to be supposed, that each of the parties may have some right: and the injustice of that which has committed the injury may proceed from errour, and not from a general contempt of justice. But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct, one nation shews, that it has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it considers no right as sacred, the safety of the human race requires that it should be suppressed. To form and support an unjust pretension, is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock at justice in general, and to injure all

nations.

§56. If the prince, attacking the fundamental Tyranny. laws, gives his subjects a legal right to resist him;

against

* The French acknowledge no power not directly emanating from the people.

English Re

if tyranny, becoming insupportable, obliges the nation to rise in their defence; every foreign power has a right to succour an oppressed people who implore their assistance. The English justly complained of James the Second. The nobility, and the most Case of distinguished patriots, resolved to put a check on his volution. enterprises, which manifestly tended to overthrow the constitution, and to destroy the liberties and the religion of the people; and therefore applied for assistance to the United Provinces. The authority of the prince of Orange had, doubtless, an influence on the deliberations of the states-general; but it did not make them commit injustice; for when a people, from good reasons, take up arms against an oppressor, justice and generosity require, that brave men should be assisted in the defence of their liberties. Whenever, therefore, a civil war is Case of kindled in a state, foreign powers may assist that party which appears to them to have justice on their side. He who assists an odious tyrant, he who An odious Tyrant. declares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEO- Rebellious PLE, offends against his duty. When the bands of people. the political society are broken, or at least suspend- Sovereign ed between the sovereign and his people, they may people then be considered as two distinct powers; and when dissince each is independent of all foreign authority, powers. nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right; and each of those who grant their assistance may believe that he supports a good

cause.

Civil War.

and his

tinct

cause. It follows then, in virtue of the voluntary laws of nations, (see Prelim. §21) that the two parties may act as having an equal right, and behave accordingly, till the decision of the affair. But we ought not to abuse this maxim for authorizing odious proceedings against the tranquillity Endeavour of states. It is a violation of the law of nations

Not to be pursued to

an extreme.

to persuade

subjects to

a revolt,

to persuade those subjects to revolt who actually obey their sovereign, though they complain of his government.

The practice of nations is conformable to our maxims. When the German protestants came to the assistance of the reformed in France, the court never undertook to treat them otherwise than as common enemies, and according to the laws of war. France at the same time assisted the Netherlands, which took up arms against Spain, and did not pretend that her troops should be considered upon any other footing than as auxiliaries in a reAttempt to gular war. But no power avoids complaining of jects to re- an atrocious injury, if any one attempts by his emissaries to excite his subjects to revolt.

excite sub

volt.

Tyrants.

As to those monsters, who, under the title of sovereigns, render themselves the scourges and horrour of the human race; these are savage beasts, from which every brave man may justly purge the earth. All antiquity has praised Hercules for delivering the world from an Antæus, a Busiris, and a Diomedes.

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