citly; to oppofe thefe domeftick regulations, by difputing their juftice 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 this change renders the alliance ufelefs, dangerous or disagreeable, it may renounce it: for it may say, upon a good foundation, that it would not have entered into an alliance with that nation, had it been under the prefent form of government.

eternal wars

We may fay here, what we have faid on a perfonal alliance: however juft the cause of that king may be, who is driven from the throne, either by his fubjects or by a foreign ufurper; his allies are not obliged to support an eternal war in Not an his favour. After having made ineffectual efforts to restore him, they muft at length give peace to their people, and come to an accommodation with the ufurper, and for that purpose treat with him as with a lawful fovereign. Louis XIV. exhausted by a bloody and unsuccessful war, offered at Gertruydenburg to abandon his grandson, whom he had placed on the throne of Spain: and when affairs had changed their appearance, Charles of Auftria, the rival of Philip, faw himself, in his turn, abandoned by his allies. They grew weary of exhaufting their states, in order to give him the poffeffion of a crown, which they

"

VOL. VII.

P

believed

All nations may join.

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.

It is ftill easier to prove, that should this formidable power betray any unjuft and ambitious difpofitions, by doing the leaft injustice to another, every nation may avail themselves of the occafion, and join their forces to thofe of the party injured, in order to reduce that ambitious power, and difable it from fo eafily oppreffing its neighbours, or keeping them in continual awe and fear. For an injury gives a nation a right to provide for its future fafety, by taking away from the violator the means of oppreffion. It is lawful, and even praise-worthy, to affift those who are oppreffed, or unjustly attacked.

SYSTEM OF EUROPE.

$47. Europe forms a political system, a body, where the whole is connected by the relations and different interefts of nations inhabiting this part of the world. It is not, as antiently, a confused heap of detached pieces, each of which thought itself very little concerned in the fate of others, and feldom regarded things which did not immedi

ately

Europe a

republick

order and

ately relate to it. The continual attention of fovereigns to what is on the carpet, the constant refidence of minifters, and the perpetual negotiations, make Europe a kind of a republick, the members of which, though independent, unite, through the ties of to preserve common intereft, for the maintenance of order and liberty. Hence arofe that famous scheme of the political equilibrium, or balance of power; by which is understood fuch a difpofition of things, as no is able abfolutely to predominate, or to prefcribe laws to others.

power

§ 49. Confederacies would be a fure way of preferving the equilibrium, and fupporting the liberty of nations, did all princes thoroughly underftand their true interefts, and regulate all their steps for the good of the state.

CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE ENEMY'S
COUNTRY.

BOOK III. CHAP. IX. § 165.

Inftead of the pillage of the country, and defencelefs places, a cuftom has been substituted more humane and more advantageous to the fovereign making war: I mean that of contributions., Whoever carries on a just war,* has a

* Contributions raised by the Duke of Erunswick in France. Compare these with the contributions raised by the French in the Netherlands.-EDIT.

liberty.

To be moderate.

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 fubjects of the enemy, on fubmitting to this impofition, are fecured from pillage, and the country is preserved: but a general who would not fully his reputation, is to moderate his contributions, and proportion them to thofe on whom they are impofed. An excefs in this point, is not without the reproach of cruelty and inhumanity: if it fhews lefs 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 fafety; whence it follows that he can only be punished, by those whom he has offended.

§ 233. But this reason fhews, 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

rule the villains who, by the quality and habitual frequency of their crimes, violate all public fecurity, and declare themselves the enemies of the human race. Poisoners, affaffins, and incendiaries by profeffion, may be exterminated wherever they are feized; for they attack and injure all nations, by trampling under foot the foundations of the common fafety. Thus pirates are brought to the gibbet, by the first into whofe hands they fall. If the fovereign of the country where thofe crimes have been committed re-claims the authors of them, in order to bring them to punishment, they ought to be reftored 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 fome form of law; this is a fecond [not fole] reafon, why malefactors are ufually delivered up at the defire of the state where their crimes have been committed.

Ibid. § 230. Every nation has a right of refufing to admit a ftranger into the country, when he cannot enter into it without putting it into evident danger, or without doing it a remarkable prejudice.* to nellam

*The third article of the treaty of triple alliance, and the latter part of the fourth article of the treaty of quadruple alliance ftipulate, that no kind of refuge or protection fhall be given to rebellious fubjects of the contracting powers.-EDIT.