between the two nations may keep them within bounds. The courts of judicature are likewife half Chinese, and half Tartars. This is productive of several good effects. 1. The two nations keep one another in awe. 2. They both preferve the civil and military power, and one is not destroyed by the other. 3. The conquering nation may fpread itself without being weakened and loft. It is likewife enabled to refift civil and foreign wars. The want of so wise an institution as this, has been the ruin of almost all the conquerors that ever existed.

CHAP. XVI.

Of Conquests made by a defpotic Prince.

WHEN a conqueft happens to be vastly large, it fuppofes a defpotic power: And then the army difperf ed in the provinces is not fufficient. There fhould be always a trufty body of troops around the prince, ready to fall inftantly upon any part of the empire that might chance to waver. This military corps ought to awe the reft, and to ftrike terror into thofe, who, through neceffity, have been intrusted with any authority in the empire. The emperor of China has always a large body of Tartars near his perfon, ready upon all occafions. In India, in Turkey, in Japan, the prince has always a body guard, independent of the other regular forces. This particular corps keeps the difperfed troops in awe.

CHA P. XVII.

The fame Subje& continued.

WE have obferved that the countries fubdued by a defpotic monarch ought to be feodary. Hiftorians exhauft themselves in extolling the generofity of thofe conquerors who restored to the throne the princes they had vanquished.

vanquished. Extremely generous then were the Romans, who made kings in all parts, in order to have inftruments of flavery.* A proceeding of that kind is abfolutely neceffary. If the conqueror intends to preferve the conquered country, neither the governors he fends will be able to contain the subjects within duty, nor he himself the governors. He will be obliged to ftrip his ancient patrimony of troops, in order to fecure the new. All the miferies of the two nations will be common; the civil war of one will communicate itself to the other. On the contrary, if the conqueror reftores the legitimate prince to the throne; he will have a necessary ally, by the junction of whose forces his own will be augmented. We have a recent instance of what has been here said in Shah Nadir, who conquered the Mogul, feized his treasures, and left him the poffeffion of Indoftan.

OF THE LAWS THAT FORM POLITICAL LIBERTY, WITH REGARD TO THE CONSTITUTION.

CHAP. i.

A general Idea:

I MAKE a distinction between the laws that form political liberty with regard to the conftitution, and those by which it is formed in refpect to the citizen. The form er fhall be the fubject of this book; the latter I fhall examine in the next.

* Ut haberent inftrumenta fervitutis et reges,

VOL. I.

L

CHAP.

CHAP. II.

Different Significations given to the Word Liberty.

THERE is no word that has admitted of more various fignifications, and has made more different impres fions on human minds, than that of liberty. Some have taken it for a facility of depofing a perfon on whom they had conferred a tyrannical authority; others for the power of choofing a perfon whom they are obliged to obey; others for the right of bearing arms, and of being thereby enabled to ufe violence; others for the privilege of being governed by a native of their own country, or by their own laws.* A certain nation for a long time thought that liberty confifted in the privilege of wearing a long beard.† Some have annexed this name to one form of government, in exclufion of others; those who had a republican tafte, applied it to this government; those who liked a monarchical ftate, gave it to monarchies. Thus they all have applied the name of liberty to the government moft comformable to their own cuftoms and inclinations; and as in a republic, people have not fo conftant and so present a view of the inftruments of the evils they complain of, and likewise as the laws feem there to speak more, and the executors of the laws lefs, it is generally attributed to republics, and denied to monarchies. In fine, as in democracies the people feem to do very near whatever they please, liberty has been placed in this fort of government, and the power of the people has been confounded with their liberty.

CHAP.

* I have copied, fays Cicero, Scevola's edict, which permits the Greeks to terminate their differences among themselves according to their own laws, this makes them confider themselves as a free people.

+ The Ruffians could not bear that the Czar Peter fhould make them cut it off.

The Cappadocians refufed the condition of a republican ftate, which was offered them by the Romans.

CHA P. III.

In what Liberty confifts.

IT is true, that in democracies the people feem to do what they please; but political liberty does not confift in an unreftrained freedom. In governments, that is, in focieties directed by laws, liberty can confift only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.

We must have continually prefent to our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit; and if a citi zen could do what they forbid, he would no longer be poffeffed of liberty, because all his fellow citizens would have the fame power.

CHA P. IV.

The fame Subject continued.

DEMOCRATIC and ariftocratic ftates are not neceffarily free. Political liberty is to be met with only in moderate governments: Yet even in these it is not always met with. It is there only when there is no abuse of power; but conftant experience fhows us, that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it; he pushes on till he comes to fomething that limits him. Is it not ftrange, though true to say, that virtue itself has need of limits?

To prevent the abufe of power, it is neceffary that by the very difpofition of things power fhould be a check to power. A government may be so constituted, as no man shall be compelled to do things to which the law does not oblige him, nor forced to abstain from things which the law permits.

2

CHAP.

CHA P. V.

Of the End or View of different Governments.

THOUGH all governments have the same general end, which is that of preservation, yet each has another particular view. Increase of dominion was the view of Rome; war, of Sparta; religion, of the Jewish laws; commerce, that of Marseilles; public tranquillity, that of the laws of China;* navigation, that of the laws of Rhodes; natural liberty, that of the policy of the favages; in general, the pleafures of the prince that of defpotic ftates; that of monarchies, the prince's and the kingdom's glory; the independence of individuals, is the end aimed at by the laws of Poland, and from thence refults the oppreffion of the whole.+

One nation there is alfo in the world, that has for the direct end of its conftitution political liberty. We fhall examine presently the principles on which this liberty is founded; if they are found, liberty will appear as in a

mirror.

To difcover political liberty in a conftitution, no great labor is requifite. If we are capable of feeing it where it exifts, why fhould we go any further in fearch of it?

er

IN

CHAP. VI.

Of the Conftitution of England.

every government there are three forts of pow the legiflative; the executive, in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive, in re gard to things that depend on the civil law.

By

* The natural end of a state that has no foreign enemies, or that thinks it

felf fecured against them by barriers.

+ Inconveniency of the liberam veto.