fhow the embarraffment in which they found themselves in this refpect. There were even times in which they durft not make laws. When under Nero* they demanded of the fenate a permiffion for the mafters to reduce again to flavery the ungrateful freedmen, the emperor declared that they ought to decide the affairs of individuals, and to make no general decree.

Much lefs can I determine what ought to be the regulations of a good republic in an affair of this kind; this depends on too many circumstances. Let us however make fome reflections.

A confiderable number of freedmen ought not fuddenly to be made by a general law. We know that amongst the Volfinienfest the freedmen becoming mafters of the fuffrages, made an abominable law, which gave them the right of lying firft with the girls married to the freeborn.

There are feveral ways of introducing infenfibly new citizens into a republic. The laws may favor the acquiring a peculium, and put flaves into a condition of buying their liberty: They may give a term to fervitude like thofe of Mofes, which limited that of thet Hebrew flaves to fix years. It is eafy to give every year freedom to a certain number of thofe flaves, who, by their age, health or industry, are capable of getting a fubfiftence. The evil may be even cured in its root: As a great number of flaves are connected with the feveral employments, which are given them; to divide amongst the freeborn, a part of thefe employments, for example, commerce, or navigation, is diminishing the number of flaves.

When there are many freedmen, it is neceffary that the civil laws fhould determine what they owe to their patron, or elfe that these duties fhould be fixed by the contract of enfranchisement.

It is certain that their condition fhould be more favored in the civil, than in the political ftate; because, even in a popular government, the power ought not to fall into the hands of the vulgar.

At Rome, where they had fo many freedmen, the polit ical laws with regard to them were admirable. They

* 2

Annals of Tacitus, lib. 13. +Frienfhemius' fupplement, decad 2. lib. 5.

Exod. xxi.

gave

gave them little, and excluded them almoft from nothing: They had even a fhare in the legislature; but the refolu tions they were capable of taking, were almost of no weight. They might bear a part in the public offices, and even in the dignity of the priesthood ;* but this privilege was in fome fort rendered useless by the disadvantages they had to encounter with the elections. They had a right to enter into the army: But they were to be registered in a certain clafs of the cenfus, before they could be foldiers. Nothing hindered freedmen from being united by marriage with the families of the freeborn; but they were not permitted to mix with thofe of the fenators. In short, their children were freeborn, though they were not so them fulves.

CHAP. XVIII.

Of Freedmen and Eunuchs.

THUS, in a republican government, it is frequently of advantage, for the fituation of the freedmen to be but little below that of the freeborn, and that the laws be adapted to remove a diflike of their condition. But in a defpotic government, where luxury and arbitrary power prevail, they have nothing to do in this refpect; the freed men almoft always find themfelves above the freeborn. They rule in the court of the prince, and in the palaces of the great; and as they ftudy the foibles, and not the virtues of their mafter, they lead him not by his virtues, but by his weakness. Such were the freedmen at Rome in the times of the emperors.

When the principal flaves are eunuchs, let ever fo many privileges be granted them, they can hardly be regarded as freedmen. For as they cannot have a family of their own, they are naturally attached to that of another; and it is only by a kind of fiction that they are confidered as citizens.

* Annals of Tacitus, lib. 3. Auguftus' fpeech in Dio, 1. 56.

And

And yet there are countries where the magiftracy is entirely in their hands; "In* Tonquin," fays Dampier,+ "all the mandarins, civil and military, are eunuchs." They have no families, and though they are naturally avaricious, the mafter or the prince in the end takes advantage of this very avarice.

Dampier tells us too, that in this country, the eunuchs cannot live without women, and therefore marry. The law which permits their marriage, may be founded on the one hand, on their respect for these eunuchs, and, on the other, on their contempt for women.

Thus they are trufted with the magiftracy, because they have no family; and permitted to marry, because they are magiftrates.

Then it is that the sense which remains, would fain fupply that which they have loft; and the enterprises of defpair become a kind of enjoyment. So in Milton, that fpirit who has nothing left but defires, enraged at his degradation, would make use of his impotency itself.

We fee in the hiftory of China a great number of laws to deprive eunuchs of all civil and military employments; but they always returned to them again. It feems as the eunuchs of the caft were a necessary evil.

HOW THE LAWS OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY HAVE A RELATION TO THE NATURE OF THE climate.

CHAP. I.

Of domeftic Servitude.

SLAVES

are established for the family; but they

are not a part of it. Thus I diftinguish their fervitude

3

from

* It was formerly the fame in China. The two Mahometan Arabs whe travelled thither in the ninth century, ule the word eunuch, whenever they speak of the governor of a city.

+ Vol. 3. p. 91.

Tom. 3. p. 94

from that which the women in fome countries fuffer, and which I fhall properly call domestic fervitude.

CHA P. II.

That in the Countries of the South there is a Natural Inequality between the two Sexes.

WOMEN, in hot climates, are* marriageable at eight, nine, or ten years of age; thus, in thofe countries, infancy and marriage almost always go together. They are old at twenty: Their reafon therefore never accompanies their beauty. When beauty demands the empire, the want of reason forbids the claim; when reason is obtained, beauty is no more. These women ought then to be in a state of dependence; for reason cannot procure in old age, that empire, which even youth and beauty could not give. It is therefore extremely natural, that in these places, a man, when no law oppofes it, fhould leave one wife to take another, and that polygamy fhould be introduced.

In temperate climates, where the charms of women are beft preferved, where they arrive later at maturity, and have children at a more advanced feason of life, the old age of their husbands in fome degree follows theirs; and as they have more reafon and knowledge at the time of marriage, if it be only on account of their having continued longer in life, it muft naturally introduce a kind of equality between the two fexes, and, in confequence of this, the law of having only one wife.

In cold countries the almost neceffary cuftom of drinking ftrong liquors, establishes intemperance amongst men. Women, who, in this refpect, have a natural restraint, because they are always on the defenfive, have therefore the advantage of reafon over them.

Nature,

* Mahomet married Cadhisja at five, and took her to his bed at eight years old. In the hot countries of Arabia and the Indies, girls are marriageable at eight years of age, and are brought to bed the year after. Prideaux, life of Mahomet. We fee women in the kingdom of Algiers pregnant at nine, ten and eleven years of age. Hiftory of the kingdom of Algiers by Logier de Taffis, b. 61.

Nature, which has diftinguished men by their reafon and bodily ftrength, has fet no other bounds to their power than those of this ftrength and reafon. It has given charms to women, and ordained that their afcendant over man shall end with these charms: But, in hot countries, these are found only at the beginning, and never in the progrefs of life.

Thus the law which permits only one wife, is phyfically conformable to the climate of Europe, and not to that of Afia. This is the reafon why Mahometanifm was eftablished with fuch facility in Afia, and fo difficultly extended in Europe; why Christianity is maintained in Europe, and has been deftroyed in Afia; and, in fine, why the Mahometans have made fuch progrefs in China, and the Chriftians fo little.

Some particular reasons induced Valentinian to* permit polygamy in the empire. That law, fo improper for our climates, was abrogated+ by Theodofius, Arcadius and Honorius.

CHA P. III.

That a Plurality of Wives depends greatly on the Means of supporting them.

THOUGH in countries where polygamy is once eftablished, the number of wives is principally determined by the riches of the hufband; yet it cannot be faid that riches eftablished polygamy in thefe ftates; fince poverty may produce the fame effect, as I fhall prove when I come to fpeak of the favages.

Polygamy, in powerful nations, is lefs a luxury in itfelf, than the occafion of great luxury. In hot climates they have few wants, and it cofts little to maintain a wife 吋 4

and

*See Jornandes de regno et tempor. fuccef. and the ecclefiaftical historians.

See law 7. of the Code de Judæis et Calicolis, and nov. 18. chap. 5. In Ceylon a man may live on ten fols a month; they eat nothing there but rice and fish. Collection of voyages made to establish an India company.