PRINTED AT WORCESTER, BY ISAIAH THOMAS, JUN. Sold by him, and by MATHEW CAREY, Philadelphia; alfo by the various Bookfellers throughout the United States. JULY- 1802. PREFACE. IF, amidit the infinite number of fubjects contained in this book, there is any thing, which, contrary to my expectation, may poffibly offend. I can at least affure the public, that it was not inferted with an ill intention: For I am not naturally of a captious temper. Plato thanked Heaven, that he was born in the fame age with Socrates: And, for my part, I give thanks to GOD, that I was born a fubject of that government under which I live; and that it is his pleasure I mould obey thofe whom he has made me love. I beg one favor of my readers, which I fear will not be granted me; this is, that they will not judge by a few hours reading, of the labor of twenty years; that they will approve or condemn the book entire, and not a few particular phrafes. If they would fearch into the defign of the author, they can do it no other way fo completely, as by fearching into the defign of the work. I have firft of all confidered mankind; and the refult of my thoughts has been, that, amidst fuch an infinite diverfity of laws and manners, they were not folely conducted by the caprice of fancy. I have laid down the first principles, and have found that the particular cafes apply naturally to them; that the hiftories of all nations are only confequences of them; and that every particular law is connected with another law, or depends on fome other of a more general extent. When I have been obliged to look back into antiquity, I have endeavored to affume the spirit of the ancients, left I should confider thofe things as alike, which are really different; and left I fhould mifs the difference of those which appear to be alike. I have not drawn my principles from my prejudices, but from the nature of things. Here a great many truths will not appear, till we have feen the chain which connects them with others. The more we enter into particulars, the more we thall perceive the certainty of the princi- . ples on which they are founded. I have not even given all these particulars, for who could mention them all without a most insupportable fatigue ? The reader will not here meet with any of thofe bold flights, which feem to characterize the works of the prefent age. When things are examined with ever fo fmall a degree of extent, the fallies of imagination muft vanish; these generally arife from the mind's collecting all its powers to view only one fide of the subject, while it leaves the other unobserved. I write not to cenfure any thing established in any country whatfoever. Every nation will here find the reasons on which its maxins are founded; and this will be the natural inference, that to 時 propofe propofe alterations, belongs only to those who are so happy as to be born with a genius capable of penetrating into the entire conftitu tion of a state. It is not a matter of indifference, that the minds of the people be enlightened. The prejudices of the magiftrate have arifen from national prejudice. In a time of ignorance they have committed even the greatest evils without the leaft fcruple; but in an enlightened age, they even tremble while conferring the greatest bleffings. They perceive the ancient abuses; they fee how they must be reformed; but they are fenfible alfo of the abufes of the reformation. They let the evil continue, if they fear a worse; they are content with a leffer good, if they doubt of a greater. They examine into the parts, to judge of them in connexion; and they examine all the caufes to difcover their different effects. Could I but fucceed fo as to afford new reafons to every man to Tove his duty, his prince, his country, his laws; new reafons to renier him more fenfible in every nation and government of the bleffings he enjoys, I fhould think myself the moft happy of mortals. Could I but fucceed fo as to perfuade those who command, to increase their knowledge in what they ought to prefcribe; and thofe who obey, to find a new pleasure refulting from their obedidience; I fhould think myself the most happy of mortals. A The most happy of mortals I should think myself, could I contribute to make mankind recover from their prejudices. By prejudices I here mean, not that which renders men ignorant of fome particular things, but whatever renders them ignorant of themselves. It is in endeavoring to inftruct mankind, that we are beft able to practice that general virtue, which comprehends the love of all. Man, that flexible being, conforming in fociety to the thoughts and impreflions of others, is equally capable of knowing his own nature, whenever it is laid open to his view; and of losing the very sense of it, when this idea is banished from his mind. Often have I begun, and as often have I laid afide this undertaking. I have a thousand times given the leaves I have written to the winds: I every day felt my paternal hands fall. I have followed my object without any fixed plan: I have known neither rules nor exceptions; I have found the truth, only to lofe it again. But when I had once discovered my first principles, every thing I fought for appeared; and in the courfe of twenty years, I have feen my work begun, growing up, advancing to maturity, and finished. If this work meets with fuccefs, I fhall owe it chiefly to the grandeur and majesty of the subject. However, I do not think that I have been totally deficient in point of genius. When I have seen what fo many great men both in France and Germany have wrote before me, I have been loft in admiration; but I have not loft my courage: I have faid with Corregio, And I also am a painter. *Ludibria ventis. ACCOUNT ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE AND WRITINGS.* M. MONTESQUIEU was born in the year 1689, in the Chateau de la Brede, within three leagues of Bourdeaux, of an ancient and noble family. He applied himself, almost from his infancy, to the study of civil law. The first product of his early genius was a work, in which he undertook to prove, that the idolatry of most part of the Pagans did not deferve eternal punishment. But this book his prudence thought fit to fupprefs. In 1714, he was made counsellor of the parliament of Bourdeaux; and in 1716, prefi dent a mortier. In this year he was alfo created a member of the new founded academy of the fame city. In 1725, he opened the parliament with a fpeech, the depth and eloquence of which were convincing proofs of his great abilities as an orator. The year following he quitted his charge; which, in fo excellent a magiftrate, would have been inexcufable, if, in ceafing to exe cute the law, he had not put it in his power to render the law itfelf more per Se&t. In 1728, he offered himself a candidate for a feat in the Academie Francois to which his Lettres Perfannes (publifhed in 1721) feemed to give him a fufficient title; yet fome, rather too bold, ftrokes in that work, together with the circumfpection of that fociety, rendered the matter dubious. Cardinal Fleury, alarmed with what he had heard concerning thefe letters, wrote, to let the academy know, that the King would not have them admit the author, unlefs he thought proper to difavow the book. Montefquieu declared that he had never owned himself to be the author of it; but that he fhould never difavow it. The cardinal read the Lettres Perfannes, found them more agreeable than dangerous, and Montesquieu was admitted. When he left France, he accompanied his intimate friend, Lord Waldgrave, in his embaffy to Vienna; and, after feeing alfo Hungary, Italy, Switzerland and Holland, he ended his tour in Greatbritain; where, meditating upon the fpring of that government, in which, fays M. Maupertuis, fo many feemingly incongruous advantages are united, he found all the materials that were want ing to complete the great works which lay wrapt in his imagination. No fooner was he returned to France, than he retired to La Brede; where, for the space of two whole years, feeing nothing but books and trees, he wrote his confiderations on the caufes of the grandeur and decline of the Roman Empire, which was published in 1733. To this work he defigned to have added a book on the English government; but this moft excellent treatife has fince found a more proper place in his Efprit des Loix, with which he obliged the world in the year 1748. The preceding works of M. Montesquieu may be 3 *Extract from Floge de M, de Montefquieu, par M, de Maupertuis, late Prefident of the Royal Academy at Berlin, |