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 subjects of the enemy, on submitting to this imposition, are secured from pillage, and the country is preserved: To be mo- but a general who would not sully his reputation is to moderate his contributions, and proportion them to those on whom they are imposed. An excess in this point is not without the reproach of cruelty and inhumanity: if it shews less ferocity than ravage and destruction, it glares with

derate.

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 safety; whence it follows that he can only be punished by those whom he has offended.

§ 233. But this reason shews, 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 security, and declare themselves the enemies of the human race. Poisoners, assassins, and incendiaries by profession, may be exterminated wherever they are seized; for they attack and injure all nations, by trampling under foot the foundations of the common safety. Thus pirates are brought to the gibbet, by the first into whose hands they fall. If the sovereign of the country where those crimes have been committed re-claims the authors of them, in order to bring them to punishment, they ought to be restored 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 some form of law; this is a second [not sole] reason, why malefactors are usually delivered up at the desire of the state where their crimes have been committted.

Ibid. § 230. Every nation has a right of refus ing to admit a stranger into the country, when be cannot enter into it without putting it into evident danger, or without doing it a remarkable prejudice*.

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

FOREIGN MINISTERS.

BOOK IV. CHAP. 5. § 66.

The obligation does not go so far as to suffer at all times, perpetual ministers, who are desirous of residing with a sovereign, though they have nothing to negotiate. It is natural, indeed, and very agreeable to the sentiments which nations owe to each other, that these resident ministers, when there is nothing to be feared from their stay, should be friendly received; but if there be any solid reason against this, what is for the good of the state ought unquestionably to be preferred; and the foreign sovereign cannot take it amiss if his minister, who has concluded the affairs of his commission, and has no other affairs to negotiate, be desired to depart*. The custom of keeping every where ministers continually resident is now so strongly established, that the refusal of a conformity to it would, without very good reasons, give offence. These reasons may arise from particular conjunctures; but there are also common reasons always subsisting, and such as relate to the constitution of a government, and the state of a nation. The republicks have often very good reasons of the latter kind, to excuse themselves from continually suffering foreign ministers, who

* Dismission of M. Chauvelin.-EDIT.

corrupt

corrupt the citizens, in order to gain them over to their masters, to the great prejudice of the republick, and fomenting of the parties, &c. And should they only diffuse among a nation, formerly plain, frugal, and virtuous, a taste for luxury, avidity for money, and the manners of courts, these would be more than sufficient for wise and provident rulers to dismiss them.