I could not forfeit their lives; they were not mine to forfeit. My wife had a share in my eftate; that neither could I forfeit. And my children alfo, being born of me, had a right to be maintained out of my labour or fubftance. Here then is the cafe: the conqueror has a title to reparation for damages received, and the children have a title to their father's eftate for their fubfiftence: for as to the wife's fhare, whether her own labour, or compact, gave her a title to it, it is plain, her husband could not forfeit what was her's. What must be done in the cafe? 1 anfwer; the fundamental law of nature being, that all, as much as may be, fhould be preserved, it follows, that if there be not enough fully to fatisfy both, viz. for the conqueror's loffes, and children's maintenance, he that hath, and to spare, must remit something of his full fatisfaction, and give way to the preffing and preferable title of those who are in danger to perish without it.

S. 184. But fuppofing the charge and damages of the war are to be made up to the conqueror, to the utmoft farthing; and that the children of the vanquished, fpoiled of all their father's goods, are to be left to ftarve and perish; yet the fatisfying of what fhall, on this fcore, be due to the conqueror, will fcarce give him a title to any country he shall conquer: for the damages of war can scarcé amount to the value of any confiderable tract

of

of land, in any part of the world, where all the land is poffeffed, and none lies wafte, And if I have not taken away the conqueror's land, which, being vanquished, it is impoffible I should; fcarce any other spoil I have done him can amount to the value of mine, fuppofing it equally cultivated, and of an extent any way coming near what I had over-run of his. The deftruction of a year's product or two (for it feldom reaches four or five) is the utmost spoil that usually can be done for as to money, and fuch riches. and treasure taken away, these are none of nature's goods, they have but a fantastical imaginary value: nature has put no fuch upon them they are of no more account by her ftandard, than the wampompeke of the Americans to an European prince, or the filver money of Europe would have been formerly to an American. And five years product is not worth the perpetual inheritance of land, where all is poffeffed, and none remains waste, to be taken up by him that is diffeized: which will be eafily granted, if one do but take away the imaginary value of money, the difproportion being more than between five and five hundred; though, at the fame time, half a year's product is more worth than the inheritance, where there being more land than the inhabitants poffefs and make use of, any one has liberty to make ufe of the wafte: but there conquerors take

little care to poffefs themfelves of the lands of the vanquished. No damage therefore, that men in the ftate of nature (as all princes and governments are in reference to one another) fuffer from one another, can give a conqueror power to difpoffefs the pofterity of the vanquifhed, and turn them out of that inheritance, which ought to be the poffeffion of them and their defcendants to all generations. The conqueror indeed will be apt to think himself mafter and it is the very condition of the fubdued not to be able to dispute their right. But if that be all, it gives no other title than what bare force gives to the stronger over the weaker and, by this reason, he that is ftrongeft will have a right to whatever he pleases to seize on.

§. 185. Over those then that joined with him in the war, and over those of the fubdued country that oppofed him not, and the pofterity even of thofe that did, the conqueror, even in a just war, hath, by his conqueft, no right of dominion: they are free from any fubjection to him, and if their former government be diffolved, they are at liberty to begin and erect another to themselves.

S. 186. The conqueror, it is true, usually, by the force he has over them, compels them, with a fword at their breafts, to stoop to his conditions, and submit to fuch a government as he pleases to afford them; but the enquiry is, what right he has to do fo?

If

If it be faid, they submit by their own confent, then this allows their own confent to be necessary to give the conqueror a title to rule over them. It remains only to be confidered, whether promises extorted by force, without right, can be thought confent, and how far they bind. To which I fhall fay, they bind not at all; because whatfoever another gets from me by force, I ftill retain the right of, and he is obliged prefently to restore. He that forces my horfe from me, ought prefently to restore him, and I have still a right to retake him. By the fame reason, he that forced a promife from me, ought presently to reftore it, i. e. quit me of the obligation of it; or I may refume it myself, i. e. chufe whether I will perform it: for the law of nature laying an obligation on me only by the rules the prescribes, cannot oblige me by the violation of her rules: fuch is the extorting any thing from me by force. Nor does it at all alter the cafe to fay, I gave my promife, no more than it excufes the force, and paffes the right, when I put my hand in my pocket, and deliver my purse myself to a thief, who demands it with a pistol at my breaft.

§. 187. From all which it follows, that the government of a conqueror, impofed by force on the fubdued, against whom he had no right of war, or who joined not in the wär against

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against him, where he had right, has no obligation upon them.

§. 188. But let us fuppofe, that all the men of that community, being all members of the fame body politic, may be taken to have joined in that unjust war wherein they are fubdued, and fo their lives are at the mercy of the conqueror.

§. 189. I fay, this concerns not their children who are in their minority: for fince a father hath not, in himself, a power over the life or liberty of his child, no act of his can poffibly forfeit it. So that the children, whatever may have happened to the fathers, are freemen, and the abfolute power of the conqueror reaches no farther than the perfons of the men that were fubdued by him, and dies with them: and fhould he govern them as flaves, fubjected to his abfolute arbitrary power, he has no fuch right of dominion over their children. He can have no power over them but by their own confent, whatever he may drive them to say or do; and he has no lawfull authority, whilft force, and not choice, compels them to fubmiffion.

§. 190. Every man is born with a double right: first, a right of freedom to his perfon, which no other man has a power over, but the free difpofal of it lies in himself. Secondly, a right, before any other man, to inherit with his brethren his father's goods.

S. 191.