Bafle, and he immediately formed the design of closely attaching a nation is Since the glory of a nation is a real and fubftantial advantage, § zor. fhe has a right to defend it, as well as her other advantages. He Attacking the glory of who attacks her glory does her an injury; and she has a right to exact of him, even by force of arms, a juft reparation. We doingheran cannot then condemn those measures fometimes taken by fove- injury. reigns to fupport or avenge the dignity of their crown. They are equally juft and neceffary. If, when they do not proceed from too lofty pretenfions, we attribute them to a vain pride, we only betray the groffeft ignorance of the art of reigning, and defpife one of the firmelt fupports of the greatness and fafety of a ftate. CHA P. XVI. Of the Protection fought by a Nation, and its voluntary Submission to a foreign Power. WHEN a nation is not capable of preferving herfelf from in- $192. fult and oppreflion, the may procure the protection of a Protection. more powerful state. If the obtains this by only engaging to perform certain articles, as, to pay a tribute in return for the fafety obtained, to furnith her protector with troops, and to embark in all his wars as a joint concern,-but ftill referving to herself the right of adminiftering her own government at pleasure,—it is a See the Memoirs of Commines. +Of this small army, "eleven hundred and fifty-eight were counted dead on "the field, and thirty-two wounded. Twelve men only efcaped, who were "confidered by their countrymen as cowards, that had preferred a life of fhame "to the honour of dying for their country." Hiflory of the Helvetic Confederacy, by M. de Watteville, Vol. I. p. 250.-Tfchudi, p. 425. Vogel's Hiftorical and Political Treatife of the Alliances between France and the Thirteen Cantons, pag. 75,76. other. fimple treaty of protection, that does not at all derogate from her fovereignty, and differs not from the ordinary treaties of alliance otherwife than as it creates a difference in the dignity of the contracting parties. €193. But this matter is fometimes carried ftill farther: and although Voluntary a nation is under an obligation to preserve with the utmost care fubmiflion of one na- the liberty and independence it inherits from nature,-yet, when tin to an it has not fufficient ftrength of itself, and feels itself unable to refift its enemies, it may lawfully fubject itself to a more powerful nation on certain conditions agreed to by both parties: and the compact or treaty of fubmiffion will thenceforward be the measure and rule of the rights of each. For fince the people who enter into fubjection refign a right which naturally belongs to them, and transfer it to the other nation, they are perfectly at liberty to annex what conditions they pleafe to this transfer; and the other party, by accepting their fubmiffion on this footing, engages to obferve religioufly all the claufes of the treaty. 194. kinds of This fubmiffion may be varied to infinity, according to the Several will of the contracting parties: it may either leave the inferior fubrifion, nation a part of the fovereignty, reftraining it only in certain. refpects, or it may totally abolish it, fo that the fuperior nation fhall become the fovereign of the other, or, finally, the leffer nation may be incorporated with the greater, in order thenceforward to form with it but one and the fame ftate: and then the citizens of the former will have the fame privileges as thofe with whom they are united. The Roman hiftory furnishes examples of each of these three kinds of fubmiflion,-1. the allies of the Roman people, fuch as the inhabitants of Latium were for a long time, who, in feveral refpects, depended on Rome, but, in all others, were governed according to their own laws, and by their own magiftrates;-2. the countries reduced to Roman provinces, as Capua, whofe inhabitants fubmitted abfolutely to the Romans ;-3. the nations to which Rome granted the freedom of the city. In after times the emperors granted that privilege to all the nations fubject to the empire, and thus transformed all their fubjects into citizens. $195. Right of the citizens In the case of a real fubjection to a foreign power, the citizens. who do not approve this change are not obliged to submit to it: when the --they ought to be allowed to fell their effects and retire elfenation fub- where. For my having entered into a fociety does not oblige me mits to a to follow its fate, when it diffolves itself in order to fubmit to a foreign power. foreign dominion. I fubmitted to the fociety as it then was, to live in that fociety as the member of a fovereign ftate, and not in another: I am bound to obey it, while it remains a political fociety but when it divefts itself of that quality in order to re * Itaque populum Campanum, urbemque Capuam, agros, delubra deûm, divina hunianaque omnia, in veftram, patres confcripti, populique Romani ditionem dedimus. LIVY, book vii. c. 31. ́ceive ceive its laws from another ftate, it breaks the bond of union between its members, and releases them from their obligations. When a nation has placed itself under the protection of an- §196. other that is more powerful, or has even entered into fubjection Thefe comto it with a view to receiving its protection,-if the latter does pacts annulled by not effectually protect the other in cafe of need, it is manifeft, the failure that, by failing in its engagements, it lofes all the rights it had of protec acquired by the convention, and that the other, being difen- tion. gaged from the obligation it had contracted, re-enters into the poffeffion of all its rights, and recovers its independence, or its liberty. It is to be obferved, that this takes place even in cafes where the protector does not fail in his engagements through a want of good faith, but merely through inability. For the weaker nation having fubmitted only for the fake of obtaining protection,-if the other proves unable to fulfil that effential condition, the compact is diffolved;-the weaker refumes its right, and may, if it thinks proper, have recourfe to a more effectual protection. Thus the dukes of Auftria, who had acquired a right of protection, and in fome fort a fovereignty over the city of Lucerne, being unwilling or unable to protect it effectually, that city concluded an alliance with the three first cantons; and the dukes having carried their complaint to the emperor, the inhabitants of Lucerne replied, "that they had ufed the natural right common to all men, by which every one is permitted to "endeavour to procure his own fafety when he is abandoned by "those who are obliged to grant him afliftance t.” infidelity of The law is the fame with refpect to both the contracting par§ 197. ties: if the party protected do not fulfil their engagements with Or by the fidelity, the protector is difcharged from his; he may afterwards refufe his protection, and declare the treaty broken, in case the fituation of his affairs renders such a step advisable. the party protected. § 198. And by the encroach In virtue of the fame principle which difcharges one of the contracting parties when the other fails in his engagements, if the more powerful nation should affume a greater authority over ments of the the weaker one than the treaty of protection or fubmiflion allows, protector. the latter may confider the treaty as broken, and provide for its fafety according to its own difcretion. If it were otherwife, the inferior nation would lofe by a convention which it had only formed with a view to its fafety; and if it were ftill bound by its engagements when its protector abufes them and openly vio lates his own, the treaty would, to the weaker party, prove a downright deception. However, as fome people maintain, that, * We speak here of a nation that has rendered itself subject to another, and not of one that has incorporated itself with another ftate, fo as to conftitute a part of it. The latter ftands in the fame predicament with all the other citizens. Of this cafe we hail treat in the following chapter. + See The Hiftory of Switzerland.The United Provinces, having been obliged to rely wholly on their own efforts in defending themfelves against Spain, would no longer acknowledge any dependence on the empire, from which they had received no affinance. GROTIUS, Hift. of the Troubles in the Low Countries, B. xvi. p. 627. h $ 199. nation pro by its fi lence. in this cafe, the inferior nation has only the right of refiftance and of imploring foreign aid,—and particularly as the weak cannot take too many precautions against the powerful, who are fkilful in colouring over their enterprifes,-the fafeft way is to infert in this kind of treaty a claufe declaring it null and void when ever the fuperior power fhall arrogate to itself any rights not exprefsly granted by the treaty. But if the nation that is protected, or that has placed itself in fubHow the jection on certain conditions, does not refift the encroachments of that power from which it has sought support,-if it makes no optected is loft pofition to them, if it preferves a profound filence, when it might and ought to fpeak,--its patient acquiefcence becomes in length of time a tacit confent that legitimates the rights of the ufurper. There would be no ftability in the affairs of inen, and efpecially in those of nations, if long poffeffion, accompanied by the fi lence of the perfons concerned, did not produce a degree of right. But it must be obferved, that filence, in order to fhew tacit confent, ought to be voluntary. If the inferior nation proves that violence and fear prevented its giving teftimonies of its oppofition, nothing can be concluded from its filence, which therefore gives no right to the ufurper. CHA P. XVII. How a Nation may separate itself from the State of which it is a Member, or renounce its Allegiance to its Sovereign when it is not protected. $ 200. WE E have faid that an independent nation, which, without Difference prefent cafe the pre ceding becoming a member of another ftate, has voluntarily renbetweenthe dered itfelf dependent on or fubject to it in order to obtain proand thofe in tection, is released from its engagements as foon as that protection fails, even though the failure happen through the inability of the protector. But we are not to conclude that it is precifely the fame cafe with every nation that cannot obtain fpcedy and effectual protection from its natural fovereign or the ftate of which it is a member. The two cafes are very different. In the former, a free nation becomes fubject to another ftate,—not to partake of all the other's advantages, and form with it an abfolute union of interefts (for if the more powerful ftate were will ing to confer fo great a favour, the weaker one would be incorporated, not fubjected), but to obtain protection alone by the facrifice of its liberty, without expecting any other return. When therefore the fole and indifpenfable condition of its fubjection is (from what caufe foever) not complied with, it is free from its engagements; and its duty towards itfelf obliges it to take fresh methods to provide for its own fecurity. But the feveral members of one individual ftate, as they all equally participate in the advantages it procures, are bound uniformly to fup port port it: they have entered into mutual engagements to continue. united with each other, and to have on all occafions but one common caufe. If thofe who are menaced or attacked might feparate themselves from the others in order to avoid a prefent danger, every ftate would foon be difmembered and destroyed. It is then effentially neceffary for the fafety of fociety, and even for the welfare of all its members, that each part should with all its might refit a common enemy, rather than feparate from the others; and this is confequently one of the neceflary conditions of the political affociation. The natural fubjects of a prince are bound to him without any other referve than the obfervation of the fundamental laws;-it is their duty to remain faithful to him, as it is his, on the other hand, to take care to govern them well: both parties have but one common intereft; the people and the prince together conftitute but one complete whole, one and the fame fociety. It is then an effential and neceffary condition of the political fociety, that the fubjects remain united to their prince, as far as in their power. When, therefore, a city or a province is threatened or ac- $201. tually attacked, it must not, for the fake of escaping the danger, members of Duty of the feparate itself from the ftate of which it is a member, or aban- a ftate, or don its natural prince, even when the state or the prince is un- fubjects of a able to give it immediate and effectual affistance. Its duty, its po- are in dan prince, who litical engagements, oblige it to make the greatest efforts, in or- ger. der to maintain itself in its prefent ftate. If it is overcome by force,-neceffity, that irrefiftible law, frees it from its former engagements, and gives it a right to treat with the conqueror, in order to obtain the best terms poffible. If it muft either submit to him or perish, who can doubt but that it may and even ought to prefer the former alternative? Modern ufage is conformable to this decifion:-a city fubmits to the enemy when it cannot expect fafety from a vigorous refiftance; it takes an oath. of fidelity to him; and its fovereign lays the blame on fortune alone. $202. The ftate is obliged to defend and preferve all its members (17); and the prince owes the fame affiftance to his fubjects. If, Their right therefore, the ftate or the prince refuses or neglects to fuccour a are abanbody of people who are expofed to imminent danger, the latter, doned. being thus abandoned, become perfectly free to provide for their own fafety and prefervation in whatever manner they find moft convenient, without paying the leaft regard to those who, by abandoning them, have been the first to fail in their duty. The country of Zug, being attacked by the Swifs in 1352, fent for fuccour to the duke of Auftria its fovereign; but that prince, being engaged in difcourfe concerning his hawks at the time when the deputies appeared before him, would fcarcely condefcend to hear them. Thus abandoned, the people of Zug entered into the Helvetic confederacy *. The city of Zurich |