Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/84

 The more civilized any country is, the more effectual will this kind of guard to political liberty prove; because, in those circumstances, a sense of justice and honour have got firmer hold of the minds of men; so that a violation of them would be more sensibly felt, and more generally and strongly resented. For this reason, a gentleman of fashion and fortune has much less to dread in France, or in Denmark, than in Turkey. The confiscation of an overgrown rich man's effects, without any cause assigned, would make no great noise in the latter; whereas in those countries, in which the forms of law and liberty have been long established, they necessarily carry with them more or less of the substance also.

There is not, I believe, any country in Europe, in which a man could be condemned, and his effects confiscated, but a crime must be alledged, and a process of law be gone through. The confirmed habit of thinking in these countries is such, that no prince could