Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/249

Rh A conqueror therefore who reduces the conquered people to slavery, ought always to reserve to himself the means (for means there are without number) of restoring them to their liberty.

These are far from being vague and uncertain notions. Thus our ancestors acted, those ancestors who conquered the Roman empire. The laws they made in the heat of fire, action, impetuosity, and the pride of victory, were afterwards softened; those laws were severe, but they rendered them impartial. The Burgundians, Goths, and Lombards would always have the Romans continue a conquered people; but the laws of Euirc, Gundebald, and Rotharis, made the Romans and Barbarians fellow-citizens.

NSTEAD of inferring such fatal consequences from the right of conquest, much better would it have been for politicians to mention the advantages which this very right may sometimes give to a conquered people; advantages which would be more sensibly, more universally felt, were our law of nations exactly followed, and established over all the earth.

Conquered countries are, generally speaking, degenerated from their original institution. Corruption has crept in, the execution of the laws has been neglected, and the government is grown oppressive. Who can question but such a state would be a gainer, and derive some advantages from the very conquest itself, if it did not prove destructive? Rh