Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/350

326 that the confiscation of these debts was for the public good. Those who decided it, were constitutionally enabled to determine it. Grotius shows that you have not only power over the goods of your enemies, but according to the exigency of affairs, you may seize the property of your citizens." After reading the opposite passage from Grotius, he says—"I read these authorities to prove, that the property of an enemy is liable to forfeiture, and that debts are as much the subject of hostile contest as tangible property. And Vattel, p. 484, as before mentioned, pointedly enumerates rights and debts among such property of the enemy, as is liable to confiscation. To this last author, I must frequently resort in the course of my argument. I put great confidence in him, from the weight of his authority,—for he is universally respected by all the wise and enlightened of mankind, being no less celebrated for his great judgment and knowledge, than for his universal philanthropy. One of his first principles of the law of nations, is a perfect equality of rights among nations: that each nation ought to be left in the peaceable enjoyment of that liberty it has derived from nature. I refer your honours to his preliminary discourse from 6th to the 12th page, and as it will greatly elucidate the subject, and tend to prove the position I have attempted to support, I will read section 17, 18, 19, and 20 of this discourse." Having read these sections, he touches transiently, but powerfully, the objection to the want of national independence to pass the laws of forfeiture, till that independence was assented to by the king of Great Britain.

"When the war commenced," said he, "these things, called British debts, lost their quality of external obligation, and became matters of internal obligation,