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27. See Leg. 5, § 2, ff. ibid.

28. Ibid., § 1.

29. Aliudve quid simile admiserint -- Leg. 6, ff. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

30. In the last law, ff. ad leg. Jul. de adulteriis.

31. See Burnet, History of the Reformation.

32. Plutarch, Dionysius.

33. The thought must be joined with some sort of action.

34. Si non tale sit delictum in quod vel scriptura legis descendit vel ad exemplum legis vindicandum est, says Modestinus in Leg. 7, § 3, ff. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

35. In 1740.

36. Nec lubricum lingu? ad poenam facile trahendum est. -- Modestinus, in Leg. 7, § 3, ff. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

37. Si id ex levitate processerit, contemnendum est; si ex insania, miseratione dignissimum; si ab injuria, remittendum. -- Leg. unica. Cod. si quis Imperat. maled.

38. Tacitus, Annals, i. 72. This continued under the following reigns. See the first law in the Cod. de famosis libellis.

39. Tacitus, Annals, iv. 34.

40. The law of the Twelve Tables.

41. Suetonius, Life of Tiberius, 61.

42. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the East India Company, v, part II.

43. Ibid., p. 496.

44. Dio, in Xiphilin., lv. 5. Tacitus, Annals, ii. 30, iii. 67, attributes this law, not to Augustus, but to Tiberius.

45. Flavius Vopiscus in his Life, 9.

46. Sulla made a law of majesty, which is mentioned in Cicero's Orations, Pro Cluentio, art. 3; In Pisonem, art. 21; and against Verres, art. 5. Familiar Epistles, iii, 11. C?sar and Augustus inserted them in the Julian Laws; others made additions to them.

47. Et quo quis distinctior accusator, eo magis honores assequebatur, ac veluti sacrosanctus erat. -- Tacitus,Annals, iv. 36.

48. Deut., 13. 6-9.

49. Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of the East India Company, v, part II, p. 423.

50. Dionysius Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, viii.

51. Tyranno occiso quinque ejus proximos cognatione magistratus necato. -- Cicero, De Invent. ii. 29.

52. Cook viii, p. 547.

53. Of the Civil Wars, iv.

54. It is not sufficient in the courts of justice of that kingdom that the evidence be of such a nature as to satisfy the judges; there must be a legal proof; and the law requires the deposition of two witnesses against the accused. No other proof will do. Now, if a person who is presumed guilty of high treason should contrive to secrete the witnesses, so as to render it impossible for him to be legally condemned, the government then may bring a hill of attainder against him; that is, they may enact a particular law for that single fact. They proceed then in the same manner as in all other bills brought into parliament; it must pass the two houses, and have the king's consent, otherwise it is not a bill: that is, a sentence of the legislature. The person accused may plead against the hill by counsel, and the members of the house may speak in defence of the bill.

55. Legem de singulari aliquo rogato, nisi sex millibus ita visum. -- From Andocidis,De Mysteriis. This is what they call Ostracism.

56. De privis hominibus lat?. -- Cicero,De Leg., iii. 19.

57. Scitum est jussum in omnes. -- Ibid.

58. See Philostratus, i: Lives of the Sophists: ?schines. See likewise Plutarch and Phocius.

59. By the Remnian law.

60. Plutarch, in a treatise entitled. How a Person May Reap Advantage from his Enemies.

61. "A great many sold their children to pay their debts." -- Plutarch, Solon.

62. Ibid.

63. It appears from history that this custom was established among the Romans before the Law of the Twelve Tables. -- Livy, dec. 1, ii. 23, 24.

64. Dionysius Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, vi.

65. Plutarch, Furius Camillas.

66. See below, xxii. 22.

67. One hundred and twenty years after the law of the Twelve Tables: Eo anno plebi Roman?, velut aliud initium libertatis factum est, quod necti desierunt. -- Livy, viii. 38.

68. Bona debitoris, non corpus obnoxium esset. -- Ibid.

69. The year of Rome 465.

70. That of Plautius who made an attempt upon the body of Veturius. -- Valerius Maximus, vi, 1, art. 9. These two events ought not to be confounded; they are neither the same persons nor the same times.

71. See a fragment of Dionysius Halicarnassus in the extract of Virtues and Vices [Historica]; Livy's Epitome, ii., and Freinshemius, ii.

72. Plutarch, Comparison of some Roman and Greek Histories, ii, p. 487.

73. Leg. 6, Cod. Theod. de famosis libellis.

74. "Nerva," says Tacitus, "increased the ease of government."

75. State of Russia, p. 173, Paris, 1717.

76. The Caliphs.

77. History of the Tartars, part III, p. 277, in the remarks.

78. See Francis Pirard.

79. As at present in Persia, according to Sir John Chardin, this custom is very ancient. "They put Cavades," says Procopius, "into the castle of oblivion; there is a law which forbids any one to speak of those who are shut up, or even to mention their name."

80. The fifth law in the Cod. ad leg. Jul. Majest.

81. In the 8th chapter of this book.

82. Frederick copied this law in the Constitutions of Naples, i.

83. In monarchies there is generally a law which forbids those who are invested with public employments to go out of the kingdom without the prince's leave. This law ought to be established also in republics. But in those that have particular institutions the prohibition ought to be general, in order to prevent the introduction of foreign manners.

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Book XIII. Of the Relation Which the Levying of Taxes and the Greatness of the Public Revenues Bear to Liberty

1. Of the Public Revenues. The public revenues are a portion that each subject gives of his property, in order to secure or enjoy the remainder.

To fix these revenues in a proper manner, regard should be had both to the necessities of the state and to those of the subject. The real wants of the people ought never to give way to the imaginary wants of the state.

Imaginary wants are those which flow from the passions and the weakness of the governors, from the vain conceit of some extraordinary project, from the inordinate desire of glory, and from a certain impotence of mind incapable of withstanding the impulse of fancy. Often have ministers of a restless disposition imagined that the wants of their own mean and ignoble souls were those of the state.

Nothing requires more wisdom and prudence than the regulation of that portion of which the subject is deprived, and that which he is suffered to retain.

The public revenues should not be measured by the people's abilities to give, but by what they ought to give; and if they are measured by their abilities to give, it should be considered what they are able to give for a constancy.

2. That it is bad Reasoning to say that the Greatness of Taxes is good in its own Nature. There have been instances in particular monarchies of petty states exempt from taxes that have been as miserable as the circumjacent places which groaned under the weight of exactions. The chief reason of this is, that the petty state can hardly have any such thing as industry, arts, or manufactures, because of its being subject to a thousand restraints from the great state by which it is environed. The great state is blessed with industry, manufactures, and arts, and establishes laws by which those several advantages are procured. The petty state becomes, therefore, necessarily poor, let it pay never so few taxes.

And yet some have concluded from the poverty of those petty states that in order to render the people industrious they should be loaded with taxes. But it would be a juster inference, that they ought to pay no taxes at all. None live here but wretches who retire from the neighbouring parts to avoid working -- wretches who, disheartened by labour, make their whole felicity consist in idleness.

The effect of wealth in a country is to inspire every heart with ambition: that of poverty is to give birth to despair. The former is excited by labour, the latter is soothed by indolence.

Nature is just to all mankind, and repays them for their industry: she renders them industrious by annexing rewards in proportion to their labour. But if an arbitrary prince should attempt to deprive the people of nature's bounty, they would fall into a disrelish of industry; and then indolence and inaction must be their only happiness.

3. Of Taxes in Countries where Part of the People are Villains or Bondmen. The state of villainage is sometimes established after a conquest. In that case, the bondman or villain that tills the land ought to have a kind of partnership with his master. Nothing but a communication of loss or profit can reconcile those who are doomed to labour to such as are blessed with a state of affluence.

4. Of a Republic in the like Case. When a republic has reduced a nation to the drudgery of cultivating her lands, she ought never to suffer the free subject to have the power of increasing the tribute of the bondman. This was not permitted at Sparta. Those brave people thought the Helotes[1] would be more industrious in cultivating their lands, and knowing that their servitude was not to increase; they imagined, likewise, that the masters would be better citizens, when they desired no more than what they were accustomed to enjoy.

5. Of a Monarchy in the like Case. When the nobles of a monarchical state cause the lands to be cultivated for their own use by a conquered people, they ought never to have the power of increasing the service or tribute.[2] Besides, it is right the prince should be satisfied with his own demesne and the military service. But if he wants to raise taxes on the vassals of his nobility, the lords of the several districts ought to be answerable for the tax,[3] and be obliged to pay it for the vassals, by whom they may be afterwards reimbursed. If this rule be not followed, the lord and the collectors of the public taxes will harass the poor vassal by turns till he perishes with misery or flies into the woods.

6. Of a despotic Government in the like Case. The foregoing rule is still more indispensably necessary in a despotic government. The lord who is every moment liable to be stripped of his lands and his vassals is not so eager to preserve them.

When Peter I thought proper to follow the custom of Germany, and to demand his taxes in money, he made a very prudent regulation, which is still followed in Russia. The gentleman levies the tax on the peasant, and pays it to the Czar. If the number of peasants diminishes, he pays all the same; if it increases, he pays no more; so that it is his interest not to worry or oppress his vassals.

7. Of Taxes in Countries where Villainage is not established. When the inhabitants of a state are all free subjects, and each man enjoys his property with as much right as the prince his sovereignty, taxes may then be laid either on persons, on lands, on merchandise, on two of these, or on all three together.

In the taxing of persons, it would be an unjust proportion to conform exactly to that of property. At Athens the people were divided into four classes.[4] Those who drew five hundred measures of liquid or dried fruit from their estates paid a talent[5] to the public; those who drew three hundred measures paid half a talent; those who had two hundred measures paid ten min?; those of the fourth class paid nothing at all. The tax was fair, though it was not proportionable: if it did not follow the measure of people's property, it followed that of their wants. It was judged that every man had an equal share of what was necessary for nature, that whatsoever was necessary for nature ought not to be taxed; that to this succeeded the useful, which ought to be taxed, but less than the superfluous; and that the largeness of the taxes on what was superfluous prevented superfluity.

In the taxing of lands it is customary to make lists or registers, in which the different classes of estates are ranged. But it is very difficult to know these differences, and still more so to find people that are not interested in mistaking them. Here, therefore, are two sorts of injustice, that of the man and that of the thing. But if in general the tax be not exorbitant, and the people continue to have plenty of necessaries, these particular acts of injustice will do no harm. On the contrary, if the people are permitted to enjoy only just what is necessary for subsistence, the least disproportion will be of the greatest consequence.

If some subjects do not pay enough, the mischief is not so great; their convenience and ease turn always to the public advantage; if some private people pay too much, their ruin redounds to the public detriment. If the government proportions its fortune to that of individuals, the ease and convenience of the latter will soon make its fortune rise. The whole depends upon a critical moment: shall the state begin with impoverishing the subjects to enrich itself? Or had it better wait to be enriched by its subjects? Is it more advisable for it to have the former or the latter advantage? Which shall it choose -- to begin or to end with opulence?

The duties felt least by the people are those on merchandise, because they are not demanded of them in form. They may be so prudently managed that the people themselves shall hardly know they pay them. For this purpose it is of the utmost consequence that the person who sells the merchandise should pay the duty. He is very sensible that he does not pay it for himself; and the consumer, who pays it in the main, confounds it with the price. Some authors have observed that Nero had abolished the duty of the five-and-twentieth part arising from the sale of slaves;[6] and yet he had only ordained that it should be paid by the seller instead of the purchaser; this regulation, which left the impost entire, seemed nevertheless to suppress it.

There are two states in Europe where the imposts are very heavy upon liquors: in one the brewer alone pays the duty, in the other it is levied indiscriminately upon all the consumers; in the first nobody feels the rigour of the impost, in the second it is looked upon as a grievance; in the former the subject is sensible only of the liberty he has of not paying, in the latter he feels only the necessity that compels him to pay.

Further, the obliging the consumers to pay requires a perpetual rummaging and searching into their houses. Now nothing is more contrary than this to liberty; and those who establish these sorts of duties have not surely been so happy as to hit upon the best method of collecting the revenue.

8. In what Manner the Deception is preserved. In order to make the purchaser confound the price of the commodity with the impost, there must be some proportion between the impost and the value of the commodity: for which reason there ought not to be an excessive duty upon merchandise of little value. There are countries in which the duty exceeds seventeen or eighteen times the value of the commodity. In this case the prince removes the disguise: his subjects plainly see they are dealt with in an unreasonable manner, which renders them most exquisitely sensible of their servile condition.