not, and the posterity even of those that did, the conqueror, even in a just war, hath by his conquest no right of dominion; they are free from any subjection to him, and, if their former government be dissolved, they are at liberty to begin and erect another to themselves.

186. The conqueror, it is true, usually, by the force he has over them, compels them, with a sword at their breasts, to stoop to his conditions, and submit to such a government as he pleases to afford them; but the inquiry is : What right he has to do so? If it be said they submit by their own consent, then this allows their own consent to be necessary to give the conqueror a title to rule over them. It remains only to be considered whether promises extorted by force, without right, can be thought consent, and how far they bind; to which I shall say they bind not at all; because, whatsoever another gets from me by force, I still retain the right of, and he is obliged presently to restore. He that forces my horse from me, ought presently to restore him, and I have still a right to re-take him. By the same reason, he that forced a promise from me ought presently to restore it, i.e., quit me of the obligation of it; or I may resume it myself, i.e., choose whether I will perform it, for the law of Nature, laying an obligation on me only by the rule she prescribes, cannot oblige me by the violation of her rules, such as the extorting anything from me by force. Nor does it at all alter the case to say, "I gave my promise," no more than it excuses the force, and passes the right, when I put my hand in my pocket, and deliver my purse myself to a thief, who demands it with a pistol at my breast.

187. From all which it follows that the government of a conqueror, imposed by force on the subdued, against whom he had no right of war, or who joined not in the war against him, where he had right, has no obligation upon them.

188. But let us suppose that all the men of that community, being all members of the same body politic, may be taken to have joined in that unjust war wherein they are subdued, and so their lives are at the mercy of the conqueror.

189. I say this concerns not their children who are in their minority, for, since a father hath not in himself a

power over the life and liberty of his child, no act of his can possibly forfeit it. So that the children, whatever may have happened to the fathers, are freemen, and the absolute power of the conqueror reaches no farther than the persons of the men that were subdued by him, and dies with them; and, should he govern them as slaves, subjected to his absolute arbitrary power, he has no such right of dominion over their children. He can have no power over them but by their own consent, whatever he may drive them to say or do; and he has no lawful authority, whilst force, and not choice, compels them to submission.

190. Every man is born with a double right: first, a right of freedom to his person, which no other man has a power over, but the free disposal of it lies in himself; secondly, a right, before any other man, to inherit with his brethren his father's goods.

191. By the first of these a man is naturally free from subjection to any government, though he be born in a place under its jurisdiction; but if he disclaim the lawful government of the country he was born in, he must also quit the right that belonged to him by the laws of it and the possessions there descending to him from his ancestors, if it were a government made by their consent.

192. By the second, the inhabitants of any country who are descended, and derive a title to their estates from those who are subdued, and had a government forced upon them against their free consents, retain a right to the possession of their ancestors, though they consent not freely to the government, whose hard conditions were by force imposed on the possessors of that country. For the first conqueror, never having had a title to the land of that country, the people who are the descendants of, or claim under those who were forced to submit to the yoke of a government by constraint, have always a right to shake it off, and free themselves from the usurpation or tyranny which the sword hath brought in upon them, till their rulers put them under such a frame of Government as they willingly and of choice consent to. Who doubts but the Grecian Christians (descendants of the ancient possessors of that country) may justly cast off the Turkish yoke, which they have so long groaned under,

whenever they have an opportunity to do it? For no government can have a right to obedience from a people who have not freely consented to it; which they can never be supposed to do till either they are put in a full state of liberty to choose their government and governors, or at least till they have such standing laws, to which they have by themselves or their representatives given their free consent, and also till they are allowed their due property, which is so to be proprietors of what they have, that nobody can take away any part of it without their own consent, without which men, under any government, are not in the state of freemen, but are direct slaves under the force of war.

193. But, granting that the conqueror in a just war has a right to the estates as well as power over the persons of the conquered-which it is plain he has not nothing of absolute power will follow from hence in the continuance of the government, because the descendants of these being all freemen, if he grants them estates and possessions to inhabit his country (without which it would be worth nothing), whatsoever he grants them, they have, so far as it is granted, "property in "--the nature whereof is that without a man's own consent it cannot be taken from him.

194. Their persons are free by a native right, and their properties, be they more or less, are their own, and at their own disposal, and not at his; or else it is no property. Supposing the conqueror gives to one man a thousand acres to him and his heirs for ever, to another he lets a thousand acres for his life, under the rent of £50 or £500 per annum, has not the one of these a right to his thousand acres for ever, and the other during his life, paying the said rent? And has not the tenant for life a property in all that he gets over and above his rent, by his labour and industry, during the said term, supposing it be double the rent? Can any one say the king, or conqueror, after his grant, may by his power of conqueror take away all, or part of the land from the heirs of one, or from the other during his life, he paying the rent? Or can he take away from either the goods or money they have got upon the said land, at his pleasure? If he can, then all free and voluntary contracts cease, and

are void in the world. There needs nothing to dissolve them at any time but power enough. And all the grants and promises of men in power are but mockery and collusion; for can there be anything more ridiculous than to say "I give you and yours this for ever "--and that in the surest and most solemn way of conveyance can be devised —and yet it is to be understood that I have a right, if I please, to take it away from you again to-morrow?

195. I will not dispute now whether princes are exempt from the laws of their country, but this I am sure, they owe subjection to the laws of God and Nature. No body. no power, can exempt them from the obligations of that eternal law. Those are so great and so strong in the case of promises that omnipotency itself can be tied by them. Grants, promises, and oaths are bonds that hold the Almighty. Whatever some flatterers say to princes of the world, who altogether, with all their people joined to them, are, in comparison of the great God, but as a drop of the bucket, or a dust on the balance-inconsiderable nothing!

196. The short of the case in conquest is this: the conqueror, if he have a just cause, has a despotical right over the persons of all that actually aided and concurred in the war against him, and a right to make up his damage and cost out of their labour and estates, so he injure not the right of any other. Over the rest of the people, if there were any that consented not to the war, and over the children of the captives themselves, or the possessions of either, he has no power; and so can have by virtue of conquest, no lawful title himself to dominion over them, or derive it to his posterity; but is an aggressor if he attempts upon their properties, and thereby puts himself in a state of war against them, and has no better a right of principality, he, nor any of his successors, than Hingar or Hubba the Danes had here in England, or Spartacus had he conquered Italy would have had; which is to have their yoke cast off as soon as God shall give those under their subjection courage and opportunity to do it. Thus, notwithstanding whatever title the kings of Assyria had over Judah by the sword, God assisted Hezekiah to throw off the dominion of that conquering empire. "And the Lord was with Hezekiah, and he prospered; wherefore he

went forth, and he rebelled against the King of Assyria, and served him not" (2 Kings, xviii. 7). Whence it is plain that shaking off a power, which force and not right hath set over any one, though it hath the name of rebellion, yet is no offence before God, but is that which he allows and countenances though even promises and covenants, when obtained by force, have intervened. For it is very probable to any one that reads the story of Ahaz and Hezekiah attentively, that the Assyrians subdued Ahaz and deposed him, and made Hezekiah king in his father's lifetime; and that Hezekiah by agreement had done him homage, and paid him tribute all this time.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF USURPATION.

197. As conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this difference, that a usurper can never have right on his side, it being no usurpation but where one is got into the possession of what another has a right to. This, so far as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the forms and rules of the government; for if the usurper extend his power beyond what of right belonged to the lawful princes or governors of the commonwealth, it is tyranny added to usurpation.

198. In all lawful governments the designation of the persons who are to bear rule, is as natural and necessary à part as the form of the government itself, and is that which had its establishment originally from the people; the anarchy being much alike to have no form of government at all, or to agree that it should be monarchical, but to appoint no way to design the person that shall have the power, and be the monarch. Hence all commonwealths with the form of government established have rules also of appointing those who are to have any share in the public authority, and settled methods of conveying the right to them. For the anarchy is much alike to have no form of government at all, or to agree that it shall be monarchical, but to appoint no way to