362 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



But in the midft of their feverity the Mexicans were 

 cautious not to involve the innocent in punifhment with 

 the guilty. Many laws of Europe and Afia prefcribed 

 the fame punifliment againft thofe guilty of high treafon, 

 and their families. The Mexicans made the crime capi- 

 tal ; they did not, however, deprive the relations of the 

 traitor of life, but only of liberty ; and not all of them 

 neither, but only thofe who, confcious of the treafon, had 

 not made a difcovery, and thereby made themfelves cri- 

 minal. How much more humane is this than the law of 

 Japan. " Thofe laws," fays Montefquieu, " by which 

 " they punifh a whole family for a fingle crime, or a 

 " whole diftricT:; thofe laws which do not difcriminate 

 " the innocent where there are any guilty." We do 

 not know that the Mexicans prefcribed any punifhment 

 againft thofe who fpoke ill of the government ; it ap- 

 pears that they did not pay much regard to that liberty 

 of fpeech in the fubje&s, which is fo much feared in other 

 countries. 



Their laws concerning marriage were unqueftionably 

 more decent and becoming than thofe of the Romans, 

 the Greeks, the Perfians, the Egyptians, and other peo- 

 ple of the old continent. The Tartars marry their 

 daughters ; the ancient Perfians and Aflfyrians took 

 their mothers to wife ; the Athenians and Egyptians 

 their filters. In Mexico every marriage was forbid be- 

 tween perfons connected in the firft degree of confan- 

 guinity or affinity, except thofe between brothers and 

 fifters-in-law, where the brother in dying left a fon. 

 That prohibition mews, that the Mexicans judged more 

 juftly of matrimony than all the above mentioned na- 

 tions. That exception demonftrates their humanity of 

 fentiments. If a widow married a fecond time, flie had 



frequently 



