366 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



tants of a city taken by force of arms loft their liberty, 

 and were fold as flaves. Certainly, the inhumanity 

 which the Mexicans {hewed to the prifoners of their 

 enemy, is not to be compared with that which the Athe- 

 nians ufed towards their own citizens. A law of Athens, 

 fays the fame author, ordained, that whenever the city 

 was befieged, all ufelefs people mould be put to death. 

 We ihali not find among the Mexicans, or any other po- 

 lilhed nation of the new world, a law fo barbarous as 

 this of the moft cultivated people of ancient Europe. 

 The greateft anxiety, on the contrary, of the Mexicans, 

 and other people of Anahuac, whenever any of their 

 cities was befieged, was to lodge their women, children, 

 and invalids, in a place of fecurity, by fending them to 

 other cities, or into the mountains. By thefe means, 

 they protected the defencelefs members of the commu- 

 nity from the fury of the enemy, and prevented all unne- 

 celfary confumption of provifions. 



The tribute which they paid to the king of Anahuac 

 was exorbitant, and the laws which enforced them were 

 tyrannical ; but thofe laws were the effects of defpotifm, 

 introduced in the laft years of the Mexican monarchy ; 

 which, at its greateft height, never reached that ex- 

 cefs of monopolizing the lands of an empire, and the pro- 

 perty of the fubje&s, which we juftly condemn in Afia- 

 tic monarchs ; nor were there ever laws published refpe£t.- 

 ing tributes fo extravagant and fevere as thofe which 

 have been publiihed in the old world ; as for example, 

 by the emperor Anaftafius, who laid a tax even on breath- 

 ing ; " Ut unufquifque pro haustu aeris pendat." 



But if we cenfure the tyrannical ambition of thofe mo- 

 narchs in the laws on tributes, we cannot at lead but ad- 

 mire 



