L A W. 
To conclude. When we fee a nation, or its minifter, 
ref'ufe to acknowledge authorities generally received by 
Other ftates ; it is a clear fign, that it means no longer to 
obey the old law of nations ; in other words, that it means 
to withdraw itfelf from its fet or clafs. Of this the French, 
throughout the progrefs of their revolution, have afforded 
repeated inftances. We may juft notice the correfpond- 
ence between the American government and the French 
envoy, Genet, in the year 1795- Being told that his pro¬ 
ceedings were contrary to the fpirit of the doftrines of 
Grotius and Vattel, he replied, that he knew nothing, 
about Grotius or Vattel, but that his conduct was con¬ 
formable to the doftrines of the French conftitution. 
This was either ignorance or defign : if the one, it can 
form no cafe; but, if the other, it was almoft a direft no¬ 
tice, that the French meant to retire from the obedience 
they had paid to the code of European law. In the lat¬ 
ter cafe, therefore, Genet was not a fool, as he has been 
called, but merely confiftent. Confiftent alfo they have 
remained, in this particular, throughout all their changes 
of governments and of rulers; fo that we might notice a 
feries of afts wherein they have fhown a total difregard 
of good faith and of the law of nations; but, as we have 
given an early anal avowed inftance, it may be fufficient to 
mention one more, equally avowed, and the lateft that 
has come to our knowledge; namely that of feveral Ruf¬ 
fians having been put to death, for no other crime than 
that of being faithful to the caufe of their country, in 
endeavouring to .render the pofl'effion of Mofcow of as lit¬ 
tle avail as polfible to the invaders, by deftroying it. It 
now appears that this atrocious aft was attempted to be 
covered by the mock folemnity of a military commillion, 
Sept. 24, 1812, at which the charge of fetting fire to the 
city was formally made againlt twenty-lix Ruffians, feve¬ 
ral of whom were natives of Mofcow, and for which ten 
of them were fentenced to death ; and the remaining fix- 
teen, although it was acknowledged that there was not 
evidence fufficient to convict them, were ordered to 
be detained in the prifons of Mofcow, to prevent the 
mifehief they might commit! The faft was announced 
in the French official bulletins; and the proceedings of 
the military commillion were detailed in the French newf- 
papers. Had it not been for their own records thus pub- 
lifhed to the world, it would perhaps have fcarcely been 
believed that fo wanton and barbarous a violation of every 
principle of juffice had really been committed. A mili¬ 
tary commiffion, confiftingof French officers, is appointed 
to try twenty-fix natives of Rulfia, upon no other charge 
than that of the fair exercife of the rights of war againlt 
an invader; and by that military commillion ten of thefe 
individuals are condemned to death, and the reft to linger 
in a prifon ! 
II. Of some ANCIENT CODES. 
The civil laws of nations form the moll inftruftive part 
of their domeftic hiftory; whillt, from the general intereft 
in their prefervation, they are the molt authentic docu¬ 
ments of the countries to which they relate. Kiltorians, 
in their narratives of the various empires whofe rife, pro¬ 
grefs, or fall, they have recorded, have in general given 
a fufficient account of the forms of government, and often 
of the worfhip, of each ftate forming the fubjeft of their 
histories; but few have detailed their civil laws; here and 
there a cultom is to be gleaned, but political and military 
inftitutions have more immediately attracted their notice. 
Various reafons may account for this filence. The hilto- 
rian, in writing the hiftory of his country, may have 
deemed it ufelels to give to his countrymen an account 
of their own laws, which all are generally fuppofed to 
know ; and, in writing that of others, or even of his own, 
to have dived into and traced the multiplied and nice dil- 
tinftions drawn in the judicial decifions and laws of every 
country of cultivated intelleft, would have been a talk 
extremely laborious, and mult often, from the difficulty 
of obtaining accurate information, bf of very doubtful 
y ou xn. No. 834. 
337 
fuccefs. The contempt among the Greeks for every thing 
not their own, except money or merchandife, might alfo 
deprive them of any ferious interelt in the civil laws of 
ftrangers; and beyond the writings of the Greeks our re¬ 
cords as to early hiftory are few. Military men can fee a 
wide difference in the detail of military operations when- 
ftated by one author who is familiar with the art of war 
and by another who is wholly unacquainted with it; the 
hiftory of the civil laws of countries by a ftranger to thole 
countries is, from the intricate nature of the fubjeft, ltill 
more liable to mis-ftatements and error. 
The pofitive laws handed down to us by the facred' 
writings prior to the flood, or even to the delivery of the 
Decalogue and Jewifh law, are tew. We find the inltitu- 
tion of marriage, (Gen. ii. 24.) the authority of the hufi- 
band eftablilbecl over the wife, (iii. 16.) the power of the 
elder brother over the younger, (iv. 79.) the abnfe of it 
arraigned, and the indignation of the divinity at murder, 
(v. 9.) the hefitation of the murderer (flowing the confci- 
oufnefs and knowledge of guilt, and his own denuncia¬ 
tion againlt himfelf of the neceffary fatisfadlion of life for 
life, (iv. 14.) a fatisfaftion which after the deluge was 
again required in the commandment delivered to NoaJi, 
(ix. 5.) But, beyond thele, other laws muft have been 
delivered to or preferved by this fecond father of man¬ 
kind ; he defeended from the favoured race among the 
fons of Adam. Noah might perfonally have derived his- 
inftruftions from the grandfons of Seth, and they from 
their anceitor, who lived eight hundred years coeval with 
the firft man. The Jews by tradition attribute to Adam 
fix main precepts, viz. Not to worfhip idols, not to com- 
plit murder, not to commit adultery, not,to blafpheme, 
not to (leal, and to adminifter juftice. Thefe form part 
of the oral law; molt of them are to be found in different 
parts of Genefis, but there are other precepts prefumed 
to he of equal antiquity. Honour to parents was no lefs 
a precept before the delivery of the Decalogue; and the 
irreverence of Ham was punilhed by the curfe of his fa¬ 
ther, a curie which the fucceeding patriarchs of the race 
of Shem feem to have kept in view, in their anxiety left 
their childien fhould mix with an ignoble race, in the 
oath and aflurance required by Abraham from his Iteward, 
the prohibition of Ifaac to Jacob, and the grief occafioned 
to the former and Rebecca on the marriage of Efau with 
one of the defeendants of that degraded generation. Un¬ 
natural crimes were avenged by the immediatejudgments 
of Heaven; and, in the puniffiment of four whole cities, 
man was again reminded, although Providence had affured 
him a fecond univerfal deluge fhould not take place, that 
general as well as individual iniquity fhould not efcape 
his vifitations. Rape is alfo numbered among the lift of 
crimes,and puniffied with the lifeof the offender. (Gen. ix. 
xxiv. xxvi. xxviii.) 
The obligation upon the younger brother of marrying 
the widow of the elder to raife up a family in his name, 
and the punilhment for incontinency, feem not wholly 
confined to the patriarchal race, though no inftances out 
of it are given ; but it is fair to infer, that other general 
ordinances exifted in thefe primeval times, beyond the 
few recorded ; for the Omnipotent beftows his bleffings 
upon Abraham bccaufe, as the text fays, he obeyed my voice, 
and kept my charge , my commandments , my Jlatutes, and my 
laws. Gen. xxvi. 5. 
Upon the difperfion of the various families over the 
earth, we begin to trace the title to, and property in, 
land. If one was chief of a family, his fuperiority merely 
confifted in the government of the hive, without claiming 
any lhare or right in the earnings or labour of others not 
of his family; each occupied and held for himfelf, and 
difpofed of his acquirements as he pleafed, by gift to his 
children, or fide even to a Granger. Abraham purchafed 
his burial-place from an individual of Heth, whom he re¬ 
queued the people to entreat to fell it to him; and Jacob 
purchafed a field for a fimilar purpofe from the Ions of 
Ham or, The Egyptians held their lauds in like manner 
4 R independently; 
