The incapacity of a weak and distracted government may often assume the appearance and produce the effects of a treasonable correspondence with the public enemy. If Alaric himself had been introduced into the council of Ravenna, he would probably have advised the same measures which were actually pursued by the ministers of Honorius.

The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.

All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.

So natural to man is the practice of violence that our indulgence allows the slightest provocation, the most disputable right, as a sufficient ground of national hostility.

The land was then covered with morasses and forests, which spread to a boundless extent, whenever man has ceased to exercise his dominion over the earth.

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

The laws of a nation form the most instructive portion of its history