Letter 105
Usbek to the Same
All the nations of Europe are not equally
submissive to their princes: the impatient
humour of the English, for instance, leaves
their king hardly any time to make his
authority felt. Submission and obedience
are virtues upon which they flatter them-
selves but little. On this subject they say
most amazing things. According to them
there is only one tie which can bind men,
and that is gratitude: husband and wife,
father and son, are only bound to each
other by their mutual affection, or by the
services they do each other : and these
various motives of obligation are the origin
of all kingdoms and communities.
But if a prince, instead of making the
lives of his subjects happy, attempts to
oppress and ruin them, the basis of obedi-
ence is destroyed; nothing binds them,
nothing attaches them to him; and they
return to their natural liberty. They main-
tain that all unlimited power must be un-
lawful, because it cannot have had a lawful
origin. For, we cannot, say they, give to
another more power over us than we our-
selves have : now, we have not unlimited
power over ourselves ; for example, we have
no right to take our own lives: no one upon
earth then, they conclude, had such a power.
The crime of high treason is nothing
else, according to them, than the crime of
the weaker against the stronger, simply
disobedience, no matter what form the
disobedience may take. Thus the people of
England, finding themselves stronger than
one of their kings,1
pronounced it high
treason in a prince to make war upon his
subjects. They have therefore good reason
to say that the precept of their Koran,2
which requires submission to the powers
that be, is not a very difficult one to follow,
seeing that it is impossible not to do so, in-
asmuch as they are not enjoined to submit
to the most virtuous, but to the strongest.
The English tell how one of their kings,
having conquered and taken prisoner a
prince who disputed his right to the crown,
began to reproach him with his faithless-
ness and treachery, when the unfortunate
prince replied, “It was decided only a
moment ago which of us two is the traitor.”
A usurper declares all those rebels who
have not, like him, oppressed their country;
and believing that where there are no judges
there are no laws, he chases the caprices
of chance and fortune to be reverenced like
the decrees of Heaven.
Paris, the 20th of the second moon of
Rebiab, 1717.