§. 180. Thirdly, the power a conqueror gets over those he overcomes in a just
war is perfectly despotical; he has an absolute power over the lives of those
who, by putting themselves in a state of war, have forfeited them, but he has
not thereby a right and title to their possessions. This I doubt not but at
first sight will seem a strange doctrine, it being so quite contrary to the
practice of the world; there being nothing more familiar in speaking of the
dominion of countries than to say such an one conquered it, as if conquest,
without any more ado, conveyed a right of possession. But when we consider that
the practice of the strong and powerful, how universal soever it may be, is
seldom the rule of right, however it be one part of the subjection of the
conquered not to argue against the conditions cut out to them by the conquering
swords.
