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15.18. 18. Of Freedmen and Eunuchs.

Thus in a republican government it is frequently of advantage that the situation of the freedmen be but little below that of the free-born, and that the laws be calculated to remove a dislike of their condition. But in a despotic government, where luxury and arbitrary power prevail, they have nothing to do in this respect; the freedmen generally finding themselves above the free-born. They rule in the court of the prince, and in the palaces of the great; and as they study the foibles and not the virtues of their master, they lead him entirely by the former, not by the latter. Such were the freedmen of Rome in the times of the emperors.

When the principal slaves are eunuchs, let never so many privileges be granted them, they can hardly be regarded as freedmen. For as they are incapable of having a family of their own, they are naturally attached to that of another: and it is only by a kind of fiction that they are considered as citizens.

And yet there are countries where the magistracy is entirely in their hands. "In Tonquin," [41] says Dampier, [42] "all the mandarins, civil and military, are eunuchs." They have no families, and though they are naturally avaricious, the master or the prince benefits in the end by this very passion.

Dampier tells us, too, [43] that in this country the eunuchs cannot live without women, and therefore marry. The law which permits their marriage may be founded partly on their respect for these eunuchs, and partly on their contempt of the fair sex.

Thus they are trusted with the magistracy, because they have no family; and permitted to marry, because they are magistrates.

Then it is that the sense which remains would fain supply that which they have lost; and the enterprises of despair become a kind of enjoyment. So, in Milton, that spirit who has nothing left but desires, enraged at his degradation, would make use of his impotency itself.

We see in the history of China a great number of laws to deprive eunuchs of all civil and military employments; but they always returned to them again. It seems as if the eunuchs of the east were a necessary evil.

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