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• Introduction
• A Note On the Text
• Acknowledgments
• The Rights of War and Peace Book I
• The Life of Hugo Grotius
• H. Grotius to His Most Christian Majesty Lewis XIII. King of France and Navarre.
• The Preliminary Discourse Concerning the Certainty of Right In General; and the Design of This Work In Particular.
• Book I
• Chapter I: What War Is, and What Right Is.
• Chapter II: Whether ’tis Ever Lawful to Make War.
• Chapter III: The Division of War Into Publick and Private. an Explication of the Supreme Power.
• Chapter IV: Of a War Made By Subjects Against Their Superiors.
• Chapter V: Who May Lawfully Make War.

The 1738 English translation of Barbeyrac’s French edition, which is reprinted here, was in large part the work of John Morrice. In 1715 he and two collaborators had published a translation of the Latin text of Grotius’s work, which was reprinted as the translation of Grotius’s text in the 1738 edition; Barbeyrac’s notes were translated from the French and added to the Morrice translation at the same time. Morrice’s papers survive in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (including two autobiographical sketches),1 and they give a vivid sense of a life that was a combination of Grub Street and the lower reaches of the Church of England, governed by a constant anxiety over money and preferment. Morrice was born in Shropshire in 1686 and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lincoln College Oxford in 1709. In 1714 he was chosen Lecturer at St. Bartholomew’s by the Royal Exchange in London, and at the same time appointed chaplain to the Earl of Uxbridge; the following year (as he said in the longer of the two autobiographies)

The publishers of this edition (D. Brown, T. Ward, and W. Meares) included one of the publishers of the 1738 edition (Brown); the publishers of the various English translations of Pufendorf also included some of the publishers of both the 1715 and the 1738 Grotius, and the two projects were clearly regarded as similar.4 The quality of the translation of Grotius’s text varies, with most of the more egregious errors being toward the end (see, for example, my notes at III.VII.9 and III.XIX.14), and it is likely that these passages were translated by Spavan or Little-hales. Elsewhere, Morrice remembered that at the presentation to the prince “he was promised Great Things,” though nothing materialized until 1724, when he was appointed chaplain to the prince. In the meantime he made money acting as minister of the chapel in the New Way, Westminster, translating, and writing anonymously for the Tatler and the Spectator. The prince succeeded to the throne as George II in 1727, and Morrice continued to hope for great things, from a monarch who clearly had a rather vague memory of him:

CHAPTER V

Who may lawfully make War.

I.The Efficient Causes of War are those who engage in it, either upon their own Account, as Principals:I. As in other Things, so also in moral Actions, there are wont to be three Efficient Causes, Principals, Assistants, and Instruments. The principal Efficient Cause in a War, is generally the Person interested. In a private War a private Person; in a publick, the Civil Power, especially the Supreme. Whether a War may be justly undertaken in Behalf of another, not making War, shall be treated of in1 another Place. In the mean Time this is most certain, that every Man has a natural Right to revenge himself; and therefore were Hands given us.

II.Or upon the Account of others as Assistants:II. 1. But it is not only lawful for us, as far as we are able, to be beneficial to another, but also commendable. They who write of Offices, justly say, that there is nothing so useful to one Man, as another Man. Now there are several particular Ties, which engage Men mutually to assist each other.Diges. I. 18. Tit. 7. De Servis exportand. Leg. 7. De furtis, I. 7. & Cod. I. 10. tit. 1. De jure fisci. Cic. de Off. I. 11 ex Panaetio. Bartol. ad Dig. I. 1. tit. 1. De Just. & jure n. 7, 8. Kinsmen assemble to help one another: Neighbours and Fellow-Citizens call for1 the Aid one of the other, whence comes that Saying, Porro Quirites and Quiritari. Aristotle2 said it behoved every one to take up Arms, either to defend himself upon an Injury offered him, or for his Kinsmen, or Benefactors, or Allies. And Solon3 declared that a happy State, wherein every Man looked upon the Wrongs done to another, as done to himself.

2. But tho’ there were no other Obligations, it is enough that we are allied by common Humanity. For every Man ought to interest himself in what regards other Men. It was well said of Menander,4Jas. ib. n. 29. Cast. ad Leg. I. § 4. ib. Bartol. ad Dig. 1. 49. Tit. 15. De Capt. &c. Leg. 24. n. 9. Innoc. ad C. sicut De Jure jur. & in C. olim De restit. Spol. n. 16. Panorm. n. 18. Sylv. in verbo Bellum, Q. 8.

• Injuriarum, si improbis, &c.

If every one would heartily engage in the Defence of those that are insulted; if Men would look on Injuries done to others, as done to themselves, and would strenuously assist one another; the Wicked would not become daily more bold and enterprising, but finding themselves watched on every Side, and suffering the just Punishment of their Crimes, few or none would run the Hazard of it. And this of Democritus,5It is every Man’s Duty to the utmost of his Power, to assist the Injured, and by no Means to neglect it; for this is just and good: Which Lactantius thus expresses,6GOD, who has denied Wisdom to all other Animals, has furnished them with such natural Arms, as may secure them from Insults and Dangers. But as he made Man naked and weak; chusing rather to adorn him with Wisdom, than endow him with Force;<126> he has given him, amongst other Things, a Sentiment of Affection, which prompts him to defend those of his own Species, to love them, to cherish them, to give to them, and receive from them Assistance against all Dangers whatsoever.

III.Or are Instrumental, as Servants and Subjects.III. By Instruments, we mean not Arms, nor such like Things; but certain Persons who act by their own Will, but yet so as that their Will depends on another, that sets it in Motion: Such is a Son to his Father, being part of himself naturally; or a Servant, as a Part of his Master by Law. For as a Part is not only a Part of the Whole, in the same Relation as a Whole is the whole of a Part,Cod. de Agricolis, 1. 11. & 1. 9. de Adulter. Sen. I. Con. 4. Arist. Eth. Ni. com. v. 10. p. 67. Ed. Paris. but that very Thing which it is, because of the Whole on which it depends:1 So the Thing possessed makes in some Manner part of the Possessor.2Democritus said, Servants are to be used as Members of our Body, some to one Purpose, and some to another. As a Servant is in a Family, the same is a Subject in a State, and is therefore the Instrument of the Sovereign.

IV.By the Law of Nature none are excused from War.IV. Nor can we doubt, but all Subjects may naturally be employed in War, tho’ some special Laws may exempt some; as formerly1 Slaves among the Romans, and now every where the2Clergy; which Law not-withstanding withstanding, as all others of that Nature, must be understood with the Exception of Cases of3 extreme Necessity. Let this suffice to be spoken of Assistants and Subjects in general.Thomas, Sec. Sec. 40. Art. 2. Sylvest. de Bell. p. 3. For what Questions particularly relate to them, shall be handled4 in their proper Places.

[1. ]MSS Rawlinson D.736 and D.1145.

[2. ]John Spavan (1685–1718), matriculated at St. Edmund Hall Oxford in 1701, M.A. from Sidney Sussex College Cambridge 1709, vicar of Great Maplestead Essex 1713–18 (Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, n.p.); Edmund Littlehales (1690–1724), matriculated as medical student at Leiden University 1710, M.D. from Harderwyck, F.R.S. (Album Studiosorum Academiae Lugduno Batavae MDCXXV–MDCCCLXXV, The Hague, 1875, p. 819; P. J. and R. V. Wallis, Eighteenth Century Medics, Newcastle upon Tyne: n.p., 1988).

[3. ]MS Rawlinson D.1145, p. 12 (f. 7v).

[4. ]Ward also published, in 1718, a Latin edition of De Iure Belli, which is extremely rare.

[5. ]Ibid., 31 (no folio numbering).

[1 ]See B. II. Chap. XXV.

[1 ]Hence, as our Author here observes, come those Expressions among the antient Romans, Porro, Quirites; & Quiritari, for complaining, and calling for Assistance. See Gronovius on this Place.

[2. ]Rhetoric. Ad Alexand. Cap. III. p. 615. Edit. Paris. Tom. II.

[3. ]Being asked what State he thought best regulated, that, says he, where, &c. Plut. in Solon, p. 88. Tom. I. Edit. Wech. The following Advice of Plautus may be applied here,

• Stop the Course of Injustice before it reaches you.
• Praetorquete injuriae prius collum, quam ad vos perveniat.
• Rudent. Act. III. Scen. II. v. 12. Grotius.

[4. ]In Stobaeum, Tit. XLIII. See Mr. Le Clerc’s Note on that Fragment, p. 3, 4.

[5. ]In Stob.Serm. XLVI. p. 310.

[6. ]Lib. VI. Cap. X. Numb. 3. Edit. Cellar.

[1 ]These Ideas of the old Philosophy afford but little Satisfaction. It is sufficient that, when a Son or a Slave are considered as mere Instruments, they act, or are supposed to act, by the Orders of a Father or a Mother, so that without such Directions, they would not have determined themselves to Action. See what I have said on the Abridgment of Pufendorf’s Treatise Of the Duties of a Man and a Citizen, B. I. Chap. I. § 27. Note 1, 2. third and fourth Edition.

[2. ]In Stob.Serm. LXII. p. 385.

[1 ]See Pufendorf, B. VIII. Chap. II. The Author, in a Note on this Place, refers us to Servius, on Aeneid. IX. ver. 547; where we have this formal Law: Slaves are excluded from all military Service; if they engage in it, they are punished with Death.Digest.Lib. XLIX. Tit. XVI. De Re Militari, Leg. XI. See Lipsius, De Militiâ Romanâ. Lib. 1. Dial. II. p. 22. &c. Edit. Wesal. and Analect. p. 444. As also the Notes of Father Abram, a Jesuit, on Cicero’s Orat. in Pisonem, Cap. X. & pro Rege Dejotaro, Cap. VIII.

[2. ]The Levites also were excused from bearing Arms, as Josephus observes, Antiq. Jud. Lib. III. Cap. XI. As to what concerns Ecclesiasticks, see Nicetas Choniates, Lib. VI. The Capitularies of Charles the Bald, in Sparnac. XXXVII. and the Canon Law, Distinct. L. Can. V. and Caus. XXIII. Quaest. VIII. Those are the Regulations made by the Canons, but we may see in the History of Anna Comnenes, Lib. X. Cap. VIII. how much more strictly they have been observed by the Greeks than by the Latins. [Compare them with what is said in Votum pro Pace Ecclesiasticâ, Art. XVI.] Grotius.

See Chap. II. § 10, Num. 8. and Mr. Bohmer’s Jus Ecclesiasticum Protestantium, Lib. III. Tit. I. § 62, &c. and Tit. XX. § 71, &c. as also Mr. Thomasius’s Notes on Lancelot’s Inst. Juris Canon. p. 154, and 350. I find nothing in Nicetas Choniates, quoted by our Author, concerning the Exemption granted to Ecclesiasticks; that Historian only says, in the Life of Manuel Comnenes, Lib. VII. Cap. III. that that Emperor ordered the Monks should possess no Lands, that they might be free from such Distractions as attend the Care of temporal Affairs, and devote themselves entirely to spiritual Exercises.

[3. ]Thus, after the Battle of Cannae, the Romans, being in great Want of Soldiers, bought 8000 young and able bodied Slaves, and listed them in the Service. Livy, Lib. XXII. Cap. LVII. Num. 11, 12.

[4. ]See our Author, B. II. Chap. XXV. XXVI.