Bernier, François, Travels in the Mogul Empire A.D. 1656-1668

(Westminster, Eng. :  Constable,  1891.)

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238                    LETTER TO COLBERT

expected. No doubt, this summary mode of proceeding
excited the admiration of our travellers, and they returned
to France, exclaiming, ' O, what an excellent and quick
administration of justice ! O, the upright Kadis ! Models
for the imitation of French magistrates !' not considering
that if the party really in the wrong had possessed the
means of putting a couple of crowns into the hands of the
Kadi or his clerks, and of buying with the same sum two
false witnesses, he would indisputably have gained his
cause, or prolonged it as long as he pleased.

Yes, My Lord, to conclude briefly I must repeat it; take
away the right of private property in land, and you intro¬
duce, as a sure and necessary consequence, tyranny, slavery,
injustice, beggary and barbarism : the ground will cease to
be cultivated and become a dreary wilderness ; in a word,
the road will be opened to the ruin of Kings and the de¬
struction of Nations. It is the hope by which a man is
animated, that he shall retain the fruits of his industry, and
transmit them to his descendants, that forms the main
foundation of everything excellent and beneficial in this
sublunary state ; and if we take a review of the different
kingdoms in the world, we shall find that they prosper
or decline according as this principle is acknowledged or
contemned: in a word, it is the prevalence or neglect
of this principle which changes and diversifies the face
of the earth.
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