ns that determine them to engage in no
confederacy. Perhaps they would change their mind if they lived among
us; but yet, though treaties were more religiously observed, they would
still dislike the custom of making them, since the world has taken up a
false maxim upon it, as if there were no tie of nature uniting one nation
to another, only separated perhaps by a mountain or a river, and that all
were born in a state of hostility, and so might lawfully do all that
mischief to their neighbours against which there is no provision made by
treaties; and that when treaties are made they do not cut off the enmity
or restrain the licence of preying upon each other, if, by the
unskilfulness of wording them, there are not effectual provisoes made
against them; they, on the other hand, judge that no man is to be
esteemed our enemy that has never injured us, and that the partnership of
human nature is instead of a league; and that kindness and good nature
unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements
whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger
than the bond and obligation of words.

OF THEIR MILITARY DISCIPLINE

They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of
human nature, is more practised by men than by any sort of beasts. They,
in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that
there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war;
and therefore, though they accustom themselves daily to military
exercises and the discipline of war, in which not only their men, but
their women likewise, are trained up, that, in cases of necessity, they
may not be quite useless, yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it
be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust
aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, assist an oppressed
nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They, indeed, help their
friends not only in defensive but also in offensive wars; but they never
do that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made, and,
being satisfied with the grounds on which they went, they had found that
all demands of reparation were rejected, so that a war was unavoidable.
This they think to be not only just when one neighbour makes an inroad on
another by public order, and carries away the spoils, but when the
merchants of one country are oppressed in another, either under pretence