The most excellent Hugo Grotius, his three books treating of the rights of war & peace in the first is handled, whether any war be just : in the second is shewed, the causes of war, both just and unjust : in the third is declared, what in war is lawful, that is, unpunishable : with the annotations digested into the body of every chapter / translated into English by William Evats ...

IV. If the Enemy may be else∣where suppli∣ed.

Thirdly, We ought to forbear the wasting of an Enemies Country, if we see that they may be otherwise supplied with necessaries, either by Sea or Land. Archidamus in Thucy∣dides, in that Oration wherein he disswades the Lacedemonians from making War against Athens, enquires what hopes they had to subdue the Athenians; If by wasting and de∣stroying their Country, they might do well to remember, That the Athenians had other Lands and Countries under their Dominion, which confined not on their Cities (as Thrace and Ionia) and that they wanted neither Ships nor Ports, whereby they might be supplied with necessaries from any other Coasts. In which Case it was best to cherish and protect the Husbandman, even to the Enemies Quarters; that upon payment of their Contributions to either Party, they might enjoy Peace in the midst of War: which we have seen done, not only in our own late Civil Wars in England, but (not long since) in the Wars of the Ne∣therlands; which also is very agreeable to the practice of the Indians, among whom, as Diodorus writes, Their Husbandmen enjoy the very same Priviledges and Immunities, as do their Priests; insomuch that they follow the Plough without danger, even in the midst of their Troops, and to the very Skirts of their Camp. And a little after he adds, There is no enemy that will willingly wrong Husbandmen, but will rather preserve them from all injuries, as being the common Benefactors to both Parties. Wherefore it was agreed and concluded in the War

between Cyrus and the Assyrian, as Xenophon records it, That, Cum agricolis pax esset, cum armatis bellum; Though the souldiers might fight, yet the Husbandmen should live in peace. Nei∣ther do the Indians, as Diodorus testifies, either burn their Enemies Corn, or cut down their Trees. Polyaenus reports the same of Timotheus, namely, that he set the fruitfullest part of the Country to Farmers and Husbandmen; yea, and as Aristotle adds, sold the Corn even to his Enemies, and with that money paid his Souldiers. So did Viriatus in Spain, as we read in Appian. And Totilas, Whilst he besieged Rome, gave no disturbance to the Husbandmen throughout all Italy, but commanded them to follow their business without fear, so as they sent their annual contributions unto him. This is the Glory of a Conquerour to defend what he hath won, and not to destroy it. And this we have seen in our days to be practised by the Hollanders, who ordinarily sold their Corn and other provisions even to their Enemies, and with the money so raised paid their own Army, with as much equity as profit, even to the admiration of foreign Nations. These manners and customs do our Canons commend to our Christian imitation; because as we profess to be more civilized, so ought we to express more humanity in our Wars, than was practised among the Heathens; whereof they enjoin us not to spare not the husbandmen only, but the Oxen and Horses wherewith they plow, and the seed which they carry out to sow their ground. For the self same reason doth the Civil Law forbid to take in pawn any of those instruments that belong to the plough. The Cy∣prians and Phrygians of old, and since them, the Athenians and Romans did condemn it as an heinous Act, to kill an Oxe that plowed up the Earth, because the Oxe was Mans companion and fellow labourer in tilling of the Ground; it was therefore forbidden by the Laws of Athens, that the Oxe should be offered in Sacrifice. And Sue∣tonius in the life of Domitian testifies, That in the beginning of his Raign, he so far abhorred murther, that in his Fathers absence, remembring that Verse in Virgil,

An imp'ous people wh' on slain bullocks feast.

He forbad by an Edict the killing of Oxen. And Aratus in his Phaenomena assures us, that it was not lawful to eat of an Oxe that plowed the ground, until the Brazen Age of the World began, nor that their Gods in their bloody Sacrifices should be worshipt by them.

Notes

• Oecon. 2.
• Procop. Goth. l. 3.
• Aelian. Hist. l. 5. 14.
• Rhodog. c. 26. 19.
• Vid. Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 45. cum Lipsii An∣not. Lit. D.