CHAP. VII.: Of the Crime of High-Treason.

IT is determined, by the laws of China, that whosoever shews any disrespect to the emperor is to be punished with death. As they do not mention in what this disrespect consists, every thing may furnish a pretext to take away a man’s life, and to exterminate any family whatsoever.

Two persons of that country, who were employed to write the court-gazette, having inserted some circumstances

relating to a certain fact that were not true, it was pretended that to tell a lie in the court-gazette was a disrespect shewn to the court; in consequence of which they were put to death Father Du Halde, tom. 1, p. 43. ^†401. A prince of the blood having inadvertently made some mark on a memorial signed with the red pencil by the emperor, it was determined that he had behaved disrespectfully to the sovereign; which occasioned one of the most terrible persecutions against that family that ever was recorded in history Father Parennin, in the Edifying Letters. ^†402.

If the crime of high-treason be indeterminate, this alone is sufficient to make the government degenerate into arbitrary power. I shall descant more largely on this subject when I come to treat Book 29. ^†403 of the composition of laws.