The surrender here meant is nothing more than delivering up a citizen or subject to the power of another state to decide upon his punishment. But this permission neither gives nor takes away any right, it only removes an impediment to the prosecution of a right. Wherefore if that other people make no use of the permitted right, the offender, who has been delivered up, is in such a situation, that he either MAY or may NOT be punished: either of which may happen in the case of many offences. But the right of a state, as to the enjoyment of its own laws, and many other advantages, is not lost by any particular act without a formal decree and judgment, unless in any way it has been previously enacted, that certain acts, or certain omissions, shall amount to a forfeiture of some particular rights and privileges. In the same manner, goods, if surrendered, but not accepted, will remain the property of the former owner. But if the surrender of a citizen has been accepted, and, by some accident, the person so surrendered shall afterwards return home, he will no longer be a citizen, except by some new act of grace. What has been said of punishing or giving up aggressors, applies not only to those, who always have been subjects of the sovereign, in whose dominions they are now found, but to those also, who, after the commission of a crime, have fled to some place for refuge. V. Nor do the so much talked of rights of suppliants, and the inviolable nature of asylums at all weaken the argument that has been advanced. For the advantages of such protection are designed only for those, who are the victims of unmerited persecution, not for those who have committed crimes injurious to mankind, and destructive to society. Gylippus, the Lacedaemonian, as may be seen in the xiii. book of Diodorus Siculus, speaking of the rights of suppliants, says, that they were originally introduced, as measures of compassion to the unfortunate, and not a screen for malicious and wanton offenders, who have nothing but punishment to expect. And a little after he says, when such men, prompted by malice, or rapacity have plunged into evils, they have no right to talk of misfortune or to wear the name of suppliants. For that is a privilege granted by the laws of nature to the innocent, who are beaten down by the hard and oppressive strokes of ill fortune. But the refuge of compassion is withheld, where every line of a life has been marked with cruelty and injustice. Thus according to that law, which partakes of the wisdom of its divine author, asylums were open to those who had killed any one by a weapon escaping from their hand: slaves too were allowed places of refuge, but deliberate murderers, or those, who had disturbed the peaceful order of the state, found no protection even from the altar of God. Philo, in explaining this law says, that even the temple affords no refuge to the impious.