Not only are the lands wasted, the flocks and herds carried off, the towns pillaged and burnt, or in some cases razed to the ground, the rebel king deposed and his crown transferred to another, the people punished by the execution of hundreds or thousands as well as by an augmentation of the tribute money; but sometimes wholesale deportation of the inhabitants is practised, tens or hundreds of thousands being carried away captive by the conquerors, and either employed in servile labor at the capital or settled as colonists in a distant province.

With this practice the history of the Jews, in which it forms so prominent a feature, has made us familiar.

It seems to have been known to the Assyrians from very early times, and to have become by degrees a sort of settled principle in their government.

In the most flourishing period of their dominion--the reigns of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon--it prevailed most widely, and was carried to the greatest extent.

Chaldaeans were transported into Armenia, Jews and Israelites into Assyria and Media, Arabians, Babylonians, Susianians, and Persians into Palestine--the most distant portions of the empire changed inhabitants, and no sooner did a people become troublesome from its patriotism and love of independence, than it was weakened by dispersion, and its spirit subdued by a severance of all its local associations.