And yet there is as distinct a difference between a _tribute_, and a _purchase_, as between a _robbery_ and an _exchange_.

It appears to me that it would be quite as correct to say, Cartouche has broken open my strong-box, and, has _bought_ a thousand crowns from me, as to state, as I have heard done to our honorable deputies, We have paid in _tribute_ to Germany the value of a thousand horses which she has sold us.
The action of Cartouche was not a _purchase_, because he did not put, and with my consent, into my strong box an equivalent value to that which he took out.

Neither could the purchase-money paid to Germany be _tribute_, because it was not on our part a forced payment, gratuitously received on hers, but a willing compensation from us for a thousand horses, which we ourselves judged to be worth 500,000 francs.
Is it necessary then seriously to criticise such abuses of language?
Yes, for very seriously are they put forth in our books and journals.
Nor can we flatter ourselves that they are the careless expressions of uneducated writers, ignorant even of the terms of their own language.
They are current with a vast majority, and among the most distinguished of our writers.

We find them in the mouths of our d'Argouts, Dupins, Villeles; of peers, deputies and ministers; men whose words become laws, and whose influence might establish the most revolting Sophisms, as the basis of the administration of their country.
A celebrated modern Philosopher has added to the categories of Aristotle the Sophism which consists in expressing in one word a _petitio principii_.

He cites several examples, and might have added the word _tributary_ to his nomenclature.