The Commonwealth of Oceana Part 14

"If a minister in Holland meddles with matter of state, the magistrate sends him a pair of shoes; whereupon, if he does not go, he is driven away from his charge. I wonder why ministers, of all men, should be perpetually tampering with government; first because they, as well as others, have it in express charge to submit themselves to the ordinances of men; and secondly because these ordinances of men must go upon such political principles as they of all others, by anything that can be found in their writings or actions, least understand: whence you have the suffrage of all nations to this sense, that an ounce of wisdom is worth a pound of clergy. Your greatest clerks are not your wisest men: and when some foul absurdity in state is committed, it is common with the French, and even the Italians, to call it 'pas de clerc,'

or 'governo de prete.' They may bear with men that will be preaching without study, while they will be governing without prudence. My lords, if you know not how to rule your clergy, you will most certainly, like a man that cannot rule his wife, have neither quiet at home nor honor abroad. Their honest vocation is to teach your children at the schools and the universities, and the people in the parishes, and yours is concerned to see that they do not play the shrews, of which parts does consist the education of your commonwealth, so far as it regards religion.

"To justice, or that part of it which is commonly executive, answers the education of the inns of court and chancery. Upon which to philosophize, requires a public kind of learning that I have not. But they who take upon them any profession proper to the educations mentioned--that is, theology, physic, or law--are not at leisure for the essays.

Wherefore the essays, being degrees whereby the youth commence for all magistracies, offices, and honors in the parish, hundred, tribe, Senate, or prerogative; divines, physicians, and lawyers not taking these degrees, exclude themselves from all such magistracies, offices, and honors. And whereas lawyers are likest to exact further reason for this, they (growing up from the most gainful art at the bar to those magistracies upon the bench which are continually appropriated to themselves, and not only endowed with the greatest revenues, but also held for life) have the least reason of all the rest to pretend to any other, especially in an equal commonwealth, where acc.u.mulation of magistracy or to take a person engaged by his profit to the laws, as they stand, into the power, which is legislative, and which should keep them to what they were, or ought to he, were a solecism in prudence.

It is true that the legislative power may have need of advice and a.s.sistance from the executive magistracy, or such as are learned in the law; for which cause the judges are, as they have heretofore been, a.s.sistants in the Senate. Nor, however it came about, can I see any reason why a judge, being but an a.s.sistant or lawyer, should be member of a legislative council.

"I deny not that the Roman patricians were all patrons, and that the whole people were clients, some to one family and some to another, by which means they had their causes pleaded and defended in some appearance gratis; for the patron took no money, though if he had a daughter to marry, his clients were to pay her portion, nor was this so great a grievance. But if the client accused his patron, gave testimony or suffrage against him, it was a crime of such a nature that any man might lawfully kill him as a traitor; and this, as being the nerve of the optimacy, was a great cause of ruin to that commonwealth; for when the people would carry anything that pleased not the Senate, the senators were ill provided if they could not intercede-that is, oppose it by their clients; with whom, to vote otherwise than they pleased, was the highest crime. The observation of this bond till the time of the Gracchi--that is to say, till it was too late, or to no purpose to break it--was the cause why, in all the former heats and disputes that had happened between the Senate and the people, it never came to blows, which indeed was good; but withal, the people could have no remedy, which was certainly evil. Wherefore I am of opinion that a senator ought not to be a patron or advocate, nor a patron or advocate to be a senator; for if his practice be gratis it debauches the people, and if it be mercenary it debauches himself: take it which way you will, when he should be making of laws, he will be knitting of nets.

"Lycurgus, as I said, by being a traveller became a legislator, but in times when prudence was another thing. Nevertheless we may not shut out this part of education in a commonwealth, which will be herself a traveller; for those of this make have seen the world, especially because this is certain (though it be not regarded in our times, when things being left to take their chance, it fares with us accordingly) that no man can be a politician except he be first a historian or a traveller; for except he can see what must be, or what may be, he is no politician. Now if he has no knowledge in history he cannot tell what has been, and if he has not been a traveller, he cannot tell what is; but he that neither knows what has been, nor what is, can never tell what must be, or what may be. Furthermore, the emba.s.sies-in-ordinary by our const.i.tution are the prizes of young men, more especially such as have been travellers. Wherefore they of these inclinations, having leave of the censors, owe them an account of their time, and cannot choose but lay it out with some ambition of praise or reward, where both are open, whence you will have eyes abroad, and better choice of public ministers, your gallants showing themselves not more to the ladies at their b.a.l.l.s than to your commonwealth at her Academy when they return from their travels.

"But this commonwealth being const.i.tuted more especially of two elements, arms and councils, drives by a natural instinct at courage and wisdom; which he who has attained is arrived at the perfection of human nature. It is true that these virtues must have some natural root in him that is capable of them; but this amounts not to so great a matter as some will have it. For if poverty makes an industrious, a moderate estate a temperate, and a lavish fortune a wanton man, and this be the common course of things, wisdom then is rather of necessity than inclination. And that an army which was meditating upon flight, has been brought by despair to win the field, is so far from being strange, that like causes will evermore produce like effects. Wherefore this commonwealth drives her citizens like wedges; there is no way with them but thorough, nor end but that glory whereof man is capable by art or nature. That the genius of the Roman families commonly preserved itself throughout the line (as to instance in some, the Manlii were still severe, the Publicolae lovers, and the Appii haters of the people) is attributed by Machiavel to their education; nor, if interest might add to the reason why the genius of a patrician was one thing, and that of a plebeian another, is the like so apparent between different nations, who, according to their different educations, have yet as different manners. It was anciently noted, and long confirmed by the actions of the French, that in their first a.s.saults their courage was more than that of men, and for the rest less than that of women, which nevertheless, through the amendment of their discipline, we see now to be otherwise. I will not say but that some man or nation upon an equal improvement of this kind may be lighter than some other; but certainly education is the scale without which no man or nation can truly know his or her own weight or value. By our histories we can tell when one Marpesian would have beaten ten Oceaners, and when one Oceaner would have beaten ten Marpesians. Marc Antony was a Roman, but how did that appear in the embraces of Cleopatra? You must have some other education for your youth, or they, like that pa.s.sage, will show better in romance than true story.

"The custom of the Commonwealth of Rome in distributing her magistracies without respect of age, happened to do well in Corvinus and Scipio; for which cause Machiavel (with whom that which was done by Rome, and that which is well done, are for the most part all one) commends this course.

Yet how much it did worse at other times, is obvious in Pompey and Caesar, examples by which Boccalini ill.u.s.trates the prudence of Venice in her contrary practice, affirming it to have been no small step to the ruin of the Roman liberty, that these (having tasted in their youth of the supreme honors) had no greater in their age to hope for, but by perpetuating of the same in themselves; which came to blood and ended in tyranny. The opinion of Verulamius is safe: 'The errors,' says he, 'of young men are the ruin of business; whereas the errors of old men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner.' But though their wisdom be little, their courage is great; wherefore (to come to the main education of this commonwealth) the militia of Oceana is the province of youth.

"The distribution of this province by the essays is so fully described in the order, that I need repeat nothing; the order itself being but a repet.i.tion or copy of that original, which in ancient prudence is of all others the fairest, as that from whence the Commonwealth of Rome more particularly derived the empire of the world. And there is much more reason in this age, when governments are universally broken, or swerved from their foundations, and the people groan under tyranny, that the same causes (which could not be withstood when the world was full of popular governments) should have the like effects.

"The causes in the Commonwealth of Rome, whereof the empire of the world was not any miraculous, but a natural (nay, I may safely say a necessary) consequence, are contained in that part of her discipline which was domestic, and in that which she exercises in her provinces or conquest. Of the latter I shall have better occasion to speak when we come to our provincial orbs; the former divided the whole people by tribes, amounting, as Livy and Cicero show, at their full growth to thirty-five, and every tribe by the sense or valuation of estates into five cla.s.ses: for the sixth being proletary, that is the nursery, or such as through their poverty contributed nothing to the commonwealth but children, was not reckoned nor used in arms. And this is the first point of the militia, in which modern prudence is quite contrary to the ancient; for whereas we, excusing the rich and arming the poor, become the va.s.sals of our servants, they, by excusing the poor and arming such as were rich enough to be freemen, became lords of the earth. The n.o.bility and gentry of this nation, who understand so little what it is to be the lords of the earth that they have not been able to keep their own lands, will think it a strange education for their children to be common soldiers, and obliged to all the duties of arms; nevertheless it is not for four shillings a week, but to be capable of being the best man in the field or in the city the latter part of which consideration makes the common soldier herein a better man than the general of any monarchical army.

"And whereas it may be thought that this would drink deep of n.o.ble blood, I dare boldly say, take the Roman n.o.bility in the heat of their fiercest wars, and you shall not find such a shambles of them as has been made of ours by mere luxury and slothfulness; which, killing the body, kill the soul also: Animasque in vulnere ponunt. Whereas common right is that which he who stands in the vindication of, has used that sword of justice for which he receives the purple of magistracy. The glory of a man on earth can go no higher, and if he falls he rises again, and comes sooner to that reward which is so much higher as heaven is above the earth. To return to the Roman example: every cla.s.s was divided, as has been more than once shown, into centuries, and every century was equally divided into youth and elders; the youth for foreign service, and the elders for the guard of the territory. In the first cla.s.s were about eighteen centuries of horse, being those which, by the inst.i.tution of Servius, were first called to the suffrage in the centurial a.s.semblies. But the delectus, or levy of an army, which is the present business, proceeded, according to Polybius, in this manner:

"Upon a war decreed, the Consuls elected four-and-twenty military tribunes or colonels, whereof ten, being such as had merited their tenth stipend, were younger officers. The tribunes being chosen, the Consuls appointed a day to the tribes, when those in them of military age were to appear at the capitol. The day being come, and the youth a.s.sembled accordingly, the Consuls ascended their tribunal, and the younger tribunes were straight divided into four parts after this manner: four were a.s.signed to the first legion (a legion at the most consisted of 6,000 foot and 300 horse), three to the second, four to the third, and three to the fourth. The younger tribunes being thus distributed, two of the elder were a.s.signed to the first legion, three to the second, two to the third, and three to the fourth; and the officers of each legion thus a.s.signed, having drawn the tribes by lot, and being seated according to their divisions at a convenient distance from each other, the tribe of the first lot was called, whereupon they that were of it knowing the business, and being prepared, presently bolted out four of their number, in the choice whereof such care was taken that they offered none that was not a citizen, no citizen that was not of the youth, no youth that was not of some one of the five cla.s.ses, nor any one of the five cla.s.ses that was not expert at his exercises. Moreover, they used such diligence in matching them for age and stature, that the officers of the legion, except they happened to be acquainted with the youth so bolted, were forced to put themselves upon fortune, while they of the first legion chose one, they of the second the next, they of the third another and the fourth youth fell to the last legion; and thus was the election (the legions and the tribes varying according to their lots) carried on till the foot were complete.

"The like course with little alteration was taken by the horse officers till the horse also were complete. This was called giving of names, which the children of Israel did also by lot; and if any man refused to give his name, he was sold for a slave, or his estate confiscated to the commonwealth. 'When Marcus Curius the Consul was forced to make a sudden levy, and none of the youth would give in their names, all the tribes being put to the lot, he commanded the first name drawn out of the urn of the Pollian tribe (which happened to come first) to be called; but the youth not answering, he ordered his goods to be sold; which was conformable to the law in Israel, according to which Saul took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout the tribes, saying, 'Whosoever comes not forth to battle after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen.' By which you may observe also that they who had no cattle were not of the militia in Israel. But the age of the Roman youth by the Tullian law determined at thirty; and by the law (though it should seem by Machiavel and others that this was not well observed) a man could not stand for magistracy till he was miles emeritus, or had fulfilled the full term of his militia, which was complete in his tenth stipend or service, nor was he afterward obliged under any penalty to give his name, except the commonwealth were invaded, in which case the elders were as well obliged as the youth. The Consul might also levy milites evocatos, or soldiers, commanded men out of such as had served their turn, and this at his discretion. The legions being thus complete, were divided by two to each consul, and in these no man had right to serve but a Roman citizen; now because two legions made but a small army, the Romans added to every one of their arms an equal number of foot, and a double number of horse levied among their Latin or Italian a.s.sociates; so a consular army, with the legions and auxiliaries, amounted to about 30,000, and whereas they commonly levied two such armies together, these being joined made about 60,000.

"The steps whereby our militia follows the greatest captain, are the three essays; the first, elected by a fifth man in the parishes, and amounting in the whole to 100,000, choose their officers at the hundreds, where they fall also to their games or exercises, invited by handsome prizes, such as for themselves and the honor of them will be coveted, such as will render the hundred a place of sports, and exercise of arms all the year long, such as in the s.p.a.ce of ten years will equip 30,000 men horse and foot, with such arms for their forge, proof, and beauty, as (notwithstanding the argyraspides, or silver shields of Alexander's guards) were never worn by so many, such as will present marks of virtue and direction to your general or strategus in the distribution of his army, which doubles the value of them to the proprietors, who are bound to wear them, and eases the commonwealth of so much charge, so many being armed already.

"But here will be the objection now. How shall such a revenue be compa.s.sed? Fifty pounds a year in every hundred is a great deal, not so easily raised; men will not part with their money, nor would the sum, as it is proposed by the order of Pompey, rise in many years. These are difficulties that fit our genius exactly, and yet 1,000 in each hundred, once levied, establishes the revenue forever. Now the hundreds one with another are worth 10,000 a year dry-rent, over and above personal estates, which bring it to twice the value, so that a twentieth part of one year's revenue of the hundred does it, if you cannot afford this while you pay taxes, though from henceforth they will be but small ones, do it when you pay none, if it be then too much for one year, do it in two; if it be too much for two years, do it in four. What husbands have we hitherto been? what is become of greater sums? My lords, if you should thus cast your bread upon the waters, after many days you shall find it; stand not huckling when you are offered corn and your money again in the mouth of the sack.

"But to proceed: the first essay being officered at the hundreds, and mustered at the tribes (where they are entertained with other sports, which will be very fine ones), proceeds to the election of the second essay, or standing army of this nation, consisting of 30,000 foot and 10,000 horse; and these, upon a war decreed, being delivered at the rendezvous of Oceana to the strategus, are the third essay, which answers to the Roman legions. But you may observe, that whereas the consuls elected the military tribunes, and raised commanded men out of the veterans at their own discretion, our polemarchs, or field officers, are elected by the scrutiny of the Council of War, and our veterans not otherwise taken on than as volunteers, and with the consent of the polemarchs, which may serve for the removal of certain scruples which might otherwise be incident in this place, though without encouragement by the Roman way of proceeding, much less by that which is proposed.

But whereas the Roman legions in all amounted not in one army to above 30,000 men, or little more, you have here 40,000; and whereas they added auxiliaries, it is in this regard that Marpesia will be a greater revenue to you than if you had the Indies; for whereas heretofore she has yielded you nothing but her native thistles, in ploughing out the rankness of her aristocracy by your agrarian, you will find her an inexhaustible magazine of men, and to her own advantage, who will make a far better account by the arms than by the pins of Poland. Wherefore as a consular army consisted of about an equal number of auxiliaries added to their legions by their Latin or Italian a.s.sociates, you may add to a parliamentary army an equal number of Marpesians or Panopeans, as that colony shall hereafter be able to supply you, by which means the commonwealth will be able to go forth to battle with 80,000 men.

"To make wars with small forces is no husbandry, but a waste, a disease, a lingering and painful consumption of men and money the Romans making theirs thick, made them short, and had little regard to money, as that which they who have men enough can command where it is fittest that it should be levied. All the ancient monarchies by this means got on wing, and attained to vast riches. Whereas your modern princes being dear purchasers of small parcels, have but empty pockets. But it may be some will accuse the order of rashness, in that it commits the sole conduct of the war to the general; and the custom of Venice by her proveditori, or checks upon her commanders-in-chief, may seem to be of greater prudence; but in this part of our government neither Venice nor any nation that makes use of mercenary forces is for our instruction. A mercenary army, with a standing general, is like the fatal sister that spins; but proper forces, with an annual magistrate, are like her that cuts the thread. Their interests are quite contrary, and yet you have a better proveditor than the Venetian, another strategus sitting with an army standing by him; whereupon that which is marching, if there were any probability it should, would find as little possibility that it could recoil, as a foreign enemy to invade you. These things considered, a war will appear to be of a contrary nature to that of all other reckonings, inasmuch as of this you must never look to have a good account if you be strict in imposing checks. Let a council of huntsmen, a.s.sembled beforehand, tell you which way the stag shall run, where you shall cast about at the fault, and how you shall ride to be in at the chase all the day; but these may as well do that, as a council of war direct a general. The hours that have painted wings, and of different colors, are his council; he must be like the eye that makes not the scene, but has it so soon as it changes. That in many counsellors there is strength, is spoken of civil administrations; as to those that are military, there is nothing more certain than that in many counsellors there is weakness. Joint commissions in military affairs, are like hunting your hounds in their couples. In the Attic War Cleomenes and Demaratus, Kings of Lacedaemon, being thus coupled, tugged one against another; and while they should have joined against the Persian, were the cause of the common calamity, whereupon that commonwealth took better counsel, and made a law whereby from henceforth there went at once but one of her kings to battle.

"'The Fidenati being in rebellion, and having slain the colony of the Romans, four tribunes with consular power were created by the people of Rome, whereof one being left for the guard of the city, the other three were sent against the Fidenati, who, through the division that happened among them, brought nothing home but dishonor, whereupon the Romans created the Dictator, and Livy gives his judgment in these words: "The three tribunes with consular power were a lesson how useless in war is the joint command of several generals; for each following his own counsels, while they all differed in their opinions, gave by this opportunity an advantage to the enemy." When the consuls Quintus and Agrippa were sent against the AEqui, Agrippa for this reason refused to go with his colleague, saying: "That in the administration of great actions it was most safe that the chief command should be lodged in one person." And if the ruin of modern armies were well considered, most of it would be found to have fallen upon this point, it being in this case far safer to trust to any one man of common prudence, than to any two or more together of the greatest parts.' The consuls indeed, being equal in power, while one was present with the Senate, and the other in the field with the army, made a good balance; and this with us is exactly followed by the election of a new strategus upon the march of the old one.

"The seven-and-twentieth order, whereby the elders in case of invasion are obliged to equal duty with the youth, and each upon their own charge, is suitable to reason (for every man defends his own estate) and to our copy, as in the war with the Samnites and Tuscans. 'The Senate ordered a vacation to be proclaimed, and a levy to be made of all sorts of persons, and not only the freemen and youths were listed, but cohorts of the old men were likewise formed.' This nation of all others is the least obnoxious to invasion. Oceana, says a French politician, is a beast that cannot be devoured but by herself. Nevertheless, that government is not perfect which is not provided at all points; and in this (ad triarios res rediit) the elders being such as in a martial state must be veterans, the commonwealth invaded gathers strength like Antaeus by her fall, while the whole number of the elders, consisting of 500,000, and the youth of as many, being brought up according to the order, give twelve successive battles, each battle consisting of 80,000 men, half elders and half youth. And the commonwealth, whose const.i.tution can be no stranger to any of those virtues which are to be acquired in human life, grows familiar with death ere she dies. If the hand of G.o.d be upon her for her transgressions, she shall mourn for her sins, and lie in the dust for her iniquities, without losing her manhood.

"'Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidam ferient ruinoe.'"

The remaining part, being the const.i.tution of the provincial orb, is partly civil, or consisting of the elders; and partly military, or consisting of the youth. The civil part of the provincial orb is directed by--

The twenty-eighth order, "Whereby the council of a province being const.i.tuted of twelve knights, divided by four into three regions (for their term and revolution conformable to the Parliament), is perpetuated by the annual election at the tropic of four knights (being triennial magistrates) out of the region of the Senate whose term expires; and of one knight out of the same region to be strategus or general of the province, which magistracy is annual. The strategus or magistrate thus chosen shall be as well president of the provincial council with power to propose to the same, as general of the army. The council for the rest shall elect weekly provosts, having any two of them also right to propose after the manner of the senatorian councils of Oceana. And whereas all provincial councils are members of the Council of State, they may and ought to keep diligent correspondence with the same, which is to be done after this manner: Any opinion or opinions legitimately proposed and debated at a provincial council, being thereupon signed by the strategus or any two of the provosts, may be transmitted to the Council of State in Oceana; and the Council of State proceeding upon the same in their natural course (whether by their own power, if it be a matter within their instructions; or by authority of the Senate thereupon consulted, if it be a matter of state which is not in their instructions; or by authority of the Senate and command of the people, if it be a matter of law, as for the levies of men or money upon common use and safety) shall return such answers, advice, or orders as in any of the ways mentioned shall be determined upon the case.

"The provincial councils of Marpesia and Panopea respectively shall take special care that the agrarian laws, as also all other laws that be or shall from time to time be enacted by the Parliament of Oceana, for either of them, be duly put in execution; they shall manage and receive the customs of either nation for the shipping of Oceana, being the common guard; they shall have a care that moderate and sufficient pay upon the respective province be duly raised for the support and maintenance of the officers and soldiers, or army of the same, in the most effectual, constant, and convenient way; they shall receive the regalia, or public revenues of those nations, out of which every councillor shall have for his term, and to his proper use, the sum of 500 per annum, and the strategus 500 as president, beside his pay as general, which shall be 1,000, the reminder to go to the use of the knights and deputies of the respective provinces, to be paid, if it will reach, according to the rates of Oceana; if not, by an equal distribution, respectively, or the overplus, if there be any, to be returned to the Treasury of Oceana. They shall manage the lands (if there be any such held in either of the provinces by the commonwealth of Oceana, in dominion) and return the rents into the Exchequer. If the commonwealth comes to be possessed of richer provinces, the pay of the general or strategus, and of the councils, may be respectively increased. The people for the rest shall elect their own magistrates, and be governed by their own laws, having power also to appeal from their native or provincial magistrates, if they please, to the people of Oceana. And whereas there may be such as receiving injury, are not able to prosecute their appeals at so great a distance, eight sergeants-at-law, being sworn by the commissioners of the seal, shall be sent by four into each province once in two years; who, dividing the same by circuits, shall hear such causes, and having gathered and introduced them, shall return to the several appellants, gratis, the determinations and decrees of the people in their several cases.

"The term of a knight in a provincial orb, as to domestic magistracies, shall be esteemed a vacation, and no bar to present election to any other honor, his provincial magistracy being expired.

"The quorum of a provincial council, as also of every other council or a.s.sembly in Oceana, shall in time of health consist of two parts in three of the whole number proper to that council or a.s.sembly; and in a time of sickness, of one part in three; but of the Senate there can be no quorum without three of the signory, nor of a council without two of the provosts."

The civil part of the provincial orb being declared by the foregoing order, the military part of the same is const.i.tuted by--

The twenty-ninth order, "Whereby the stratiots of the third essay having drawn the gold b.a.l.l.s marked with the letter M, and being ten horse and fifty foot in a tribe, that is to say, 500 horse and 2,500 foot in all, the tribes shall be delivered by the respective conductors to the provincial strategus or general, at such a time and place, or rendezvous, as he shall appoint by order and certificate of his election, and the strategus having received the horse and foot mentioned, which are the third cla.s.ses of his provincial guard or army, shall forthwith lead them away to Marpesia, where the army consists of three cla.s.ses, each cla.s.s containing 3,000 men, whereof 500 are horse; and receiving the new strategus with the third cla.s.s, the old strategus with the first cla.s.s shall be dismissed by the provincial council. The same method with the stratiots of the letter P, is to be observed for the provincial orb of Panopea; and the commonwealth coming to acquire new provinces, the Senate and the people may erect new orbs in like manner, consisting of greater or less numbers, according as is required by the respective occasion. If a stratiot has once served his term in a provincial orb, and happens afterward to draw the letter of a province at the election of the second essay, he may refuse his lot; and if he refuses it, the censor of that urn shall cause the files balloting at the same to make a halt; and if the stratiot produces the certificate of his strategus or general, that he has served his time accordingly, the censor throwing the ball that he drew into the urn again, and taking out a blank, shall dismiss the youth, and cause the ballot to proceed."

To perfect the whole structure of this commonwealth, some directions are given to the third essay, or army marching, in--

The thirtieth order. "'When thou goest to battle against thy enemies, and seest horses and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not afraid of them, for the Lord thy G.o.d is he that goes with thee to fight for thee against thy enemies. And when thou dividest the spoil, it shall be as a statute and an ordinance to thee, that as his part is that goes down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarries by the stuff; that is (as to the commonwealth of Oceana) the spoil takin of the enemy (except clothes, arms, horses, ammunition, and victuals, to be divided to the soldiery by the strategus and the polemarchs upon the place according to their discretion) shall be delivered to four commissaries of the spoils elected and sworn by the Council of War, which commissaries shall be allowed shipping by the State, and convoys according as occasion shall require by the strategus, to the end that having a bill of lading signed by three or more of the polemarchs, they may ship and bring, or cause such spoils to be brought to the prize-office in Oceana, where they shall be sold, and the profit arising by such spoils shall be divided into three parts, whereof one shall go to the Treasury, another shall be paid to the soldiery of this nation, and a third to the auxiliaries at their return from their service, provided that the said auxiliaries be equal in number to the proper forces of this nation, otherwise their share shall be so much less as they themselves are fewer in number; the rest of the two-thirds to go to the officers and soldiers of the proper forces. And the spoils so divided to the proper forces, shall be subdivided into three equal parts, whereof one shall go to the officers, and two to the common soldiers, the like for the auxiliaries. And the share allotted the officers shall be divided into four equal parts, whereof one shall go to the strategus, another to the polemarchs, a third to the colonels, and a fourth to the captains, cornets, ensigns, and under-officers, receiving their share of the spoil as common soldiers, the like for the auxiliaries. And this upon pain, in the case of failure, of what the people of Oceana (to whom the cognizance of peculation or crimes of this nature is properly appertaining) shall adjudge or decree."

Upon these three last orders the Archon seemed to be haranguing at the head of his army in this manner:

"MY DEAR LORDS AND EXCELLENT PATRIOTS:

"A government of this make is a commonwealth for increase. Of those for preservation, the inconveniences and frailties have been shown: their roots are narrow, such as do not run, have no fibres; their tops weak and dangerously exposed to the weather, except you chance to find one, as Venice, planted in a flower-pot, and if she grows, she grows topheavy, and falls, too. But you cannot plant an oak in a flowerpot; she must have earth for her root, and heaven for her branches.

"'Imperium Oceano, famam quoe terminet astris.'

"Rome was said to be broken by her own weight, but poetically; for that weight by which she was pretended to be ruined was supported in her emperors by a far slighter foundation. And in the common experience of good architecture, there is nothing more known than that buildings stand the firmer and the longer for their own weight, nor ever swerve through any other internal cause than that their materials are corruptible; but the people never die, nor, as a political body, are subject to any other corruption than that which derives from their government. Unless a man will deny the chain of causes, in which he denies G.o.d, he must also acknowledge the chain of effects; wherefore there can be no effect in nature that is not from the first cause, and those successive links of the chain without which it could not have been. Now except a man can show the contrary in a commonwealth, if there be no cause of corruption in the first make of it, there can never be any such effect. Let no man's superst.i.tion impose profaneness upon this a.s.sertion; for as man is sinful, but yet the universe is perfect, so may the citizen be sinful, and yet the commonwealth be perfect. And as man, seeing the world is perfect, can never commit any such sin as shall render it imperfect, or bring it to a natural dissolution, so the citizen, where the commonwealth is perfect, can never commit any such crime as will render it imperfect, or bring it to a natural dissolution.

"To come to experience: Venice, notwithstanding we have found some flaws in it, is the only commonwealth in the make whereof no man can find a cause of dissolution; for which reason we behold her (though she consists of men that are not without sin) at this day with 1,000 years upon her back, yet for any internal cause, as young, as fresh, and free from decay, or any appearance of it, as she was born; but whatever in nature is not sensible of decay by the course of 1,000 years, is capable of the whole age of nature; by which calculation, for any check that I am able to give myself, a commonwealth, rightly ordered, may for any internal causes be as immortal or long-lived as the world. But if this be true, those commonwealths that are naturally fallen, must have derived their ruin from the rise of them. Israel and Athens died, not natural, but violent deaths, in which manner the world itself is to die. We are speaking of those causes of dissolution which are natural to government; and they are but two, either contradiction or inequality. If a commonwealth be a contradiction, she must needs destroy herself; and if she be unequal, it tends to strife, and strife to ruin. By the former of these fell Lacedaemon, by the latter Rome. Lacedaemon being made altogether for war, and yet not for increase, her natural progress became her natural dissolution, and the building of her own victorious hand too heavy for her foundation, so that she fell, indeed, by her own weight. But Rome perished through her native inequality, which how it inveterated the bosoms of the Senate and the people each against other, and even to death, has been shown at large.

"Look well to it, my lords, for if there be a contradiction or inequality in your commonwealth, it must fall; but if it has neither of these, it has no principle of mortality. Do not think me impudent; if this be truth, I shall commit a gross indiscretion in concealing it.

Sure I am that Machiavel is for the immortality of a commonwealth upon far weaker principles. 'If a commonwealth,' says he, 'were so happy as to be provided often with men, that, when she is swerving from her principles, should reduce her to her inst.i.tution, she would be immortal.' But a commonwealth, as we have demonstrated, swerves not from her principles, but by and through her inst.i.tution; if she brought no bias into the world with her, her course for any internal cause must be straightforward, as we see is that of Venice. She cannot turn to the right hand nor to the left, but by some rub, which is not an internal, but external, cause: against such she can be no way fortified but through her situation, as is Venice, or through her militia, as was Rome, by which examples a commonwealth may be secure of those also.

Think me not vain, for I cannot conceal my opinion here; a commonwealth that is rightly inst.i.tuted can never swerve, nor one that is not rightly inst.i.tuted be secured from swerving by reduction to her first principles; wherefore it is no less apparent in this place that Machiavel understood not a commonwealth as to the whole piece, than where having told you that a tribune, or any other citizen of Rome, might propose a law to the people, and debate it with them, he adds, 'this order was good while the people were good; but when the people became evil, it became most pernicious.' As if this order (through which, with the like, the people most apparently became evil) could ever have been good, or that the people or the commonwealth could ever have become good, by being reduced to such principles as were the original of their evil.

"The disease of Rome was, as has been shown, from the native inequality of her balance, and no otherwise from the empire of the world, than as, this falling into one scale, that of the n.o.bility (an evil in such a fabric inevitable) kicked out the people. Wherefore a man that could have made her to throw away the empire of the world, might in that have reduced her to her principles, and yet have been so far from rendering her immortal that, going no further, he should never have cured her. But your commonwealth is founded upon an equal agrarian; and if the earth be given to the sons of men, this balance is the balance of justice, such a one as in having due regard to the different industry of different men, yet faithfully judges the poor' And the king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever;, much more the commonwealth, seeing that equality, which is the necessary dissolution of monarchy, is the generation, the very life and soul, of a commonwealth. And now, if ever, I may be excusable, seeing my a.s.sertion, that the throne of a commonwealth may be established forever, is consonant to the holy Scriptures.

"The balance of a commonwealth that is equal is of such a nature that whatever falls into her empire must fall equally; and if the whole earth falls into your scales, it must fall equally, and so you may be a greater people and yet not swerve from your principles one hair. Nay, you will be so far from that that you must bring the world in such a case to your balance, even to the balance of justice. But hearken, my lords; are we on earth, do we see the sun, or are we visiting those shady places which are feigned by the poets?

"'Continuo auditoe voces, vagitus et ingens.'

"These Gothic empires that are yet in the world, were at the first, though they had legs of their own, but a heavy and unwieldy burden; but their foundations being now broken, the iron of them enters even into the souls of the oppressed; and hear the voice of their comforters: 'My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.' Hearken, I say, if thy brother cries to thee in affliction, wilt thou not hear him? This is a commonwealth of the fabric that has an open ear and a public concern; she is not made for herself only, but given as a magistrate of G.o.d to mankind, for the vindication of common right and the law of nature. Wherefore says Cicero of the like, that of the Romans, 'We have rather undertaken the patronage than the empire of the world.' If you, not regarding this example, like some other nations that are upon the point to smart for it, shall, having attained to your own liberty, bear the sword of your common magistracy in vain, sit still and fold your arms, or, which is worse, let out the blood of your people to tyrants, to be shed in the defence of their yokes like water, and so not only turn the grace of G.o.d into wantonness, but his justice into wormwood: I say if you do thus, you are not now making a commonwealth, but heaping coals of fire upon your own heads. A commonwealth of this make is a minister of G.o.d upon earth, to the end that the world may be governed with righteousness. For which cause (that I may come at length to our present business) the orders last rehea.r.s.ed are buds of empire, such as with the blessing of G.o.d may spread the arms of your commonwealth, like a holy asylum, to the distressed world, and give the earth her sabbath of years, or rest from her labors, under the shadow of your wings. It is upon this point where the writings of Machiavel, having for the rest excelled all other authors, come as far to excel themselves.

"Commonwealths, says he, have had three ways of propagating themselves: One after the manner of monarchies, by imposing the yoke, which was the way of Athens, and, toward the latter times, of Lacedaemon; another by equal leagues, which is the way of Switzerland (I shall add of Holland, though since his time); a third by unequal leagues, which, to the shame of the world, was never practised, nay, nor so much as seen or minded, by any other commonwealth but that only of Rome. They will each of them, either for caution or imitation, be worthy to be well weighed, which is the proper work of this place. Athens and Lacedaemon have been the occasion of great scandal to the world, in two, or at least one of two regards: the first, their emulation, which involved Greece in perpetual wars; the second, their way of propagation, which by imposing yokes upon others, was plainly contradictory to their own principles.

"For the first: governments, be they of what kind soever, if they be planted too close, are like trees, that impatient in their growth to have it hindered, eat out one another. It was not unknown to these in speculation, or, if you read the story of Agesilaus, in action, that either of them with 30,000 men might have mastered the East; and certainly, if the one had not stood in the other's light, Alexander had come too late to that end, which was the means (and would be if they were to live again) of ruin, at least to one of them; wherefore with any man that understands the nature of government this is excusable. So it was between Oceana and Marpesia; so it is between France and Spain, though less excusable; and so it ever will be in the like cases. But to come to the second occasion of scandal by them given, which was in the way of their propagation, it is not excusable; for they brought their confederates under bondage, by which means Athens gave occasion of the Peloponnesian War, the wound of which she died stinking, when Lacedaemon, taking the same infection from her carca.s.s, soon followed.

"Wherefore, my lords, let these be warnings to you not to make that liberty which G.o.d has given you a snare to others in practising this kind of enlargement to yourselves.

"The second way of propagation or enlargement used by commonwealths is that of Switzerland and Holland, equal leagues; this, though it be not otherwise mischievous, is useless to the world, and dangerous to themselves: useless to the world, for as the former governments were storks, these are blocks, have no sense of honor, or concern in the sufferings of others. But as the AEtolians, a state of the like fabric, were reproached by Philip of Macedon to prost.i.tute themselves; by letting out their arms to the l.u.s.ts of others, while they leave their own liberty barren and without legitimate issue; so I do not defame these people; the Switzer for valor has no superior, the Hollander for industry no equal; but themselves in the meantime shall so much the less excuse their governments, seeing that to the Switz it is well enough known that the ensigns of his commonwealth have no other motto than in te converte ma.n.u.s; and that of the Hollander, though he sweats more gold than the Spaniard digs, lets him languish in debt; for she herself lives upon charity. These are dangerous to themselves, precarious governments, such as do not command, but beg their bread from province to province, in coats that being patched up of all colors are in effect of none. That their cantons and provinces are so many arrows, is good; but they are so many bows too, which is naught.

"Like to these was the commonwealth of the ancient Tuscans, hung together like bobbins, without a hand to weave with them; therefore easily overcome by the Romans, though at that time, for number, a far less considerable people. If your liberty be not a root that grows, it will be a branch that withers, which consideration brings me to the paragon, the Commonwealth of Rome.

"The ways and means whereby the Romans acquired the patronage, and in that the empire, of the world were different, according to the different condition of their commonwealth in her rise and in her growth: in her rise she proceeded rather by colonies, in her growth by unequal leagues.

Colonies without the bounds of Italy she planted none (such dispersion of the Roman citizen as to plant him in foreign parts, till the contrary interest of the emperors brought in that practice, was unlawful), nor did she ever demolish any city within that compa.s.s, or divest it of liberty; but whereas the most of them were commonwealths, stirred 'up by emulation of her great felicity to war against her, if she overcame any, she confiscated some part of their lands that were the greatest incendiaries, or causes of the trouble, upon which she planted colonies of her own people, preserving the rest of their lands and liberties for the natives or inhabitants. By this way of proceeding, that I may be as brief as possible, she did many and great things. For in confirming of liberty, she propagated her empire; in holding the inhabitants from rebellion, she put a curb upon the incursion of enemies; in exonerating herself of the poorer sort, she multiplied her citizens; in rewarding her veterans, she rendered the rest less seditious; and in acquiring to herself the reverence of a common parent, she from time to time became the mother of new-born cities.

"In her further growth the way of her propagation went more upon leagues, which for the first division were of two kinds, social and provincial.

"Again, social leagues, or leagues of society, were of two kinds: