The Commonwealth of Oceana Part 18

THE FIELD PAY OF A PARLIAMENTARY ARMY

The lord strategus, marching 10,000 Polemarches--

General of the horse... 2,000

Lieutenant-general... 2,000

General of the artillery.... 1,000

Commissary-general... 1,000

Major-general.... 1,000

Quartermaster-general... 1,000 Two adjutants to the major-general... 1,000 Forty colonels..... 40,000 100 captains of horse, at 500 a man... 50,000 300 captains of foot, at 300 a man... 90,000 100 cornets, at 100 a man.... 10,000 300 ensigns, at 50 a man.... 15,000 800 Quartermasters, Sergeants, Trumpeters,

Drummers, 20,000 10,000 horse, at 2s 6d per day each... 470,000 30,000 foot, at 1s per day each.... 500,000 Chirurgeons... 400 40,000 auxiliaries, amounting to within a

little as much... 1,100,000 The charge of mounting 20,000 horse.. 300,000 The train of artillery, holding a 3d to

the whole 900,000

Sum total 3,514,400

Arms and ammunition are not reckoned, as those which are furnished out of the store or a.r.s.enal of Emporium: nor wastage, as that which goes upon the account of the fleet, maintained by the customs; which customs, through the care of the Council for Trade and growth of traffic, were long since improved to about 1,000,000 revenue. The house being thus informed of a state of war, the commissioners brought in--

THE STATE OF THE TREASURY THIS PRESENT YEAR, BEING THE ONE-AND-FORTIETH OF THE COMMONWEALTH

Received from the one-and-twentieth of the commonwealth:

By 700,000 a year in bank, with the product of the sum

rising..............

16,000,000

Expended from the one-and-twentieth of this commonwealth:

Imprimis, for the addition of arms for 100,000 men to

the a.r.s.enal, or tower of Emporium.........

1,000,000 For the storing of the same with artillery...

300,000 For the storing of the same with ammunition...

200,000 For beautifying the cities, parks, gardens, public walks,

and places for recreation of Emporium and Hiera, with

public buildings, aqueducts, statues,

and fountains, etc......

1,500,000 Extraordinary emba.s.sies...

150,000

Sum........

3,150,000

Remaining in the Treasury, the salaries of the

Exchequer being defalked.......

12,000,000

By comparison of which accounts if a war with an army of 80,000 men were to be made by the penny, yet was the commonwealth able to maintain such a one above three years without levying a tax. But it is against all experience, sense, and reason that such an army should not be soon broken, or make a great progress; in either of which cases, the charge ceases; or rather if a right course be taken in the latter, profit comes in: for the Romans had no other considerable way but victory whereby to fill their treasury, which nevertheless was seldom empty. Alexander did not consult his purse upon his design for Persia: it is observed by Machiavel, that Livy, arguing what the event in reason must have been had that King invaded Rome, and diligently measuring what on each side was necessary to such a war, never speaks a word of money. No man imagines that the Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Lombards, Saxons, Normans, made their inroads or conquests by the strength of the purse; and if it be thought enough, according to the dialect of our age, to say in answer to these things that those times are past and gone: what money did the late Gustavus, the most victorious of modern princes, bring out of Sweden with him into Germany? An army that goes upon a golden leg will be as lame as if it were a wooden one; but proper forces have nerves and muscles in them, such for which, having 4,000,000 or 5,000,000, a sum easy enough, with a revenue like this of Oceana, to be had at any time in readiness, you need never, or very rarely, charge the people with taxes. What influence the commonwealth by such arms has had upon the world, I leave to historians, whose custom it has been of old to be as diligent observers of foreign actions as careless of those domestic revolutions which (less pleasant it may be, as not partaking so much of the romance) are to statesmen of far greater profit; and this fault, if it be not mine, is so much more frequent with modern writers, as has caused me to undertake this work; on which to give my own judgment, it is performed as much above the time I have been about it, as below the dignity of the matter.

But I cannot depart out of this country till I have taken leave of my Lord Archon, a prince of immense felicity who having built as high with his counsels as he digged deep with his sword, had now seen fifty years measured with his own unerring orbs.

Timoleon (such a hater of tyrants that, not able to persuade his brother Timophanes to relinquish the tyranny of Corinth, he slew him) was afterward elected by the people (the Sicilians groaning to them from under the like burden) to be sent to their relief: whereupon Teleclides, the man at that time of most authority in the Commonwealth of Corinth, stood up, and giving an exhortation to Timoleon, how he should behave himself in this expedition, told him that if he restored the Sicilians to liberty, it would be acknowledged that he destroyed a tyrant; if otherwise, he must expect to hear he had murdered a king. Timoleon, taking his leave with a very small provision for so great a design, pursued it with a courage not inferior to, and a felicity beyond, any that had been known to that day in mortal flesh, having in the s.p.a.ce of eight years utterly rooted out of all Sicily those weeds of tyranny, through the detestation whereof men fled in such abundance from their native country that whole cities were left desolate, and brought it to such a pa.s.s that others, through the fame of his virtues and the excellency of the soil, flocked as fast from all quarters to it as to the garden of the world: while he, being presented by the people of Syracuse with his town-house and his country retreat, the sweetest places in either, lived with his wife and children a most quiet, happy, and holy life; for he attributed no part of his success to himself, but all to the blessing and providence of the G.o.ds. As he pa.s.sed his time in this manner, admired and honored by mankind, Laphistius, an envious demagogue, going to summon him upon some pretence or other to answer for himself before the a.s.sembly, the people fell into such a mutiny as could not be appeased but by Timoleon, who, understanding the matter, reproved them, by repeating the pains and travel which he had gone through, to no other end than that every man might have the free use of the laws.

Wherefore when Daemenetus, another demagogue, had brought the same design about again, and blamed him impertinently to the people for things which he did when he was general, Timoleon answered nothing, but raising up his hands, gave the G.o.ds thanks for their return to his frequent prayers, that he might but live to see the Syracusans so free, that they could question whom they pleased.

Not long after, being old, through some natural imperfection, he fell blind; but the Syracusans by their perpetual visits held him, though he could not see, their greatest object: if there arrived strangers, they brought him to see this sight. Whatever came in debate at the a.s.sembly, if it were of small consequence, they determined it themselves; but if of importance, they always sent for Timoleon, who, being brought by his servants in a chair, and set in the middle of the theatre, there ever followed a great shout, after which some time was allowed for the benedictions of the people; and then the matter proposed, when Timoleon had spoken to it, was put to the suffrage; which given, his servants bore him back in his chair, accompanied by the people clapping their hands, and making all expressions of joy and applause, till, leaving him at his house, they returned to the despatch of their business. And this was the life of Timoleon, till he died of age, and dropped like a mature fruit, while the eyes of the people were as the showers of autumn.

The life and death of my Lord Archon (but that he had his senses to the last, and that his character, as not the restorer, but the founder of a commonwealth, was greater) are so exactly the same, that (seeing by men wholly ignorant of antiquity I am accused of writing romance) I shall repeat nothing: but tell you that this year the whole nation of Oceana, even to the women and children, were in mourning, where so great or sad a funeral pomp had never been seen or known. Some time after the performance of the obsequies a Colossus, mounted on a brazen horse of excellent fabric, was erected in the piazza of the Pantheon, engraved with this inscription on the eastern side of the pedestal:

HIS NAME

IS AS

PRECIOUS OINTMENT

And on the wester with the following:

GRATA PATRIA

Piae et Perpetuae Memorie

D.D.

OLPHAUS MEGALETOR

LORD ARCHON, AND SOLE LEGISLATOR

OF

OCEANA

PATER PATRIAE

Invincible in the Field The Greatest of Captains Inviolable in his Faith The Best of Princes Unfeigned in his Zeal The Happiest of Legislators Immortal in his Fame The Most Sincere of Christians

Who setting the Kingdoms of Earth at Liberty, Took the Kingdom of the Heavens by Violence.