Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A48274
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The policy and government of the Venetians both in civil and military affairs / written in French by the Sieur de la Hay, and faithfully Englished.
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La Haye, Sieur de.
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1671
(1671)
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Wing L180A; ESTC R230570
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48,068
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205
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not provoke them to despair the superiour Magistrates sent over by the Senate to govern them call them to them at their arrival entrust them in appearance with their affairs give them the title of Counsellors and perhaps the arbitration in some trifling difference The Orders which they receive from the Senate they communicate with them first and they are oblig'd blindly to pursue them they give them little Offices besides but they are not so honourable as servile with which shadows and delusions the poor Gentlemen march off with an Adio à Vosignoria as heartily as if they had advanc'd them to the highest dignity in their Dominions They are generally implacable and hold this as an irrefragable Maxime never Fidarsi al nemico reconciliato To trust a reconciled Enemy They are so rooted and habituated to revenge that in all the Towns belonging to this State there is scarce any thing to be seen but perpetual Civil Wars The Bressians and the Inhabitants of Vincenza are so furious and murders and assassinations so familiar amongst them it would scarce bring a Citizen out of his Shop to see a man kill'd before his face and they are so little concern'd at the execution of any man that if they hear a Gun go off in the Street the most pious person amongst them will pull off his Hat and say a short Prayer for the murderers escape And as if this were not enough the Parents adde this way of revenge to the education of their Children shewing them constantly every night and morning the bloody Shirts in which their Predecessors were slain inflaming their young veins with desire of revenge which encreasing with their age never abates but with the utter ruine and destruction of their enemy And yet this liberty would not be altogether unpardonable if they took but honourable wayes to atchieve their revenge I call them honourable wayes because though there be Princes which have forbid Duels yet upon any complaint they cannot conceal the difference they make betwixt a man that challenges and one that refuses But their wayes are so barbarous and base they are not to be recited but with horrour They entertain Garrisons of these Bravoes in their Houses who being arm'd exactly are many times the perfidious instruments of their death which they ought in gratitude to have defended and in truth there is no people that I know more unhappy than these Nobles the most severe Monk of them all not enduring half so much pain with their Hair and their Sackcloth as these do with their Coats of Mail and their Corslets which for greater secrecy they wear commonly next their skin also In short their lives are so disturb'd and inquiet by their passionate appetite of revenge on the one side and their immoderate apprehension of danger on the other that the nearest of their relations have many times fallen under their hands in the fantastical alarms harms they have created to themselves Their Wives how vertuous and discreet soever they be they use like the greatest Criminals imaginable They keep them lock'd up close in their Chambers which are fortified at all points and not to be entred but thorow an iron Grate They do not allow them the conversation of mankind nor suffer them to be attended but by their own Sex and if they do not govern themselves with the highest severity they run no less hazard than of their lives For in this case they are so jealous they will revenge the sin of the Father upon his Children and exterminate a whole Family for the offence of a single man and yet for all this their Wives are Women and Italians too This according to my best observation is the life of the Nobless upon the Terra-firma Some will tell me perhaps they cannot but admire so prudent and potent a body as the Senate should permit such abominable disorders But in this lyes the subtilty and neatness of their policy for if they do not promote them on purpose they at least connive at their outrages to the end that being imploy'd in mining and countermining at home they may be taken off from any publick contrivances to the prejudice of the State They know very well where there is a radicated and inveterate quarrel there can never be an entire and ingenuous union which of all things in the world this State is most apprehensive of as the most probable way for its ruine and subversion And indeed considering how numerous and in that respect considerable they are should they be unanimous and live in any correspondence it were no hard matter for them to be too hard for their Masters and to tumble them down headlong that do now trample upon their necks It is an ordinary saying at Venice that this great body being full of melancholly and corrupt humours nothing is more convenient for it than Phlebotomy and that having that faculty of opening their veins for one another they save them the labour of applying any other remedies But besides the aforesaid advantages which the Venetian draws from these animosities there is another of which upon occasion they make considerable use and that is by declaring any of these Gentlemen of the Terra-firma Rebels if after they have satisfied their fury and as it were glutted themselves with the blood of their adversaries they begin to appear formidable in the Countrey by the multitude of their Bravoes or the quantity of their crimes In such case the Senate understands well enough that the perpetiation of such and so numerous villanies must of necessity create them enemies ad infinitum and therefore without more circumstance they banish this terrible offendor degrade him from his honours deprive him of his Estate set a price upon his head and having craved the assistance of all the neighbouring Countreys towards the execution of justice and engaged their concurrence in so equitable a Cause they constrain the poor Tyrant to an unhappy dilemma of either living obscurely in some Cave for the future or else in the highest despair to betake himself to the Field from whence it comes there are many times so great parties of Banditi to be seen in their Territories An incomparable Maxime to give just so much rein to the vitious as shall make them insolent and odious that they may afterwards ruine them with universal approbation and besides possess the people with a most sacred opinion of their justice and secure their Provinces against the Grandees of the Continent CHAP. XII A particular Discourse upon some of their Maximes THat which the World looks upon as their Treasure is really no such thing Their wealth is suppos'd to consist in great heaps of money cramm'd up in some secret and secure place from whence upon occasion they draw forth such immense summes of gold and silver as they judge necessary for the conservation of their State Their chiefest riches in their greatest extremities lyes in the affections of their Nobility and Citizens there it is they
the Laws both Humane and Divine to separate those who they have mutually joyn'd by a singular dexterity they have avoided both the one inconvenience and the other and decreed no person capable of Election but such as are single whereby it proceeds that neither their Sons nor Relations are the more considerable amongst them nor live in any greater splendor than before not being allow'd the least priviledge to signifie their alliance to the Prince Nay so far is it from that the Duke is not permitted to converse privately with any of them unless some body be by insomuch that as soon as he is chosen to that dignity he bids adieu to his Children his Friends his Family and all that is dear to him none of them being suffer'd to enter into the Palace with him CHAP. II. Of the Counsel of Ten. TO speak properly the Counsel of Ten are the very soul of that Liberty which the Venetians have preserv'd immaculate for twelve hundred years They are the Poles upon which that potent Machine moves in which the perpetual and inexhaustible course of their Wisdom is to be admir'd They are the Fountains from whence those Maximes have sprung which rightly pursued have hitherto succeeded and advanc't their reputation to the condition it is in In short though the Senate of Rome exceeded them in number they came short of that refulgent puissance and address which imbellishes this little body They are chosen above-board without any favour or under-hand dealing for the most part persons experienc't in publick affairs from their very youth and in truth such as are elected into this Soveraign Counsel are ordinarily well advanc't in years it being but necessary a State of that importance should be entrusted to no hands but such as have been accustomed to the greatest Negotiations They are more Soveraign than their Soveraign himself for as hath been said before if the safety and advantage of the Common-wealth requires it they can pull him down and degrade him as they please They have secret and unconceivable wayes of discovering what is done in the State besides their private they have publick informations which give them very considerable advice They have one Denoncie as they call them particularly for Oaths which is a thing cannot be forbidden too strictly They have others for pompous extravagancies in apparel and it is no more than is necessary in so opulent a State where the Youth and Nobility are as it were glutted with riches and doubtless was there not a severe hand kept over them we should see their Vests and their black Bonnets in a short time upon the ground and their Damoiselles clattering in their gold and their silvers with as much profusion and vanity as they do with us This Law against extravagance in their Cloathes is so rigid and austere that the Curtezans themselves who in other things have great priviledges are not exempted in this And one of the greatest and most paenal charges can be brought against them is to accuse them of having their Gowns or their Cloathes too rich and contrary to the prescription of that Edict By this Policy it is the mediocrity which was the principal aim of their Ancestors is maintain'd to this day This it is which prevents the transportation of their Money into forreign parts and hinders the luxury of that Sex which most commonly occasions it They have another Denoncie peculiar to the affairs of State and this is the most dreadfull and dangerous of them all for a person inform'd against by a Billett or Ticket thrown privately into the mouth of this Denoncie is immediately apprehended and clapt up close in a horrible Dungeon where he lyes without any possibility of knowing the cause of his calamity till after some time he be confronted at a little Window by the person which accus'd him where he may apologize if he pleases but being seldom believ'd such is their extraordinary jealousie of their freedom they are frequently condemn'd to the Canal call'd Orphano which is the place of Execution where let his condition be what it will they fasten him to a board and tying Cannon Bullets to his feet and others to his head they let him down betâ—â—xt two Boats into the Water That which I call Denoncies are certain Mouthes cut with a Chiffel on the outside of the Walls of the Palace which correspond to cerâ—ain Pipes falling into Boxes of Stone within of which the Senaâ—ors of the Counsel of Ten keep â—he Keyes and those that are in service do visit them every night â—o see what fatal information is given that day It was the design of the grave Politicians which establish'd this Counsel to advance their number â—o Ten to prevent combination â—r partiality in their affairs it beâ—ng almost impossible in so many â—ut one or other will prefer the inâ—erest of the Commonwealth beâ—ore his own and because we canâ—ot keep our selves from certain â—hwartings and accerssions to such â—eople as we have alwayes in our â—ye the Senate did very wisely comply with the course of our humane affections and encrease them â—o that number to divide and ballance their sentiments if not by a generous inclination to their Countrey at least by an insuperable instinct of Nature which suffers us not to concur with the judgement of every one This Counsel or Magistrate for that is the name they commonly call it by is the same which is call'd in France the Privy Counsel of State in which the Prince himself does sometimes preside But there is this difference between them in France all things are transacted according to the pleasure of the King and if he cannot be present amongst them himself he substitutes another and he is call'd President of the Counsel but the Doge is not alwayes admitted to their Assemblies himself and so far from deputing another that they will noâ— vouchsafe to communicate their transactions with him but now and then This Counsel is the Eye that watches perpetually for the good and safety of the State the Eye which never fleeps which divides their care and sollicitude for their Countrey with so much equality and proportion that let one come to the Palace when he pleases he shall alwayes find them ready to dispatch them forasmuch as there is not an hour in the night but they succeed and relieve one another in order that they may be alwayes ready to act and oppose themselves against all the machinations of their enemies This is the Court of the highest Jurisdiction which judges and determines absolutely without appeal in all things especially belonging to the Publick They have the Authority of chastizing the Nobility which they can extend very far if they think good The Generals receive all their Orders from them and when their Commissions are expir'd they are oblig'd within six moneths next ensuing to attend that Court and to answer to such Questions as shall be objected in case they be accus'd of abusing their Commands But whether