Valerius and Publicola Or The true FORM OF A POPULAR COMMONWEALTH Extracted Epuris Naturalibus BY JAMES HARRINGTON Quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat prius LONDON Printed by J. C. for Henry Fletcher at the three Gilt Cups in St. Pauls Church-yard 1659. To the READER THe way of Dialogue being not faithfully managed is of all other the most fraudulent but being faithfully managed is the clearest and most effectual for the conveying a mans sense unto the understanding of his Reader There is nothing in this world next the Favour of God I so much desire as to be familiariy understood which that great men have thought below them hath proved hitherto but the ruine of themselves and the detriment of the Publick for which cause having tryed all other means I now add this My work if I be not given over unto utter blindness is the same with or nearest that of the Nation and the work of the Nation being not understood is in horrid danger of utter ruine Valerius and Publicola c. Valerius DEarest Publicola how have I longed to meet you and in the favourable silence of this long walk Publicola What has my noble Friend Valerius to command his faithful Servant Val. Why really notwithstanding the tumult of these extravagant Changes your last Discourse had so much of my attention then and hath had such digestion with me since that I feel it running in my Veins Pub. Find you in that any temptation to the buckling on of High-shoon Val. My thoughts Publicola are quite of another strain sometimes methinks I see England grasping at Empire like Rome it self Pub. Why then Valerius my Discourses are not such as they say there runneth nothing of them in your Veins that hath imbased your noble blood Val. The Heraldry of them is of as high a pitch as the Policy but I would have them be somewhat lower in some things Pub. What are those Val. The vulgar complain of you that you are too learned Pub. I thought it was not you Valerius Val. For all that I could be contented to see you raise your structure by your own strength and without the help of other Authors Pub. That I dare say you may when you please Val. I must see it then before I lose the covert of these reverent Elmes Pub. You take care that the building should be well situated and for the foundation I may presume by what hath already past between you and me that we are long since agreed Val. That the threefold Balance or Distribution of Propriety is the cause of the triple way of Government I fully consent with you as also that the Balance now in England is in the people plainly and exclusively both to a King and Lords Pub. You are not of them that grant this and then ask which way a Commonwealth should be introduced in England Val. Why truly yes seeing not onely the people are so wholly unacquainted with the means but their Leaders so averse to it Pub. Think you that a Plant grows the worse for not understanding the means Val. A Plant is not a free Agent but among men who are free Agents the Introduction of Government seemeth to be Arbitrary Pub. VVhat where there is no more then Hobsons choice this or none Val. It is true that if they can have nothing else they must at length have a Commonwealth but though they can have nothing else to be holding yet they will be trying other things Pub. There is all the mischief Val. And enough to ruine the Nation Pub. To hurt it very sore but not to ruine it nor yet to evade a Commonwealth except they expose us unto forraign invasion Val. I am glad of your confidence Pub. You may let it pass for confidence if you please but if there be no other way except that onely of Invasion whereby the present balance can receive a change suddain enough to admit of any other Form the reason why we must have a Commonwealth is coercive Val. And putting the case it be the will of God to defend us from forraign invasion how long will it be ere they see at home the coerciveness of this reason or which is all one that all power is in and from the people Pub. Good Valerius how long is it since this was both seen and declared in Parliament Val. Perhaps as they meant it might be admitted as a principle even in Monarchy Pub. This with your pardon you will revoke seeing you well remember that this their Declaration of power in the people hath been exclusive unto King and Lords and that in express terms Val. But in this they related not at all unto the Distribution of propriety Pub. VVhy then there is not such difference between the growing of a Plant and of a Commonwealth as you thought seeing a Commonwealth knowing as little doth no less Val. This of all other is unto me a consideration fullest of comfort Pub. It will in time proceed accordingly through meer necessity of nature or by feeling but your desire I suppose is to know how it should be rationally introduced or by seeing and that with more ease and better speed Val. If it might please God I would live to have my share of it though I fear I never shall Pub. You carve your self ill for by hope a man enjoys even that which he never comes to attain and by fear he is deprived even of that which he comes not to lose Val. I must confess that our Army hath it now in their power to introduce a Commonwealth Pub. And there is no other action in their power that can excuse them Val. Putting the case they would hearken unto you what course would you advise Pub. The same that I have advised over and over Val. As how Pub. As how is that yet a Question Let them divide the Territory into fifty equal parts Val. They will never make a new division Pub. Why then they shall never have an equal Common-wealth Val. VVhat ill luck is this that the first step should be so difficult Pub. You speak as if never any Territory had been divided whereas there is none that hath not and Surveyors will tell you it is a work to be perfectly performed in two months and with ease Val. Putting the case this were done what is next Pub. The next is that the Commonwealth were compleat Val. Say you so this indeed makes amends but how Pub. With no more addition then that the people in every distinct division elect annually two Knights and seven Deputies Val. I dare say the people would never stick at this Pub. Not stioking at this they of their own power have instituted the two great assemblies of which every Common-wealth consisteth Val. But in advising these things you must advise men so that they may understand them Pub. Valerius could I as easily have advised men how to understand as what to do there had been a Commonwealth ere this Val. Come I will
have you try something of this kinde and begin upon some known principle as this All power is in the people Pub. Content But the diffusive body of the people at least in a Territory of this extent can never exercise any power at all Val. That is certain Pub. Hence is the necessity of some form of Government Val. That is the people of themselves being in a natural incapacity of exercising power must be brought into some artificial or political capacity of exercising the same Pub. Right Now this may be done in three ways as first by a single person Val. How Pub. Nay I am not likely to trouble you much upon this point but as you were intimating very now there are Royalists who derive the original right of Monarchy from the consent of the people Val. There are so Pub. And these hold the King to be nothing else but the Representor of the People and their Power Val. As the Turk Pub. Yes as the Turk Val. The peoples power at that rate comes to the peoples slavery Pub. You say right and so it may at other rates too Val. As how Pub. Why as I was about to say The power of the people may be politically brought into exercise three ways by a single person by an Assembly consisting of a few or by an Assembly consisting of many Val. Or by a mixture Pub. Nay I pray you let that alone yet a while for which way soever you go it must come at length to some mixture seeing the single person you named but now without his Divan or Council to debate and propose to him would make but bad work even for himself But as the Government cometh to be pitched fundamentally upon one of these three so it differ's not only in name but in nature Val. I apprehend you as Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy Pub. Nay you are out with your learning when you have forbidden it me But in Countries where there is not a Nobility sufficiently balanced or enriched there can be none of your Aristocracy and yet there may as long as it will last be a Government in a few Val. What call you that Pub. Nay what say you Val. Come it is Oligarchy when all is done some words of Art we must use Pub. I thought you would come to it and yet seeing I have promised I will be sparing But with your pardon you have disordered my Discourse or by this I had shewed that if the Power of the people be committed to a single Person the common interest is submitted unto that of a Family and if it be committed to a few it is submitted to the interest of a few Families Val. Which so many times as they are more then one is so many times worse then Monarchy Pub. I am not sorry that you are of that mind For there is no such thing as a Commonwealth or as you say Democracy in nature of it be not pirched upon a numerous Assembly of the people Val. What call you numerous Pub. Why an Assembly such for number as can neither go upon the interest of one single Person or Family nor the interest of a few Persons or Families Val. How will you constitute such an Assembly Pub. Commonwealths for the constitution of their Popular Assemblies have had two waies The first by inrolling all their Citizens and stating the Quorum in such sort that all to and above the stated number repairing at the time and place appointed are impowered to give the Vote of the whole Commonwealth Val. The Athenian Quorum was six thousand which towards the latter end of that Commonwealth came to five Pub. So so you may quote Authors But you may remember also that Athens was a small Commonwealth Val. How many would you advise for England Pub. Put the case I should say ten thousand Val. They will laugh at you Pub. What can I help that or how many would you advise Val. I would not go above five thousand Pub. Mark you then they only that are nearest would come and so the City of London would give Law unto the whole Nation Val. Why really that same now is clear but would there be less danger of it in case you stated your Quorum at â—en at twenty or though it were at an hundred or two hundred thousand Pub. No for which cause as to England it is a plain case that this is no way for the institution of a popular Assembly Val. Which way then Pub. For England there is no way but by Representative to be made rise equally and methodically by stated election of the people throughout the whole Nation Val. Need this be so numerous as the other Pub. No Val. Why Pub. Because it is not obnoxious unto a party to any certain rank or such as are soonest upon the spur or make least account of their pains or of their mony Val. Will you be so curious Pub. Hold you this a curiosity How else will you avoid improvement in the interest of the better sort to the detriment of those of meaner rank or in the interest of the few to the detriment of that of the many Val. Even this way then there is danger of that foul beast the Oligarchy Pub. Look about you The Parliament declares all power to be in the people is that in the better sort only Val. Stay the King was to observe Leges constitutiones quasâ— vulgus elegerit that vulgus is to be understood of the Parliament and the Parliament consisted wholly of the better sort Pub. It is true but then that Commonwealth went for the rest accordingly Val. It was you will say no Democracy Pub. And will you say it was Val. No truly yet this derived in part from the free election of the people Pub. How free seeing the people then under Lords dared not to elect otherwise then as pleased those Lords Val. Something of that is true but I am perswaded that the people not under Lords will yet be most addicted unto the better sort Pub. That is certain Val. How then will you prevent the like in your institution Pub. You shall see presently The diffusive body of the People in which the Power is and is declared to be consisteth in the far greater part of the lower sort wherefore their Representative to rife naturally and to be exactly comprehensive of the common interest must consist also in the far greater part of the lower sort Val. Of what number will you have this Representative Pub. Say a thousand or there about Val. What proportion will you have the meaner sort in it to hold unto the better Pub. Say about six to four Val. How will you order it that it shall be so constituted Pub. Why thus let the people in every Precinct or Shire at Election chuse four under one hundred pounds a year in Lands Goods or Money together with three at or above that proportion Val. I see not but this Representative must be exact Pub. It is
into speedy and serious consideration the irrefragable truth of the Premises and what thereupon must assuredly follow that is either the institution of a Commonwealth in the whole People of England without exception or with exception for a time of so few as may be by way of a Senate and a numerous Assembly of the People to the ends and for the respective Functions aforesaid or the inevitable ruine of this Nation which God of his mercy avert And your Petitioner shall pray c. Val. I would it had been delivered Pub. Look you if this had been presented to the House I intended to have added this other Paper and to have printed them together The Petitioner to the Reader Reader I Say not that the form contained in the Petition if we had it and no more would be perfect but that without thus much which rightly introduced introduceth the rest there neither is was nor can be any such thing as a Commonwealth or Government without a King and Lords in Nature Where there is a co-ordinate Senate there must be a King or it falleth instantly by the People as the King failing the House of Peers fell by the Commons Where there is a Senate not elective by the People there is perpetual feud between the Senate and the People as in Rome To introduce either of these causes is certainly and inevitably to introduce one of these effects and if so then who are Cavaliers I leave you to judge hereafter But to add farther reason unto experience All civil power among us not onely by Declaration of Parliament but by the nature of propriety is in and from the people Where the power is in the people there the Senate can Legitimately be no more unto the Popular Assembly then my Counsel at Law is to me that is auxilium non imperium a necessary aid not a competitor or rival in power Where the aids of the people become their rivals or competitors in power there their Shepherds become Wolves their Peace discord and their Government ruine But to impose a select or co-ordinate Senate upon the people is to give them rivals and competitors in power Some perhaps such is the temper of the times will say That so much humane confidence as is expressed especially in the Petition is Atheistical But how were it Atheistical if I should as confidently foretel that a Boy must expire in non-age or become a man I Prophesie no otherwise and this kind of Prophecie is also of God by those Rules of his providence which in the known Government of the World are infallible In the right observation application of these consisteth all humane wisdom and we read Eccles. 9. 14. that a poor man delivered a City by his wisdom yet was this poor man forgotten But if the premises of this Petition fail or one part of the conclusion come not to pass accordingly let me hit the other mark of this ambitious Address and remain a fool upon Record in Parliament to all Posterity Val. Thou-boy and yet I hope well of thy reputation Pub. Would it were but as good now as it will be when I can make no use of it Val. The major of the Petition is in some other of your writings and I remember some objections which have been made against it As that à non esse nec fuisse non datur argumentum ad non posse Pub. Say that in English Val. What if I cannot are not you bound to answer a thing though it cannot be said in English Pub. No truly Val. Well I will say it in English then Though there neither be any house of gold nor ever were any house of gold yet there may be an house of gold Pub. Right but then à non esse nec fuisse in natura datur argumentum ad non posse in natura Val. I hope you can say this in English too Pub. That I can now you have taught me If there were no such thing as gold in nature there never could be any house of gold Val. Softly The frame of a Government is as much in Art and as little in Nature as the frame of an house Pub. Both softly and surely The materials of a Government are as much in Nature and as little in Art as the materials of an house Now as far forth as Art is necessarily disposed by the nature of her foundation or materials so far forth it is in Art as in Nature Val. What call you the foundation or the materials of Government Pub. That which I have long since proved and you granted The balance the distribution of propriety and the power thence naturally deriving which as it is in one in a few or in all doth necessarily dispose of the form or frame of the Government accordingly Val. Be the foundation or materials of an house what they will the frame or superstructures may be diversly wrought up or shapen and so may those of a Common-wealth Pub. True but let an house be never so diversly wrought up or shapen it must consist of a roof and walls Val. That 's certain Pub. And so must a Commonwealth of a Senate and of a popular Assembly which is the sum of the Minor in the Petition Val. The Mathematicians say They will not be quarrelsome but in their Sphere there are things altogether new in the World as the present posture of the Heavens is and as was the Star in Cassiopoeia Pub. Valerius if the Major of the Petition extend as far as is warranted by Solomon I mean that there is nothing new under the Sun what new things there may be or have been above the Sun will make little to the present purpose Val. It is true but if you have no more to say They will take this but for shifting Pub. Where there is Sea as between Sicily and Naples there was antiently Land and where there is Land as in Holland there was antiently Sea Val. What then Pub. Why then the present posture of the earth is other then it hath been yet is the earth no new thing but consisteth of Land and Sea as it did always so whatever the present posture of the Heavens be they consist of Star and Firmament as they did always Val. What will you say then to the Star in Cassiopoeia Pub. Why I say If it consisted of the same matter with other Stars it was no new thing in nature but a new thing in Cassiopoeia as were there a Commonwealth in England it would be no new thing in nature but a new thing in England Val. The Star you will say in Cassiopoeia to have been a new thing in nature must have been no Star because a Star is not a new thing in nature Pub. Very good Val. You run upon the matter but the newness in the Star was in the manner of the generation Pub. At Putzuoli neer Naples I have seen a Mountain that rose up from under water in one night and poured
a good part of the Lake antiently called Lucrine into the Sea Val. VVhat will you infer from hence Pub. VVhy that the new and extraordinary generation of a Star or of a Mountain no more causeth a Star or a Mountain to be a new thing in nature then the new and extraordinary generation of a Commonwealth causeth a Commonwealth to be a new thing in nature Aristole reports that the Nobility of Tarantum being cut off in a Battel that Commonwealth became popular And if the Powder-Plot in England had destroyed the King and the Nobility it is possible that popular Government might have risen up in England as the Mountain did at Putzuoli Yet for all these would there not have been any new thing in nature Val. Some new thing through the blending of unseen causes there may seem to be in shuffling but nature will have her course there is no other then the old game Pub. Valerius let it rain or be fair weather the Sun to the dissolution of nature shall ever rise but it is now set and I apprehend the mist Val. Dear Publicola your health is mine own I bid you goodnight Pub. Goodnight to you Valerius Val. One word more Publicola pray make me a present of those same Papers and with your leave and license I will make use of my memory to commit the rest of this Discourse unto writing and Print it Pub. They are at your disposing Val. I will not do it as hath been done but with your name to it Pub. VVhether way you like best most noble Valerius Octob. 22. 1659. A sufficient Answer to Mr. Stubbe THere is a Book newly put forth by Mr. Stubbe intituled A Letter to an Officer c. which in brief comes to this That he would have a select Senate for Life consisting of Independents Anabaptists Fifth Monarchy-men and Quakers for which he is pleased to quote Deut. 23. that he would have all such as adhered unto the Parliament against Sir G. Booth to be inrolled as the people of England That he would have all the rest of the people of England to be Holoâ—â— Gibeâ—niter or Paysams This Book I have read and I have heard a Tale of one who to get something pretended the shewing of a strange Beaâ—â— an Horse and no Horse with the Tayl standing where the Head should stand which when all came to all was a Mare with her Tayl ty'd to the Manger the lively Emblem of an Oligarchy Mr. Stubbe pretending to shew his Learning takes those things as it were changing the sex of them which I have written and in his writings turns their tails unto the Manger Now this as to the unlearned Reader is that upon which it is to no purpose to move any controversie and as to the learned I need no more then appeal whether in their proper stables or in the best Authors the heads of them stand as I have set them or the tails as Mr. Stubbe hath set them Only let me say That as to a select Senate understanding thereby a Senate not elected by the people there is no more of this in all story then the Senate of Rome only Whence it is undeniable by any man of common understanding that a select Senate bringeth in a select interest that a select interest causeth feud between that select interest and the common interest and so between the Senate and the popular Assembly which coal in England it is fitter for such as Mr. Stubbe and his Patrons to blow then for such as understand story Government or common honesty But their Reasons who decry the possibility or plausibility of such Acts or Orders as these it pleaseth him to call high Rodomontado's Now which are the higher Rodomontado's these or those which he useth in flourishing the Justitia of Anagon a patch in a Monarchy which his design is to translate by a select Senate into a Commonwealth I leave any man to judge even by the testimony of his own Authour Blanca and in a place cited by himself though not so well rendered Our ancestors saith Blanca have three ways secured our liberties by the Justitia by the great POWER of the Ricos hombres now he speaks and by the priviledge of the union The first was a civil and forensick curb a gown the second was a domestick and more restraining one I think so the purse and thence the power the third popular and warlike an excellent Militia Now let any man say even after Blanca if without the Nobility in whom was the balance of this Monarchy and their retainers and dependants of which consisted the Militia this Court of the poor Gown-man called Justitia must not have been a very likely thing to restrain a Prince or consider whether without this same Mummery of the Arragonians Houses of Peers and of Commons in other Monarchies have not every whit as much restrained their Kings and more seeing this toy as at every election of the Magistrate called Justitia it received not breath but from a King was blown away by a King His other instances as the thirty six Curators of the Publick appointed unto Lewis the eleventh of France by the three Estates and the twenty five select Peers given unto King John of England were like shifts and had less effect Security in Government must be from entireness of form and entireness of form must be from soundness or rightness of foundation But Mr. Stubbe founding himself upon the Authority of Aristotle That the Western parts are not capable of a right Commonwealth is declaredly for a wrong Commonwealth in England He minds not that Venice for the capacity is a righter Commonwealth then was ever any in Greece nor that the present State of England is of a far different if not a quite contrary nature to that of the Western parts in the time of Aristotle FINIS