excellent Patriots perished by Treachery in the beginning of his Enterprize the other began and went on with incomparable Prudence and Resolution but miscarried afterwards by the Iniquity of the times and baseness and wickedness of the People so infalliably true it is That where the Policy is corrupted there must necessarily be also a corruption and depravation of Manners and an utter abolition of all Faith Justice Honour and Morality but I forget my self and intrench upon your Province there is nothing now remains to keep you from the Modern Policies but that you please to shut up this Discourse of the Ancient Governments with saying something of the Corruptions of Aristocracy and Democracy for I believe both of us are satisfied that you have abundantly proved you Assertion and that when we have leisure to examine all the States or Policies that ever were we shall find all their Changes to have turn'd upon this Hinge of Property and that the fixing of that with good lawes in the beginning or first Institution of a state and the holding to those Lawes afterwards is the only way to make a Commonwealth Immortal Eng. Gent. I think you are very right but I shall obey you and do presume to differ from Aristotle in thinking that he has not fitly called those extreams for so I will stile them of Aristocracy and Democracy Corruptions for that they do not proceed from the alteration of Property which is the Vnica corruptio politica For Example I do not find that Oligarchy or Government of a few which is the Extream of an Optimacy ever did arise from a few Mens getting into their hands the Estates of all the rest of the Nobility For had it began so it might have lasted which I never read of any that did I will therefore conclude that they were all Tyrannies for so the Greeks called all Usurpations whether of one or more persons and all those that I ever read of as they came in either by Craft or violence as the Thirty Tyrants of Athens the Fifteen of Thebes and the Decem-viri of Rome though these are first came in lawfully so they were soon driven out and ever were either assassinated or dyed by the Sword of Justice and therefore I shall say no more of them not thinking them worth the name of a Government As for the Extream of Democracy which is Anarchy it is not so for many Commonwealths have lasted for a good time under that Administration if I may so call a State so full of Confusion An Anarchy then is when the People not contented with their Share in the Administration of the Government which is the right of Approving or Disapproving of Lawes of Leagues and of making of War and Peace of Judging in all Causes upon an Appeal to them and chusing all manner of Officers will take upon themselves the Office of the Senate too in manageing Subordinate Matters of State Proposing Lawes Originally and assuming Debate in the Market place making their Orators their Leaders nay not content with this will take upon them to alter all the Orders of the Government when they please as was frequently practised in Athens and in the Modern State of Florence In both these Cities when ever any great person who could lead the People had a mind to alter the Government he call'd them together and made them Vote a Change In Florence they call'd it Chiamar il popolo a Parlamento e ripigliar lo Stato which is summoning the People into the Market-place to resume the Government and did then presently Institute a new one with new Orders new Magistracies and the like Now that which originally causes this Disorder is the admitting in the beginning of a Government or afterwards the meaner sort of People who have no Share in the Territory into an equal part of Ordering the Commonwealth these being less sober less considering and less careful of the Publick Concerns and being commonly the Major part are made the Instruments oft-times of the Ambition of the great ones and very apt to kindle into Faction but notwithstaning all the Confusion which we see under an Anarchy where the wisdom of the better sort is made useless by the fury of the People yet many Cities have subsisted hundreds of years in this condition and have been more considerable and performed greater Actions than ever any Government of equal Extent did except it were a well-regulated Democracy But it is true they ruine in the end and that never by Cowardize or baseness but by too much boldness and temerarious undertakings as both Athens and Florence did The first undertaking the Invasion of Sicily when their Affairs went ill elsewhere and the other by provoking the Spaniard and the Pope But I have done now and shal pass to say something of the Modern Policies Noble Ven. Before you come to that Sir pray satisfie me in a Point which I should have moved before but that I was unwilling to interrupt you rational Discourse How came you to take it for granted that Moses Theseus and Romulus were Founders of Popular Governments As for Moses we have his Story written by an Infalliable Pen Theseus was ever called King of Athens though he liv'd so long since that what is written of him is justly esteem'd fabulous but Romulus certainly was a King and that Government continued a Monarchy though Elective under seven Princes Eng. Gent. I will be very short in my Answer and say nothing of Theseus for the reason you are pleased to alledge But for Moses you may read in Holy Writ that when by God's Command he had brought the Israelites out of Egypt he did at first manage them by accquainting the People with the Estate of their Government which People were called together with the sound of a Trumpet and are termed in Scripture the Congregation of the Lord this Government he thought might serve their turn in their passage and that it would be time enough to make them a better when they were in possession of the Land of Canaan Especially having made them Judges and Magistrates at the instance of his Father-in-law which are called in Authors Proefecti Jethroniani but finding that this Provision was not sufficient complained to God of the difficulty he had to make that State of Affairs hold together God was pleased to order him to let seventy Elders be appointed for a Senate but yet the Congregation of the Lord continued still and acted And by the severall soundings of the Trumpets either the Senate or popular Assembly were called together or both so that this Government was the same with all other Demooracies consisting of a Principal Magistrate a Senate and a People Assembled together not by Represention but in a body Now for Romulus it is very plain that he was no more then the first Officer of the Commonwealth whatever he was called and that he was chosen as your Doge is for Life and when the last of those seven
himself to our Senate to Mediate with the Pope that a week might be set apart for a Jubilee and Fasting three days all over the Christian World to storm Heaven with Masses Prayers Fasting and Almes to prosper his Designs he began to open the Matter That the Cause of all the Wickedness and Sin and by Consequence of all the Miseries and Affliction which is in the World arising from the enmity which is between God and the Devil by which means God was often cross'd in his Intentions of good to Mankind here and hereafter the Devil by his temptations making us uncapable of the Mercy and Favour of our Creator therefore he had a Design with the helps before mentioned to mediate with Almighty God That he would pardon the Devil and receive him into his Favour again after so long a time of Banishment and Imprisonment and not to take all his power from him but to leave him so much as might do good to Man and not hurt which he doubted not but he would imploy that way after such reconciliation was made which his Faith would not let him question You may judge what the numerous Auditory thought of this I can only tell you that he had a different sort of Company at his return from what he had when he came for the Men left him to the Boys who with great Hoops instead of Acclamations brought him to the Gondola which conveyed him to the Redentor where he lodged And I never had the curiosity to enquire what became of him after Doct. I thank you heartily for this Intermess I see you have learnt something in England for I assure you we have been these twenty Years turning this and lal serious Discourses into Ridicule but yet your Similitude is very pat for in every Parliament that has been in England these sixty Years we have had notable Contests between the Seed of the Serpent and the Seed of the Woman Eng. Gent. Well Sir we have had a Michael here in our Age who has driven out Lucifer and restored the true Deity to his Power but where Omnipotency is wanting which differs the Frier's Case and mine the Devil of Civil War and Confusion may get up again if he be not laid by prudence and Vertue and better Conjurers than any we have yet at Court Noble Ven. Well Gentlemen I hope you have pardoned me for my Farce But to be a little more serious pray tell me how you will induce the King to give up so much of his Right as may serve your turn Would you have the Parliament make War with him again Eng. Gent. There cannot nor ought to be any Change but by his Majesty's free Consent for besides that a War is to be abhorred by all Men that love their Country any Contest of that kind in this case viz. to take away the least part of the Kings Right could be justified by no man living I say besides that a Civil War has miscarried in our days which was founded at least pretendedly upon Defence of the People's own Rights In which although they had as clear a Victory in the end as ever any Contest upon Earth had yet could they never reap the least advantage in the World by it but went from one Tyranny to another from Barebones Parliament to Cromwell's Reign from that to a Committee of Safety leaving those Grave Men who managed Affairs at the beginning amazed to see new Men and new Principles Governing England And this induced them to Co-operate to bring things back just where they were before the War Therefore this Remedy will be either none or worse than the Disease It not being now as it was in the Barons time when the Lord who led out his Men could bring them back again when he pleased and Rule them in the mean time being his Vassals But now there is no Man of so much Credit but that one who behaves himself bravely in the War shall out-vye him and possibly be able to do what he pleases with the Army and the Government And in this corrupt Age it is ten to one he will rather do Hurt than Good with the Power he acquires But because you ask me how we would perswade the King to this I answer by the Parliament's humbly Remonstrating to His Majesty that it is his own Interest Preservation Quiet and true Greatness to put an end to the Distractions of his Subjects and that it cannot be done any other way and to desire him to enter into debate with some Men Authorized by them to see if there can be any other means than what they shall offer to compose things if they find there may then to embrace it otherwise to insist upon their own Proposals and if in the end they cannot obtain those Requests which they think the only essential means to preserve their Country then to beg their Dismission that they may not stay and be partakers in the Ruin of it Now my Reasons why the King will please to grant this after the thorough discussing of it are two First Because all great Princes have ever made up Matters with their Subjects upon such Contests without coming to Extremities The two greatest and most Valiant of our Princes were Edward the First and his Grandchild Edward the Third these had very great Demands made them by Parliaments and granted them all as you may see upon the Statute-Book Edward the Second and Richard the Second on the contrary refused all things till they were brought to Extremity There is a Memorable Example in the Greek Story of Theopompus King of Sparta whose Subjects finding the Government in disorder for want of some Persons that might be a Check upon the great Power of the King proposed to him the Creation of the Ephores Officers who made that City so great and Famous afterwards The King finding by their Reasons which were unanswerable as I think ours now are that the whole Government of Sparta was near its Ruin without such a Cure and considering that he had more to lose in that Disorder than others freely granted their desires for which being derided by his Wife who asked him what a kind of Monarchy he would leave to his Son answered a very good one because it will be a very lasting one Which brings on my Second Reason for which I believe the King will grant these things because he cannot any way mend himself nor his Condition if he do not Noble Ven. You have very fully convinced me of two things First That we have no reason to expect or believe that the Parliament will ever increase the Kings Power And then that the King cannot by any way found himself a New and more absolute Monarchy except he can alâ—er the Condition of Property which I think we may take for granted to be impossible But yet I know not why we may not suppose that although he cannot establish to all Posterity such an Empire he may notwithstanding change the
Eng. Gent. Gentlemen then I shall delay you no longer The Evil Counsellors the Pensioner-Parliament the Thorow-pac'd Judges the Flattering Divines the Buisie and Designing Papists the French Counsels are not the Causes of our Misfortunes they are but the Effects as our present Distractions are of one Primary Cause which is the Breach and Ruin of our Government which having been decaying for near two hundred years is in our Age brought so near to Expiration that it lyes agonizing and can no longer perform the Functions of a Political Life nor carry on the work of Ordering and Preserving Mankind So that the Shifts that our Courtiers have within some years used are but so many Tricks or Conclusions which they are trying to hold Life and Soul together a while longer and have played Handy-Dandy with Parliaments and especially with the House of Commons the only part which is now left entire of the old Constitution by Adjourning and Proroguing and Dissolving them contrary to the true meaning of the Law as well in the Reign of our late King as during his Majesties that now is Whereas indeed our Counsellors perceiving the decay of the Foundation as they must if they can see but one Inch into the Politicks ought to have Addrest themselves to the King to call a Parliament the true Physician and to lay open the Distemper there and so have endeavour'd a Cure before it had been too late as I fear it now is I mean the piecing and patching up the Old Government It is true as the Divine Machiavil says That Diseases in Government are like a Marasmus in the Body Natural which is very hard to be discovered whilst it is Curable and after it comes to be easie to discern difficult if not impossible to be Remedy'd yet it is to be supposed that the Counsellors are or ought to be skilful Physicians and to foresee the Seeds of State-Distempers time enough to prevent the Death of the Patient else they ought in Conscience to excuse themselves from that sublime Employment and betake themselves to Callings more suitable to their Capacities So that although for this Reason the Ministers of State here are inexcusable and deserve all the Fury which must one time or other be let loose against them except they shall suddenly fly from the wrath to come by finding out in time and advising the true means of setting themselves to rights yet neither Prince nor People are in the mean time to be blamed for not being able to Conduct things better No more than the Waggoner is to answer for his ill guiding or the Oxon for their ill drawing the Waggon when it is with Age and ill usage broken and the Wheels unserviceable Or the Pilot and Marriners for not weathring out a Storm when the Ship hath sprung a planck And as in the body of Man sometimes the Head and all the Members are in good Order nay the Vital Parts are sound and entire yet if there be a Considerable Putrifaction in the humors much more if the Blood which the Scripture calls the life be Impure and Corrupted the Patient ceases not to be in great Danger and oftentimes dies without some skillful Physician And in the mean time the Head and all the parts suffer and are unquiet full as much as if they were all immediately affected So it is in every respect with the Body Politick or Commonwealth when their Foundations are moulder'd And although in both these Cases the Patients cannot though the Distemper be in their own Bodies know what they ail but are forced to send for some Artist to tell them yet they cease not to be extreamly uneasie and impatient and lay hold oftentimes upon unsuitable Remedies and impute their Malady to wrong and ridiculous Causes As some people do here who think that the growth of Popery is our only Evil and that if we were secure against that our Peace and Settlement were obtain'd and that our Disease needed no other Cure But of this more when we come to the Cure Noble Ven. Against this Discourse certainly we have nothing to reply but must grant that when any Government is decay'd it must be mended or all will Ruine But now we must Request you to declare to us how the Government of England is decay'd and how it comes to be so For I am one of those Unskilful Persons that cannot discern a State Marasmus when the danger is so far off Eng. Gent. Then no man living can for your Government is this day the only School in the World that breeds such Physicians and you are esteemed one of the ablest amongst them And it would be manifest to all the World for Truth although there were no argument for it but the admirable Stability and Durableness of your Government which hath lasted above twelve hundred years entire and perfect whilst all the rest of the Countreys in Europe have not only changed Masters very frequently in a quarter of that time but have varied and altered their Polities very often Which manifests that you must needs have ever enjoy'd a Succession of wise Citizens that have had skill and Ability to forwarn you betimes of those Rocks against which your excellently-built Vessel might in time split Noble Ven. Sir you over-value not only me but the Wisdom of my Fellow Citizens for we have none of these high Speculations nor hath scarce any of our Body read Aristotle Plato or Cicero or any of those great Artists Ancient or Modern who teach that great Science of the Governing and Increasing great States and Cities without studying which Science no man can be fit to discourse pertinently of these matters much less to found or mend a Government or so much as find the defects of it We only study our own Government and that too Chiefly to be fit for advantagious Employments rather than to foresee our dangers Which yet I must needs confess some amongst us are pretty good at and will in a Harangue made upon passing a Law venture to tell us what will be the Consequence of it two hundred years hence But of these things I shall be very prodigal in my discourse when you have Leisure and Patience to command me to say any thing of our Polity in the mean time pray be pleased to go on with your Edifying Instruction Eng. Gent. Before I can tell you how the Government of England came to be decayed I must tell you what that Government was and what it now is And I should say something too of Government in General but that I am afraid of talking of that Subject before you who are so exact a Judge of it Noble Ven. I thought you had been pleased to have done with this Discourse I assure you Sir if I had more skill in that matter than ever I can pretend to it would but serve to make me the fitter Auditor of what you shall say on that Subject Eng. Gent. Sir in the Course of my Reasoning upon
people pleased out of Plebeian Families So that now I am come to Democracy Which you see is a Government where the chief part of the Soveraign Power and the exercise of it resides in the People and where the Style is Jessu populi authoritate patrum And it doth consist of three fundamental Orders The Senate proposing the People resolving and the Magistrates executing This Government is much more Powerful than an Aristocracy because the latter cannot arm the People for fear they should seize upon the Government and therefore are fain to make use of none but Strangers and Mercinaries for Souldiers which as the Divine Machiavil says has hindred your Commonwealth of Venice from mounting up to Heaven whither those incomparable Orders and that venerable Wisdom used by your Citizens in keeping to them would have carried you if in all your Wars you had not been ill served Doct. Well Sir pray let me ask you one thing concerning Venice How do you make out your Imperium fundatur in dominio there Have the Gentlemen there who are the Party governing the possession of the whole Territory Does not property remain entire to the Gentlemen and other Inhabitants in the several Countries of Padua Brescia Vicenza Verona Bergamo Creman Trevisi and Friuli as also in the Vltramarine Provinces and Islands And yet I believe you will not deny but that the Government of Venice is as well founded and hath been of as long continuance as any that now is or ever was in the World Eng. Gent. Doctor I shall not answer you in this because I am sure it will be better done by this Gentleman who is a worthy Son of that honourable Mother Noble Ven. I thought you had said Sir that we should have done Complimenting but since you do Command me to clear the Objection made by our learned Doctor I shall presume to tell you first how our City began The Goths Huns and Lombards coming with all the Violence and Cruelty immaginable to invade that part of Italy which we now call Terra firma and where our Ancestors did then inhabit forced them in great numbers to seek a shelter amongst a great many little Rocks or Islands which stood very thick in a vast Lake or rather Marsh which is made by the Adriatique Sea we call it Laguna here they began to build and getting Boats made themselves Provisions of all kind from the Land from whence innumerable people began to come to them finding that they could subsist and that the barbarous people had no Boats to attack them nor that they could be invaded either by Horse or Foot without them Our first Government and which lasted for many years was no more than what is practised in many Country Parishes in Italy and possibly here too where the Clerk or any other person calls together the chief of the Inhabitants to consider of Parish-business as chusing of Officers making of Rates and the like So in Venice when there was any publick provision to be made by way of law or otherwise some Officers went about to persons of the greatest Wealth and Credit to intreat them to meet and consult from whence our Senate is called to this day Consiglio de pregadi which in our Barbarous Idiom is as much as Pregati in Tuscan Language Our security increased daily and so by consequence our Number and our Riches for by this time there began to be another inundation of Sarazens upon Asia Minor which forced a great many of the poor people of Greece to fly to us for protection giving us the possession of some Islands and other places upon the Continent This opened us a Trade and gave a beginning to our greatness but chiefly made us consider what Government was fittest to conserve our selves and keep our Wealth for we did not then much dream of Conquests else without doubt we must have made a popular Government we pitcht upon an Aristocracy by ordering that those who had been called to Council for that present year and for four years before should have the Government in their hands and all their Posterity after them for ever which made first the distinction between Gentlemen and Citizens the People who consisted of divers Nations most of them newly come to inhabit there and generally seeking nothing but safety and ease willingly consented to this change and so this State hath continued to this day though the several Orders and Counsels have been brought in since by degrees as our Nobility encreased and for other causes Under this Government we have made some Conquests in Italy and Greece for our City stood like a Wall between the two great Torrents of Goths and Sarazens and as either of their Empires declin'd it was easie for us without being very Warlike to pick up some pieces of each side as for the Government of these Conquests we did not think fit to divide the Land amongst our Nobility for fear of envy and the effects of it much less did we think it adviseable to plant Colonies of our People which would have given the Power into their hands but we thought it the best way for our Government to leave the People their Property tax them what we thought fit keep them under by Governours and Citadels and so in short make them a Province So that now the Doctors Riddle is solved for I suppose this Gentleman did not mean that his Maxime should reach to Provincial Governments Eng. Gent. No Sir so far from that that it is just contrary for as in National or Domestick Government where a Nation is Governed either by its own People or its own Prince there can be no settled Government except they have the Rule who possess the Country So in Provincial Governments if they be wisely ordered no man must have any the least share in the managing Affairs of State but strangers or such as have no share or part in the possessions there for else they will have a very good opportunity of shaking off their Yoak Doct. That is true and we are so wise here I mean our Ancestors were as to have made a Law That no Native in Ireland can be Deputy there But Sir being fully fatisfied in my demand by this Centleman I beseech you to go on to what you have to say before you come to England Eng. Gent. I shall then offer two things to your observation the first is That in all times and places where any great Heroes or Legislators have founded a Government by gathering people together to build a City or to invade any Countrey to possess it before they câ—me to dividing the conquered Lands they did always very maturely deliberate under what Form or Model of Government they meant to live and accordingly made the Partition of the Possessions Moses Theseus and Romulus Founders of Demacracies divided the Land equally Licurgus who meant an Optimacy made a certain number of Shares which he intended to be in the hands of the
People of Laconia Cyrus and other conquering Monarchs before him took all for themselves and Successors which is observed in those Eastern Countries to this day and which has made those Countries continue ever since under the same Government though Conquered and possessed very often by several Nations This brings me to the second thing to be observed which is That wherever this apportionment of Lands came to be changed in any kind the Government either changed with it or was wholly in a state of confusion And for this reason Licurgus the greatest Politician that ever Founded any Government took a sure way to fix Property by Confounding it and bringing all into Common And so the whole number of the Natural Spartans who inhabited the City of Lacedemon eat and drank in their several convives together And as long as they continued so to do they did not only preserve their Government entire and that for a longer time than we can read of any Common-Wealth that ever lasted amongst the Ancients but held as it were the principality of Greece The Athenians for want of some Constitutions to fix Property as Theseus placed it were in danger of utter ruine which they had certainly encounter'd if the good Genius as they then call'd it of that People had not raised them up a second Founder more than six hundred years after the first which was Solon And because the History of this matter will very much conduce to the illustrating of this Aphorisme we have laid down I will presume so much upon your patience as to make a short recital of it leaving you to see it more at large in Plutarch and other Authors The Lands in the Territory of Attica which were in the possession of the Common People for what reason History is silent were for Debt all Mortgaged to the great Men of the City of Athens and the Owners having no possibility of Redeeming their Estates were treating to Compound with their Creditors and deliver up their Lands to them Solon who was one of those State Physicians we spake of was much troubled at this and harangued daily to the Nobility and People against it telling them first that it was impossible for the Grecians to resist the Medes who were then growing up to a powerful Monarchy except Athens the second City of Greece did continue a Democracy That it was as Impossible the People could keep their Empire except they kept their Lands nothing being more contrary to Nature than that those who possess nothing in a Country can pretend to Govern it They were all sensible of his Reasons and of their own Danger but the only Remedy which was that the great Men should forgive the Common People their Debts would not at all be digested so that the whole City now fully understanding their condition were continually in an uproar and the People flock'd about Solon whenever he came abroad desiring him to take upon him the Government and be their Prince and they would make choice of him the next time they assembled He told them no he would never be a Tyrant especially in his own Country meaning that he who had no more share than other of the Nobles could not Govern the rest without being an Usurper or Tyrant But this he did to oblige his Citizens he frankly forgave all the Debts that any of the People owed to him and released their Lands immediately and this amounted to fifteen Attick Talents of Gold a vast sum in those days and betook himself to a voluntary Exile in which he visited Thales and went to the Oracle of Delphos and offer up his Prayers to Apollo for the preservation of his City In return of which as the People then believed the hearts of the great ones were so changed and inlarged that they readily agreed to remit all their Debts to the People upon Condition that Solon would take the pains to make them a New Model of Government and Laws suitable to a Democracy which he as readily accepted and performed by vertue of which that City grew and continued long the greatest the Justest the most Vertuous Learned and Renowed of all that Age drove the Persians afterwards out of Greece defeated them doth by Sea and Land with a quarter of their number of Ships and Men and produced the greatest Wits and Philosophers that ever lived upon Earth The City of Athens Instituted a Solemn Feast in Commemoration of that great Generosity and Self-denial of the Nobility who Sacrificed their own Interest to the preservation of their Country which Feast was called the Solemnity of the Seisactheia which signifies recision or abolition of Debts and was observed with Processions Sacrifices and Games till the time of the Roman's Dominion over them who encouraged it and ever till the change of Religion in Greece and Invasion of the Sarazens The Roman's having omitted in their Institution to provide for the fixing of Property and so the Nobility called Patricii beginning to take to themselves a greater share in the conquer'd Lands than had been usual for in the first times of the Commonwealth under Romulus and ever after it was always practised to divide the Lands equally amongst the Tribes this Innovation stirred up Licinius Stolo then Tribune of the People to propose a Law which although it met with much difficulty yet at last was consented to by which it was provided that no Roman Citizen of what degree soever should possess above five hundred Acres of Land and for the remaining part of the Lands which should be Conquer'd it was Ordered to be equally divided as formerly amongst the Tribes This found admittance after much oposition because it did provide but for the future no Man at that time being owner of more Lands than what was lawful for him to possess and if this law had been strictly observed to the last that glorious Commonwealth might have subsisted to this day for ought we know Doctor Some other Cause would have been the Ruine of it what think you of a Foreign Conquest Eng. Gent. Oh Doctor if they had kept their Poverty they had kept their Government and their Vertue too and then it had not been an easie matter to subdue them Quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat Breach of Rules and Order causes Division and Division when it comes to be Incurable exposes a Nation almost as much as a Tyrannical Government does The Goths and Vandals had they Invaded in those days had met with the same success which befell the Cymbri and the Teutones I must confess a Foreign Invasion is a Formidable thing when a Commonwealth is weak in Territory and Inhabitants and that the Invader is numerous and Warlike And so we see the Romans were in danger of utter ruine when they were first attacqued by the Gauls under Brennus The like hazzard may be fear'd when a Commonwealth is assaulted by another of equal Vertue and a Commander of equal Address and Valour to any of themselves Thus
Monarchy in the World if they could have stayed here and not had a Mercinary Army besides which have often like the Praetorians in the time of the Roman Tyrants made the Palace and the Serraglio the Shambles of their Princes whereas if the Timariots aswell Spahis or Horse as Foot had been brought together to Guard the Prince by Courses as they used to do King David as well as they are to fight for the Empire this horrid flaw and inconvenience in their Government had been wholly avoided For though these are not planted upon entire Property as David's were those being in the nature of Trained-Bands yet the remoteness of their Habitations from the Court and the Factions of the great City and their desire to repair home and to find all things quiet at their return would have easily kept them from being infected with that cursed Disease of Rebellion against their Soveraign upon whose favour they depend for the continuance of their livelihood Whereas the Janizaries are for life and are sure to be in the same Employment under the next Successor so sure that no Grand Seignior can or dares go about to Disband them the suspicion of intending such a thing having caused the death of more than one of their Emperours But I shall go to the limited Monarchies Doct. But pray before you do so Inform us something of the Roman Emperours Had they the whole Dominion or Property of the Lands of Italy Eng. Gent. The Roman Emperours I reckon amongst the Tyrants for so amongst the Greeks were called those Citizens who usurpt the Governments of their Crmmonwealths and maintain'd it by force without endeavouring to Found or Establish it by altering the Property of Lands as not imagining that their Children could ever hold it after them in which they were not deceived So that it is plain that the Roman Empire was not a natural but a violent Government The reasons why it lasted longer than ordinarily Tyrannies do are many First because Augustus the first Emperour kept up the Senate and so for his time cajold them with this bait of Imaginary Power which might not have sufficed neither to have kept him from the fate of his Uncle but that there had been so many Revolutions and bloody wars between that all Mankind was glad to repose and take breath for a while under any Government that could protect them And he gain'd the service of these Senators the rather because he suffered none to be so but those who had followed his Fortune in the several Civil Wars and so were engaged to support him for their own preservation Besides he confiscated all those who had at any time been proscribed or sided in any Encounter against him which considering in how few hands the Lands of Italy then were might be an over-ballance of the Property in his hands But this is certain that what ever he had not in his own possession he disposed of at his pleasure taking it away as also the lives of his people without any judicial proceedings when he pleased That the Confiscations were great we may see by his planting above sixty thousand Souldiers upon Lands in Lombardy That is erecting so many Beneficia or Timarr's and if any Man's Lands lay in the way he took them in for Neighbourhood without any delinquency Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonoe And it is very evident that if these Beneficia had not afterwards been made Hereditary that Empire might have had a stabler Foundation and so a more quiet and orderly progress than it after had for the Court Guards call'd the Praetorians did make such havock of their Princes and change them so often that this though it may seem a Paradox is another reason why this Tyranny was not ruin'd sooner for the People who had really an Interest to endeavour a change of Government were so prevented by seeing the Prince whom they designed to supplant removed to their hand that they were puzled what to do taking in the mean time great recreation to see those wild Beasts hunted down themselves who had so often prey'd upon their Lives and Estates besides that most commonly the frequent removes of their Masters made them scarce have time to do any mischief to their poor oppressed Subjects in particular though they were all Slaves in general This Government of the later Romans is a clear Example of the truth and efficacy of these Politick Principles we have been discoursing of First that any Government be it the most unlimitted and arbitrary Monarchy that is placed upon a right Basis of Property is better both for Prince and People than to leave them a seeming Property still at his devotion and then for want of fixing the Foundation expose their Lives to those dangers and hazzards with which so many Tumults and Insurrections which must necessarily happen will threaten them daily And in the next place that any violent constraining of mankind to a subjection is not to be called a Government nor does salve either the Politick or Moral ends which those eminent Legislators amongst the Ancients proposed to themselves when they set Rules to preserve the quiet and peace as well as the plenty prosperity and greatness of the People but that the Politicks or Art of Governing is a Science to be learned and studied by Counsellors and Statsemen be they never so great or else Mankind will have a very sad condition under them and they themselves a very perplexed and turbulent life and probably a very destructive and precipitous end of it Doct. I am very glad I gave occasion to make this Discourse now I beseech you before you go to the mixt Monarchies not to forget Egypt Eng. Gent. 'T was that I was coming to before you were pleased to interrogate me concerning the Roman Empire The Egyptians are this day for ought I know the only People that enjoy Property and are Governed as a Province by any of the Eastern absolute Princes For whereas Damasco Aleppo and most of the other Cities and Provinces of that Empire whose Territory is divided into Timarr's are Governed by a Bashaw who for his Guards has some small number of Janizaries or Souldiers the Bashaw of Egypt or of Grand Cairo has ever an Army with him and divers Forts are erected which is the way European Princes use in Governing their Provinces and must be so where Property is left entire except they plant Colonies as the Romans did The reason why Selim who broke the Empire of the Mamalukes and conquered Egypt did not plant Timarr's upon it was the Laziness and Cowardliness of the People and the great Fruitfulness of the Soil and Deliciousness of the Country which has mollifi'd and rendred effeminate all the Nations that ever did Inhabit it So that a resolution was taken to impose upon them first the maintaining an Army by a Tax and then to pay a full half of all the Fruits and product of their Lands to the Grand Seignior which
imaginable that either Christ or his Apostles did ever account that the true Religion should be planted in the World by the framing of Laws Catechisms or Creeds by the Soveraign Powers and Magistrates whether you call them Spiritual or Temporal but that it should have a Progress suitable to its beginning for it is visible that it had its Original from the Power and Spirit of God and came in against the stream not onely without a Numa Pompilius or a Mahomet to plant and establish it by humane Constitutions and Authority but had all the Laws of the World to oppose it and all the bloudy Tyrants of that age to persecute it and to inflict exquisite torments on the Professors of it In Nero's time which was very early the Christians were offered a Temple in Rome and in what other Cities they pleased to be built to Jesus Christ and that the Romans should receive him into the number of their gods but our Religion being then in its purity this was unanimously refused for that such a God must have no Companions nor needed no Temples but must be Worshipped in Spirit and Truth The Successors to these good Christians were not so scrupulous for within some Ages after the Priests to get Riches and Power and the Emperors to get and keep the Empire for by this time the Christians were grown numerous and powerful combined together to spoil our Holy Religion to make it fit for the Government of this World to introduce into it all the Ceremonious follies and Superstitions of the Heathen and which is worse the Power of Priests both over the Persons and Consciences of Men. I shall say no more of this but refer you to innumerable Authors who have treated of this Subject particularly to a French Minister who hath written a Book Entituled La Religion Catholique Apostolique Romaine instituee par Nume Pompile and to the incomparable Machiavel in his Posthume Letter Printed lately in our Language with the Translation of his Works But I have made a long digression and to come back again shall onely desire you to take notice when I say that anciently Popery was no inconvenience in this Kingdom I mean onely Politically as the Government then stood and do not speak at all of the prejudice which mens Souls did and will ever receive from the Belief of those impious Tenents and the want of having the True Gospel of Jesus Christ preached unto them but living in perpetual Superstition and Idolatry The consideration of these Matters is not so proper to my present purpose being to Discourse onely of Government Notwithstanding therefore as I said before that Popery might have suited well enough with our old Constitution yet as to the present Estate which inclines to Popularity it would be wholly as inconsistent with it and with the Power of the Keys and the Empire of Priests especially where there is a Forreign Jurisdiction in the case as with the Tyranny and Arbitrary Power of any Prince in the World I will add thus much in Confirmation of the Doctor 's Assertion That we ought to prevent the Growth of Popery since it is now grown a Dangerous Faction here against the State Noble Ven. How can that be I beseech you Sir Eng. Gent. Sir I will make you Judg of it your self I will say nothing of those foolish Writings that have been put forth by Mariana Emanuel Sa and some others about the lawfulness of destroying Princes and States in case of Heresie because I know all the conscientious and honest Papists of which I know there are great numbers in the World do not only not hold but even abhor such cursed Tenents and do believe that when the Pope by Excommunication hath cut off any Prince from the communion of the Church can go no further nor ought to pretend a Power to deprive him of his Crown or absolve his Subjects from their Oaths and Obedience But I shall confine my self to the present condition of our Papists here You know how dangerous it is for any Kingdom or State to have a considerable wealthy flourishing party amongst them whose interest it is to destroy the Polity and Government of the Country where they live and therefore if our Papists prove this Party you will not wonder why this People are so eager to depress them This is our Case for in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign there was an alteration of Religion in our Country which did sufficiently enrage the Holy Father at Rome to see that this good Cow would be Milked no longer He declares her an Heretick and a Bastard his Sanctity not having declared null that incestuous Marriage which her Father had contracted before with his Brothers Wife and which that King had dissolved to Marry her Mother and afterwards Excommunicated our Queen depriving her as much as in him lay of the Kingdom some of the Zealots of that Party having a greater terrour for those Thunder-bolts than I believe many have now began to Conspire against her and Plots grew at length so frequent and so dangerous that it was necessary as the Parliaments then thought to secure the Queen by making severe Laws against a People who did not believe themselves her Majesties Subjects but on the contrary many of them thought themselves in Conscience obliged to oppose and destroy her and although that Excommunication as also the pretended doubtfulness of the Title both died with that renowned Queen yet a new desperate Conspiracy against the King her Successor and the whole Parliament ensuing not long after her decease those rigorous Laws have been so far from being repealed that very many more and far severer have been since made and are yet in force Now these Laws make so great a distinction between Protestants and Papists that whereas the former are by our Government and Laws the freest People in the World the latter are little better than slaves are confined to such a distance from their Houses are not to come near the Court which being kept in the Capital City mostly deprives them from attending their necessary occasions they are to pay two third parts of their Estates annually to the King their Priests are to suffer as Traitors and they as Felons for harbouring them in fine one of us if he do not break the Municipal Laws for the good Government of the Country need not fear the King's Power whereas their being what they are is a breach of the Law and does put them into the Princes hands to ruine them when he pleases nay he is bound by Oath to do it and when he does it not is complained against by his People and Parliaments take it amiss Now judge you Sir whether it is not the interest of these People to desire and endeavour a change whilest they remain under these discouragements and whether they are not like to joyn with the Prince whose connivance at the inexecution of those Laws is the onely means and hope of their