they are to Cultivate and improve This is well managed by the Bashaws and their Officers and comes to an incredible sum the goods being sold the Money is conveyed in specie to the Port and is the greatest part of that Prince's Revenue And it is believed that if all the Lands had been entirely confiscated and that the Grand Seignior had managed them by his Officers he would not have made a third part so much of the whole as he receives now annually for one half not only because those People are extreamly industrious where their own profit is concerned but for that it is clear if they had been totally divested of their Estates they would have left their Country and made that which is now the most populous Kingdom of the World a Desart as is all the rest of the Turkish Dominions except some Cities And if the People had removed as they did elsewhere there would not only have wanted hands to have Cultivated and Improved the Lands but mouths to consume the product of it so that the Princes Revenue by the cheapness of Victual and the want of Labourers would have almost fallen to nothing Noble Ven. Pray God this be not the reason that this King of France leaves Property to his Subjects for certainly he hath taken example by this Province of Egypt his Subjects having a Tax which for the continuance of it I must call a Rent or Tribute Impos'd upon them to the value of one full half of their Estates which must ever increase as the Lands improve Eng. Gent. I believe Sir there is another reason For the Property there being in the Nobility and Gentry which are the hands by which he manages his Force both at home and abroad it would not have been easie or safe for him to take away their Estates But I come to the limited Monarchies They were first Introduced as was said before by the Goths and other Northern People Whence those great swarms came as it was unknown to Procopius himself who liv'd in the time of their Invasion and who was a diligent searcher into all the circumstances of their concernments so it is very needless for us to make any enquiry into it thus much being clear That they came Man Woman and Child and conquer'd and possest all these parts of the World which were then subject to the Roman Empire and since Christianity came in have been so to the Latin Church till honest John Calvin taught some of us the way how to deliver our selves from the Tyrannical Yoak which neither we nor our Forefathers were able to bear Whence those People had the Government they Establisht in these parts after their Conquest that is whether they brought it from their own Country or made it themselves must needs be uncertain since their Original is wholly so but it seems very probable that they had some excellent persons among them though the ignorance and want of learning in that Age hath not suffered any thing to remain that may give us any great light for it is plain that the Government they setled was both according to the exact Rules of the Politicks and very natural and suitable to that Division they made of their several Territories Whenever then these Invaders had quieted any Province and that the People were driven out or subdued they divided the Lands and to the Prince they gave usually a tenth part or thereabouts to the great Men or Comites Regis as it was translated into Latine every one as near as they could an equal share These were to enjoy an Hereditary right in their Estates as the King did in his part and in the Crown but neither he nor his Peers or Companions were to have the absolute disposal of the Lands so allotted them but were to keep a certain proportion to themselves for their use and the rest was ordered to be divided amongst the Free-men who came with them to Conquer What they kept to themselves was called Demesnes in English and French and in Italian Beni Allodiali The other part which they granted to the Free-men was called a Feud and all these Estates were held of these Lords Hereditarily only the Tenants were to pay a small Rent annually and at every Death or Change an acknowledgment in Money and in some Tenures the best Beast besides But the chief condition of the Feud or Grant was that the Tenant should perform certain Services to the Lord of which one in all Tenures of Free-men was to follow him Armed to the Wars for the Service of the Prince and Defence of the Land And upon their admittance to their Feuds they take an Oath to be true Vassals and Tenants to their Lords and to pay their Rents and perform their Services and upon failure to forfeit their Estates and these Tenants were divided according to their Habitations into several Mannors in every one of which there was a Court kept twice every year where they all were to appear and to be admitted to their several Estates and to take the Oath above mentioned All these Peers did likewise hold all their Demesnes as also all their Mannors of the Prince to whom they swore Allegiance and Fealty There were besides these Freemen or Francklins other Tenants to every Lord who were called Villains who were to perform all servile Offices and their Estates were all at the Lords disposal when he pleased these consisted mostly of such of the former Inhabitants of these Countries as were not either destroyed or driven out and possibly of others who were Servants amongst them before they came from their own Countries Perhaps thus much might have been unnecessary to be said considering that these Lords Tenants and Courts are yet extant in all the Kingdoms in Europe but that to a Gentleman of Venice where there are none of these things and where the Goths never were something may be said in excuse for me Noble Ven. 'T is true Sir we fled from the Goths betimes but yet in those Countries which we recovered since in Terra firma we found the Footsteps of these Lords and Tenures and their Titles of Counts though being now Provinces to us they have no influence upon the Government as I suppose you are about to prove they have in these parts Eng. Gent. You are right Sir for the Governments of France Spain England and all other Countries where these People setled were fram'd accordingly It is not my business to describe particularly the distinct Forms of the several Governments in Europe which do derive from these People for they may differ in some of their Orders and Laws though the Foundation be in them all the same this would be unnecessary they being all extant and so well known and besides little to my purpose excepting to shew where they have declined from their first Institution and admitted of some change France and Poland have not nor as I can learn ever had any Free-men below the Nobility that is
yet we see that till Joseph's time he had not the whole Property for the Wisdom of that Patriarch taught his Master a way to make a new use of that Famine by telling him that if they would buy their Lives and sell their Estates as they did afterwards and preserve themselves by the Kings Bread they shall serve Pharaoh which shews that Joseph knew well that Empire was founded in Property But most of the Modern Writers in Polity are of Opinion that Egypt was not a Monarchy till then though the Prince might have the Title of King as the Heraclides had in Sparta and Romulus and the other Kings had in Rome both which States were Instituted Common-Wealths They give good Conjectures for this their Opinion too many to be here mentioned only one is That Originally as they go about to prove all Arts and Sciences had their Rise in Egypt which they think very improbable to have been under a Monarchy But this Position That all Kings in former times were absolute is not so Essential to the intent I have in this Discourse which is to prove That in all States of what kind soever this Aphorisme takes place Imperium fundatur in Dominio So that if there were mixed Monarchies then the King had not all the Property but those who shared with him in the Administration of the Soveraignty had their part whether it were the Senate the People or both or if he had no Companions in the Soveraign Power he had no Sharers likewise in the Dominion or Possession of the Land For that is all we mean by Property in all this Discourse for as for Personal Estate the Subjects may enjoy it in the largest Proportion without being able to invade the Empire The Prince may when he pleases take away their Goods by his Tenants and Vassals without an Army which are his Ordinary Force and answers to our Posse Comitatus But the Subjects with their Money cannot invade his Crown So that all the Description we need make of this Kind or Form of Government is That the whole possession of the Country and the whole power lies in the Hands and Breast of one man he can make Laws break and repeal them when he pleases or dispense with them in the mean time when he thinks fit interpose in all Judicatories in behalf of his Favourites take away any particular mans personal Estate and his Life too without the formality of a Criminal Process or Trial send a Dagger or a Halter to his chief Ministers and command them to make themselves away and in fine do all that his Will or his Interest suggests to him Doct. You have dwelt long here upon an Argumentation That the Ancients had no Monarchies but what were Arbitrary Eng. Gent. Pray give me leave to save your Objections to that point and to assure you first That I will not take upon me to be so positive in that for that I cannot pretend to have read all the Historians and Antiquaries that ever writ nor have I so perfect a memory as to remember or make use of in a Verbal and Transient Reasoning all that I have ever read And then to assure you again that I build nothing upon that Assertion and so your Objection will be needless and only take up time Doct. You mistake me I had no intent to use any Argument or Example against your Opinion in that but am very willing to believe that it may be so What I was going to say was this that you have insisted much upon the point of Monarchy and made a strange description of it whereas many of the Ancients and almost all the Modern Writers magnifie it to be the best of Governments Eng. Gent. I have said nothing to the contrary I have told you de facto what it is which I believe none will deny The Philosopher said it was the best Government but with this restriction ubi Philosophi regnant and they had an Example of it in some few Roman Emperours but in the most turbulent times of the Commonwealth and Factions between the Nobility and the People Rome was much more full of Vertuous and Heroick Citizens than ever it was under Aurelius or Antonius For the Moderns that are of that Judgement they are most of them Divines not Politicians and something may be said in their behalf when by their good Preaching they can infuse into their imaginary Prince who seems already to have an Image of the Power of God the Justice Wisdom and Goodness too of the Deity Noble Ven. We are well satisfied with the Progress you have hitherto made in this matter pray go on to the two other Forms used amongst the Ancients and their Corruptions that so we may come to the Modern Governments and see how England stands and how it came to decay and what must Rebuild it Eng. Gent. You have very good Reason to hasten me to that for indeed all that has been said yet is but as it were a Preliminary discourse to the knowledge of the Government of England and its decay when it comes to the Cure I hope you will both help me for both your self and the Doctor are a thousand times better than I at Remedies But I shall dispatch the other two Governments Aristocracy or Optimacy is a Commonwealth where the better sort that is the Eminent and Rich men have the chief Administration of the Government I say the chief because there are very few ancient Optimacies but the People had some share as in Sparta where they had power to Vote but not Debate for so the Oracle of Apollo brought by Lycurgus from Delphos settles it But the truth is these people were the natural Spartans For Lycurgus divided the Country or Territory of Laconia into 39000 Shares whereof Nine thousand only of these Owners were Inhabitants of Sparta the rest lived in the Country so that although Thucidides call it an Aristocracy and so I follow him yet it was none of those Aristocracies usually described by the Politicians where the Lands of the Territory were in a great deal fewer Hands But call it what you will where ever there was an Aristocracy there the Property or very much the Over-ballance of it was in the hands of the Aristoi or Governours be they more or fewer for if the People have the greatest interest in the Property they will and must have it in the Empire A notable example of it is Rome the best and most glorious Government that ever the Sun saw where the Lands being equally divided amongst the Tribes that is the People it was impossible for the Patricii to keek them quiet till they yielded to their desires not only to have their Tribunes to see that nothing passed into a Law without their consent but also to have it declared that both the Consuls should not only be chosen by the people as they ever were and the Kings too before them but that they might be elected too when the
matter to talk all as you have made me do to day for what I have yet to say in the point of Cure is so little that it will look like the Mouse to the Mountain of this days discourse Doct. It is so in all Arts the Corollary is short and in ours particularly Those who write of the several Diseases incident to humane bodies must make long Discourses of the Causes Symptomes Signs and Prognosticks of such Distempers but when they come to treat of the Cure it is dispatched in a few Recipes Eng. Gent. Well Sir for this bout I humbly take my leave of you nay Sir you are not in a condition to use ceremony Doct. Sir I forbid you this door pray retire to stand here is worse than to be in the open air Noble Ven. I obey you both Doct. I shall wait on you in the Evening The THIRD DAY Noble Ven. GEntlemen you are very welcome what you are come both together Doct. I met this Gentleman at the door But methinks we sit looking one upon another as if all of us were afraid to speak Eng. Gent. Do you think we have not reason in such a subject as this is how can any Man without Hesitation presume to be so confident as to deliver his private opinion in a point upon which for almost 200 year for so long our Government has been crazy no Man has ventured and when Parliaments have done any thing towards it there have been Animosities and Breaches and at length Civil Wars Noble Ven. Our work to day is to endeavour to shew how all these troubles may be prevented for the future by taking away the Cause of them which is the want of a good Government and therefore it will not be so much presumption in you as charity to declare your self fully in this matter Eng. Gent. The Cure will follow naturally if you are satisfied in the Disease and in the Cause of the Disease for if you agree that our Government is broken and that it is broken because it was Founded upon Property and that Foundation is now shaken it will be obvious that you must either bring Property back to your old Government and give the King and Lords their Lands again or else you must bring the Government to the Property as it now stands Doct. I am very well satisfied in your Grounds but because this Fundamental truth is little understood amongst our People and that in all conversations men will be offering their opinions of what the Parliament ought to do at their Meeting it will not be amiss to examine some of those Expedients they propose and to see whether some or all of them may not be effectual towards the bringing us to some degree of settlement rather than to venture upon so great a change and alteration as would be necessary to model our Government anew Eng. Gent. Sir I believe there can be no Expedients proposed in Parliament that will not take up as much time and trouble find as much difficulty in passing with the King and Lords and seem as great a change of Government as the true remedy would appear at least I speak as to what I have to propose but however I approve your Method and if you will please to propose any of those things I shall either willingly embrace them or endeavour to shew reason why they will be of little fruit in the settling our State Doct. I will reduce them to two Heads besides the making good Laws for keeping out Arbitrary Power which is always understood the hindering the growth of Popery and consequently the providing against a Popish Successor and then the declaring the Duke of Monmouth's Right to the Crown after it hath been examined and agreed to in Parliament Eng. Gent. As for the making new Laws I hold it absolutely needless those we have already against Arbitrary Power being abundantly sufficient if they might be executed but that being impossible as I shall shew hereafter till some change shall be made I shall postpone this point and for the first of your other two I shall divide and separate the consideration of the growth of Popery from that of the Succession I am sorry that in the prosecution of this Argument I shall be forced to say something that may not be very pleasing to this worthy Gentleman we being necessitated to discourse with prejudice of that Religion which he professes but it shall be with as little ill breeding as I can and altogether without passion or invectives Noble Ven. It would be very hard for me to suspect any thing from you that should be disobliging but pray Sir go on to your Political discourse for I am not so ignorant my self but to know that the conservation of the National Religion be it what it will is assential to the well ordering a State and though in our City the doctrinals are very different from what are professed here yet as to the Government of the State I believe you know that the Pope or his Priests have as little influence upon it as your Clergy have here or in any part of the World Eng. Gent. I avow it fully Sir and with the favour you give will proceed It cannot be denyed but that in former times Popery has been very innocent here to the Government and that the Clergy and the Pope were so far from opposing our Liberties that they both sided with the Barons to get a declaration of them by means of Magna Charta It is true also that if we were all Papists and that our State were the same both as to Property and Empire as it was 400 years ago there would be but one inconvenience to have that Religion National again in England which is That the Clergy quatenus such had and will have a share in the Soveraignty and inferiour Courts in their own Power called Ecclesiastical this is and ever will be a Solecism in Government besides a manifest contradiction to the words of Christ our Saviour who tells us his Kingdom is not of this World and the truth is if you look into the Scriptures you will find that the Apostles did not reckon that the Religion they planted should be National in any Country and therefore have given no precepts to the Magistrate to meddle in matters of Faith and the Worship of God but Preach'd That Christians should yield them obedience in all lawfull things There are many passages in Holy Writ which plainly declare that the true Believers and Saints should be but a handful and such as God had separated and as it were taken out of the World which would not have been said by them if they had believed that whole Nations and People should have been true Followers of Christ and of his Flock for certainly none of them are to be damn'd and yet Christ himself tells us that few are saved and bids us strive to get in at the strait gate and therefore I conceive it not to be
that does not alter the Case for if you set poor men to work and pay them for it are you a Tyrant or rather are not you a good Common-wealths-man by helping those to live who have no other way of doing it but by their labour But the King of France knowing that his People have and ought to have Property and that he has no right to their Possessions yet takes what he pleases from them without their consent and contrary to Law So that when he sets them on work he pays them what he pleases and that he levies out of their own Estates I do not affirm that there is no Government in the World but where Rule is founded in Property but I say there is no natural fixed Government but where it is so and when it is otherwise the People are perpetually complaining and the King in perpetual anxiety always in fear of his Subjects and seeking new ways to secure himself God having been so merciful to mankind that he has made nothing safe for Princes but what is Just and Honest Noble Ven. But you were saying just now that this present Constitution in France will fall when the props fail we in Italy who live in perpetual fear of the greatness of that Kingdom would be glad to hear something of the decaying of those props What are they I beseech you Eng. Gent. The first is the greatness of the present King whose heriock Actions and Wisdom has extinguished envy in all his Neighbour-Princes and kindled fear and brought him to be above all possibility of control at home not only because his Subjects fear his Courage but because they have his Virtue in admiration and amidst all their miseries cannot chuse but have something of rejoycing to see how high he hath mounted the Empire and Honour of their Nation The next prop is the change of their ancient Constitution in the time of Charles the Seventh by Consent for about that time the Country being so wasted by the Invasion and Excursions of the English The States then assembled Petitioned the King that he would give them leave to go home and dispose of Affairs himself and Order the Government for the future as he thought fit Upon this his Successor Lewis the Eleventh being a crafty Prince took an occasion to call the States no more but to supply them with an Assemble des notables which were certain men of his own nomination like Barbones Parliament here but that they were of better quality These in succeeding reigns being the best men of the Kingdom grew Troublesome and Intractable so that for some years the Edicts have been verified that is in our Language Bills have been passed in the Grand Chamber of the Parliament at Paris commonly called the Chambre d'audience who lately and since the Imprisonment of President Brouselles and others during this King's Minority have never refused or scrupled any Edicts whatsoever Now whenever this great King dies and the States of the Kingdom are restored these two great props of Arbitrary Power are taken away Besides these two the Constitution of the Government of France it self is somwhat better fitted than ours to permit extraordinary Power in the Prince for the whole People there possessing Lands are Gentlemen that is infinitely the greater part which was the reason why in their Asembly of Estates the Deputies of the Provinces which we call here Knights of the Shire were chosen by and out of the Gentry and sate with the Peers in the same Chamber as representing the Gentry onely called petite noblesse Whereas our Knights here whatever their blood is are chosen by Commoners and are Commoners our Laws and Government taking no notice of any Nobility but the persons of the Peers whose Sons are likewise Commoners even their eldest whilest their Father lives Now Gentry are ever more tractable by a Prince than a wealthy and numerous Commonalty out of which our Gentry at least those we call so are raised from time to time For whenever either a Merchant Lawyer Tradesman Grasier Farmer or any other gets such an Estate as that he or his Son can live upon his Lands without exercising of any other Calling he becomes a Gentleman I do not say but that we have men very Nobly descended amongst these but they have no preheminence or distinction by the Laws or Government Besides this the Gentry in France are very needy and very numerous the reason of which is That the Elder Brother in most parts of that Kingdom hath no more share in the division of the Paternal Estate than the Cadets or Younger Brothers excepting the Principal House with the Orchards and Gardens about it which they call Vol de Chappon as who should say As far as a Capon can fly at once This House gives him the Title his Father had who was called Seignior or Baron or Count of that place which if he sells he parts with his Baronship and for ought I know becomes in time roturier or ignoble This practice divides the Lands into so many small parcels that the Possessors of them being Noble and having little to maintain their Nobility are fain to seek their Fortune which they can find no where so well as at the Court and so become the King's Servants and Souldiers for they are generally Couragious Bold and of a good Meen None of these can ever advance themselves but by their desert which makes them hazard themselves very desperately by which means great numbers of them are kill'd and the rest come in time to be great Officers and live splendidly upon the King's Purse who is likewise very liberal to them and according to their respective merits gives them often in the beginning of a Campagne a considerable sum to furnish out their Equipage These are a great Prop to the Regal Power it being their Interest to support it lest their gain should cease and they be reduced to be poor Provinciaux that is Country-Gentlemen again whereas if they had such Estates as our Country-Gentry have they would desire to be at home at their ease whilest these having ten times as much from the King as their own Estate can yield them which supply must fail if the King's Revenue were reduced are perpetually engaged to make good all exorbitances Doct. This is a kind of Governing by Property too and it puts me in mind of a Gentleman of good Estate in our Country who took a Tenants Son of his to be his Servant whose Father not long after dying left him a Living of about ten pound a year the young Man's Friends came to him and asked him why he would serve now he had an Estate of his own able to maintain him his Answer was That his own Lands would yield him but a third part of what his Service was worth to him in all besides that he lived a pleasant Life wore good Clothes kept good Company and had the conversation of very pretty Maids that were his Fellow-servants
mas os eligimos nuestro Rey conque nos guardeys nuestros Fueros y Privilegios y si no no. That is We who are as good as you and more Powerful do chuse you our King upon condition that you preserve our Rights and Priviledges and if not not Notwithstanding all this Philip the Second being both King of Castile and Arragon picked a quarrel with the latter by demanding his Secretary Antonio Perez who fled from the King's displeasure thither being his own Country and they refusing to deliver him it being expresly contrary to a Law of Arragon that a Subject of that Kingdom should be against his will carried to be tryed elsewhere the King took that occasion to Invade them with the Forces of his Kingdom of Castile who had ever been Rivals and Enemies to the Aragoneses and they to defend themselves under their Justicia who did his part faithfully and couragiously but the Castilians being old Soldiers and those of Arragon but County-Troops the former prevailed and so this Kingdom in getting that of Castile by a Marriage but an Age before lost its own Liberty and Government for it is since made a Province and Governed by a Vice-Roy from Madrid although they keep up the formality of their Cortes still Doct. No man living that knew the hatred and hostility that ever was between the English and Scots could have imagined in the years 1639 and 1640 when our King was with great Armies of English upon the Frontiers of Scotland ready to Invade that Kingdom that this Nation would not have assisted to have brought them under but it proved otherwise Eng. Gent. It may be they feared That when Scotland was reduced to slavery and the Province pacified and Forces kept up there That such Forces and greater might have been imployed here to reduce us into the same condition an apprehension which at this time sticks with many of the common People and helps to fill up the measure of our Fears and Distractions But the visible reason why the English were not at that time very forward to oppress their Neighbours was the consideration That they were to be Invaded for refusing to receive from hence certain Innovations in matters of Religion and the worship of God which had not long before been introduced here and therefore the People of this Kingdom were unwilling to perpetuate a Mungrel Church here by imposing it upon them But I do exceedingly admire when I read our History to see how zealous and eager our Nobility and People here were anciently to assert the right of our Crown to the Kingdom of France whereas it is visible that if we had kept France for we Conquered it intirely and fully to this day we must have run the fate of Arragon and been in time ruined and opprest by our own Valour and good Fortune a thing that was foreseen by the Macedonians when their King Alexander had subdued all Persia and the East who weighing how probable it was that their Prince having the possession of such great and flourishing Kingdoms should change his Domicilium Imperii and inhabit in the Centre of his Dominions and from thence Govern Macedon by which means the Grecians who by their Vertue and Valour had Conquered and subdued the Barbarians should in time even as an effect of their Victories be opprest and tyrannized over by them and this precautious foresight in the Greeks as was fully believed in that Age hastened the fatal Catastrophe of that great Prince Doct. Well I hope this consideration will fore arm our Parliaments That they will not easily suffer their eyes to be dazled any more with the false glory of Conquering France Noble Ven. You need no great cautions against Conquering France at this present and I believe your Parliaments need as little admonition against giving of Money towards new Wars or Alliances that fine wheedle having lately lost them enough already therefore pray let us suffer our Friend to go on Eng. Gent. I have no more to say of Foreign Monarchies but only to tell you That Poland is both Governed and Possessed by some very great Persons or Potentates called Palatines and under them by a very numerous Gentry for the King is not onely Elective but so limited that he has little or no Power but to Command their Armies in time of War which makes them often chuse Foreigners of great Fame for Military Exploits and as for the Commonalty or Country-men they are absolutely Slaves or Villains This Government is extreamly confused by reason of the numerousness of the Gentry who do not always meet by way of representation as in other Kingdoms but sometimes for the choice of their King and upon other great occasions collectively in the Field as the Tribes did at Rome which would make things much more turbulent if all this body of Gentry did not wholly depend for their Estates upon the favour of the Palatines their Lords which makes them much more tractable I have done with our Neighbours beyond Sea and should not without your command have made so long a digression in this place which should indeed have been treated of before we come to speak of England but that you were pleased to divert me from it before However being placed near the Portraicture of our own Country it serves better as contraria juxta se posita to illustrate it but I will not make this Deviation longer by Apologizing for it and shall therefore desire you to take notice That as in England by degrees Property came to shift from the few to the many so the Government is grown heavier and more uneasie both to Prince and People the complaints more in Parliament the Laws more numerous and much more tedious and prolix to meet with the tricks and malice of men which works in a loose Government for there was no need to make Acts verbose when the great Persons could presently force the Execution of them for the Law of Edward the First for frequent Parliaments had no more words than A Parliament shall be holden every year whereas our Act for a Triennial Parliament in the time of King Charles the First contained several sheets of paper to provide against a failer in the Execution of that Law which if the Power had remained in the Lords would have been needless for some of them in case of intermission of Assembling the Parliament would have made their Complaint and Address to the King and have immediately removed the obstruction which in those days had been the natural and easie way but now that many of the Lords like the Bishops which the Popes make at Rome in partibus infidelium are meerly grown Titular and purchased for nothing but to get their Wives place it cannot be wondred at if the King slight their Addresses and the Court-Parasites deride their Honourable undertakings for the safety of their Country Now the Commons succeeding as was said in the Property of the Peers and Church whose Lands
their consideration what should be done in it it was at length concluded that Themistocles should propose it to Aristides and if he did next morning acquaint the People that he gave his approbation to it it should be proceeded in Themistocles informs him that the whole Fleet of their Confederates in the War against the Medes had betaken themselves to the great Arsenal upon their Coast where they might be easily fired and then the Athenians would remain absolute Masters of the Sea and so give Law to all Greece when Aristides came the next day to deliver his Judgment to the People he told them that the business proposed by Themistocles was indeed very advantageous and profitable to the Athenians But withal the most Wicked and Villanous Attempt that ever was undertaken upon which it was wholly laid aside And the same Judgment do I give Doctor of your Democracy at this time But to return to the place where I was I do belive that this difference may easily be terminated very fairly and that our House need not be pulled down and a new one built but may be very easily repair'd so that it may last many hundred years Noble Ven. I begin to perceive that you aim at this That the King must give the People more Power as Henry the Third and King John did or the Parliament must give the King more as you said they did in France in the time of Lewis the Eleventh or else that it will come in time to a War again Eng. Gent. You may please to know that in all times hitherto the Parliament never demanded any thing of the King wherein the Interest and Government of the Kingdom was concerned excepting Acts of Pardon but they founded their demands upon their Right not only because it might seem unreasonable for them to be earnest with him to give them that which was his own but also because they cannot chuse but know that all Powers which are Fundamentally and Lawfully in the Crown were placed there upon the first Institution of our Government to capacitate the Prince to Govern and Protect his People So that for the Parliament to seek to take from him such Authority were to be felo de se as we call a self-Homicide but as in some Distempers of the Body the Head suffers as well as the Inferiour parts so that it is not possible for it to order direct and provide for the whole Body as its Office requires since the Wisdom and Power which is placed there is given by God to that end In which Case though the Distemper of the Body may begin from the Disease of some other part or from the mass of Blood or putrefaction of other Humours yet since that noble part is so affected by it that Reason and Discourse fails therefore to restore this again Remedies must be apply'd to and possibly Humours or Vapours drawn from the Head it self that so it may be able to Govern and Reign over the Body as it did before or else the whole Man like a Slave must be ruled and guided ab extrinseco that is by some Keeper So it is now with us in our Politick Disease where granting if you please that the Distemper does not proceed from the Head but the Corruption of other parts yet in the Cure Applications must be made to the Head as well as to the Members if we mean poor England shall recover its former perfect health and there fore it will be found perhaps Essential to our being to ask something in the condition we now are to which the King as yet may have a Right and which except he please to part with the Phenomena of Government cannot be salved That is our Laws cannot be executed nor Magna Charta it self made practicable and so both Prince and People that is the Polity of England must die of this Disease or by this Delirium must be Governed ab extrinseco and fall to the Lot of some Foregin Power Noble Ven. But Sir since the business is come to this Dilemma why may not the King ask more Power of the Parliament as well as they of him Eng. Gent. No question but our present Councellours and Courtiers would be nibbling at that bait again if they had another Parliament that would take Pensions for their Votes But in one that is come fresh from the People and understand their Sense and Grievances very well I hardly believe they will attempt it for both Council and Parliament must needs know by this time-a-day that the Cause of all our Distractions coming as has been said an hundred times from the King 's having a greater Power already than the condition of Property at this present can admit without Confusion and Disorder It is not like to mend Matters for them to give him more except they will deliver up to him at the same instant their Possessions and Right to their Lands and become Naturally and Politically his Slaves Noble Ven. Since there must be a voluntary parting with Power I fear your Cure will prove long and ineffectul and we Reconcilers shall I fear prove like our devout Cappuchin at Venice this poor Mans name was Fra. Barnardino da Vdine and was esteemed a very holy Man as well as an excellent Preacher insomuch that he was appointed to Preach the Lent Sermons in one of our principal Churches which he performed at the begining with so much Eloquence and Applause that the Church was daily crouded three hours before the Sermon was to begin the esteem and veneration this poor Fryar was in elevated his Spirit a little too high to be contained within the bounds of reason but before his Delirium was perceived he told his Auditory one day that the true Devotion of that People and the care they had to come to hear his word Preached had been so acceptable to God and to the Virgine that they had vouchsafed to Inspire him with the knowledg of an Expedient which he did not doubt but would make Men happy just even in this Life that the Flesh should no longer lust against the Spirit but that he would not acquaint them with it at that present because something was to be done on their parts to make them capable of this great Blessing which was to pray zealously for a happy Success upon his Endeavours and to Fast and to visit the Churches to that end therefore he desired them to come the Wednesday following to be made acquainted with this blessed Expedient You may Imagine how desirous our People were to hear something more of this Fifth-Monarchy I will shorten my Story and tell you nothing of what crouding there was all night and what quarrelling for places in the Church nor with what difficulty the Saffi who were sent by the Magistrate to keep the Paece and to make way for the Preacher to get into the Pulpit did both But up he got and after a long preamable of desiring more Prayers and Addressing
have the full benefit of those Constitutions which were made by our Ancestors for our safe and orderly living our Government is upon a right Basis therefore we must enquire into the Cause why our Laws are not executed when you have found and taken away that Cause all is well The Cause can be no other than this That the King is told and does believe that most of these great Charters or Rights of the people of which we now chiefly treat are against his Majesties Interest though this be very false as has been said yet we will not dispute it at this time but take it for granted so that the King having the Supreme execution of the Laws in his hand cannot be reasonably supposed to be willing to execute them whenever he can chuse whether he will do it or no it being natural for every man not to do any thing against his own Interest when he can help it now when you have thought well what it should be that gives the King a Liberty to chuse whether any part of the Law shall be currant or no you will find that it is the great Power the King enjoys in the Government when the Parliament hath discovered this they will no doubt demand of his Majesty an abatement of his Royal Prerogative in those matters only which concern our enjoyment of our All that is our Lives Liberties and Estates and leave his Royal Power entire and untoucht in all the other branches of it when this is done we shall be as if some great Heroe had performed the adventure of dissolving the Inchantment we have been under so many years And all our Statutes from the highest to the lowest from Magna Charta to that for burying in Woollen will be current and we shall neither fear the bringing in Popery nor Arbitrary Power in the Intervals of Parliament neither will there be any Dissentions in them all Causes of Factions between the Country and Court-party being entirely abolisht so that the People shall have no reason to distrust their Prince nor he them Doct. You make us a fine Golden Age but after all this will you not be pleased to shew us a small prospect of this Canaan or Country of rest will you not vouchsafe to particularize a little what Powers there are in the King which you would have discontinued would you have such Prerogatives abolished or placed elsewhere Eng. Gent. There can be no Government if they be abolished But I will not be like a Man who refuses to sing amongst his Friends at their entreaty because he has an ill Voice I will rather suffer my self to be laught at by you in delivering my small Judgment in this Matter but still with this protestation that I do believe that an Infinity of Men better qualifi'd than my self for such sublime Matters and much more the House of Commons who represent the Wisdom as well as the Power of this Kingdom may find out a far better way than my poor parts and Capacity can suggest The powers then which now being in the Crown do hinder the execution of our Laws and prevent by consequence our happiness and settlement are four The absolute power of making War and peace Treaties and Alliances with all Nations in the World by which means by Ignorant Councellours or Wicked Ministers many of our former Kings have made Confederations and Wars very contrary and destructive to the Interest of England and by the unfortunate management of them have often put the Kingdom in great hazard of Invasion Besides that as long as there is a distinction made between the Court-party and that of the Country there will ever be a Jealousie in the people that those wicked Councellours who may think they can be safe no other way will make Alliances with powerful Princes in which there may be a secret Article by which those Princes shall stipulate to assist them with Forces upon a short warning to curb the Parliament and possibly to change the Government And this apprehension in the People will be the less unreasonable because Oliver Cromwel the great Pattern of some of our Courtiers is notoriously known to have Inserted an Article in his Treaty with Cardinal Mazzarin during this King of France's Minority That he should be assisted with ten thousand Men from France upon occasion to preserve and defend him in his Usurped Government against His Majesty that now is or the People of England or in fine his own Army whose revolt he often feared The Second great Prerogative the King enjoys is the sole Disposal and Ordering of the Militia by Sea and Land Raising Forces Garisoning and Fortifying places Setting out Ships of War so far as he can do all this without putting Taxations upon the People and this not only in the Intervals of Parliament but even during their Session so that they cannot raise the Train-bands of the Country or City to Guard themselves or secure the Peace of the Kingdom The third point is That it is in His Majesties Power to Nominate and Appoint as he pleases and for what time he thinks fit all the Officers of the Kingdom that are of Trust or profit both Civil Military and Ecclesiastical as they will be called except where there is Jus Patronatus These two last Powers may furnish a Prince who will hearken to ill designing Councellours with the means either of Invading the Government by Force or by his Judges and other Creatures undermining it by Fraud Especially by enjoying the Fourth Advantage which is the Laying out and Imploying as he pleases all the Publick Revenues of the Crown or Kingdom and that without having any regard except he thinks fit to the necessity of the Navy or any other thing that concerns the Safety of the Publick So that all these Four great Powers as things now stand may be adoperated at any time as well to destroy and ruine the good Order and Government of the State as to preserve and support it as they ought to do Nob. Ven. But if you divest the King of these Powers will you have the Parliament sit always to Govern these Matters Eng. Gent. Sir I would not divest the King of them much less would I have the Parliament assume them or perpetuate their Sitting They are a Body more fitted to make Laws and punish the Breakers of them than to execute them I would have them therefore petition His Majesty by way of Bill that he will please to exercise these four great Magnalia of Government with the Consent of four several Councils to be appointed for that end and not otherwise that is with the Consent of the Major part of them if any of them dissent In all which Councils His Majesty or who he pleases to appoint shall preside the Councils to be named in Parliament first all the number and every Year afterwards a third part So each Year a third part shall go out and a Recruit of an equal number come
a Regulation as this come in Debate amongst them the Parliament will reserve to it self the Approbation of the Great Officers as Chancellor Judges General Officers of an Army and the like and that such shall not have a settlement in those Charges till they are accordingly allowed of but may in the mean time exercise them As to particulars I shall always refer you to what the Parliament will judge fit to Order in the Case but if you have any thing to Object or to shew in general that some such Regulation as this cannot be effectual towards the putting our Distracted Country into better Order I shall think my self oblig'd to Answer you if you can have Patience to hear me and are not weary already as you may very well be Noble Ven. I shall certainly never be weary of such Discourse however I shall give you no further trouble in this matter for I am very fully satisfied that such Reformation if it could be compassed would not only Unite all Parties but make you very Flourishing at home and very Great abroad but have you any hopes that such a thing will ever come into Debate what do the Parliament-men say to it Eng. Gent. I never had any Discourse to this purpose either with any Lord or Member of the Commons house otherwise than as possibly some of these Notions might fall in at Ordinary Conversation For I do not intend to Intrench upon the Office of God to teach our Senatours Wisdom I have known some men so full of their own Notions that they went up and down sputtering them in every Mans Face they met some went to Great Men during our late troubles nay to the King himself to offer their Expedients from Revelation Two Men I was acquainted with of which one had an Invention to reconcile differences in Religion the other had a project for a Bank of Lands to lye as a Security for summs of Money lent both these were Persons of Great Parts and Fancy but yet so troublesome at all Times and in all Companies that I have often been forced to repeat an Excellent Proverb of your Country God deliver me from a man that has but one business and I assure you there is no Mans Reputation that I envy less than I do that of such Persons and therefore you may please to believe that I have not imitated them in scattering these Notions nor can I Prophesie whether any such Apprehensions as these will ever come into the Heads of those men who are our true Physitians But yet to answer your Question and give you my Conjecture I believe that we are not Ripe yet for any great Reform not only because we are a very Debauch'd People I do not only mean that we are given to Whoring Drinking Gaming and Idleness but chiefly that we have a Politique Debauch which is a neglect of all things that concern the publick welfare and a setting up our own private Interest against it I say this is not all for then the Polity of no Country could be Redrest For every Commonwealth that is out of order has ever all these Debauches we speak of as Consequences of their loose State But there are two other Considerations which induce me to fear that our Cure is not yet near The first is because most of the Wise and Grave Men of this Kingdom are very silent and will not open their Budget upon any terms and although they dislike the present Condition we are in as much as any Men and see the Precipice it leads us to yet will never open their Mouths to prescribe a Cure but being asked what they would advise give a shrug like your Country-men There was a very considerable Gentleman as most in England both for Birth Parts and Estate who being a Member of the Parliament that was called 1640. continued all the War with them and by his Wisdom and Eloquence which were both very great promoted very much their Affairs When the Factions began between the Presbyters and Independents he joyned Cordially with the latter so far as to give his Affirmative to the Vote of No Addresses that is to an Order made in the House of Commons to send no more Messages to the King nor to receive any from him Afterwards when an Assault was made upon the House by the Army and divers of the Members taken violently away and Secluded he disliking it though he were none of them voluntarily absented himself and continued retired being exceedingly averse to a Democratical Government which was then declared for till Cromwell's Usurpation and being infinitely courted by him absolutely refused to accept of any Employment under him or to give him the least Counsel When Cromwell was dead and a Parliament called by his Son or rather by the Army the chief Officers of which did from the beginning whisper into the Ears of the Leading Members that if they could make an honest Government they should be stood by as the Word then was by the Army This Gentleman at that time neither would be Elected into that Parliament nor give the least Advice to any other Person that was but kept himself still upon the Reserve Insomuch that it was generally believed that although he had ever been opposite to the late King 's coming to the Government again though upon Propositions yet he might hanker after the Restoration of His Majesty that now is But that Apprehension appeared groundless when it came to the pinch for being consulted as an Oracle by the then General Monk whether he should restore the Monarchy again or no would make no Answer nor give him the least Advice and de facto hath ever since kept himself from Publick Business although upon the Banishment of my Lord of Clarendon he was visited by one of the Greatest Persons in England and one in as much Esteem with His Majesty as any whatsoever and desired to accept of some great Employment near the King which he absolutely refusing the same Person not a Stranger to him but well known by him begged of him to give his Advice how His Majesty who desired nothing more than to unite all his People together and repair the Breaches which the Civil War had caused now my Lord Clarendon was gone who by his Counsels kept those Wounds open might perform that Honourable and Gracious Work but still this Gentleman made his Excuses And in short neither then nor at any time before or after excepting when he sate in the Long Parliament of the Year 40. neither during the distracted Times nor since His Majesty's Return when they seemed more reposed would ever be brought either by any private intimate Friend or by any Person in Publick Employment to give the least Judgment of our Affairs or the least Counsel to mend them though he was not shye of declaring his dislike of Matters as they went And yet this Gentleman was not only by repute and esteem a wise Man but was really so as it