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 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 Iohn Calvin taught some of us the way how to deliver ourselves 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 everyone 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 Lâ—â—â—â— 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 thâ—se 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 had no Yeomen but all are either Noble or Villains therefore the Lands must have been Originally given as they now remain into the hands of these Nobles But I will come to the Administration of the Government in these Countries and first say wherein they all agree or did at least in their Institution which is That the Soveraign power is in the States assembled together by the Prince in which he presides these make Laws Levy Money Redress Grievances punish great Officers and the like These States consist in some places of the Prince and Nobility onely as in Poland and anciently in France before certain Towns for the encouraging of Trade procured Priviledges to send Deputies which Deputies are now called the third Estate and in others consist of the Nobility and Commonalty which latter had and still have the same right to Intervene and Vote as the great ones have both in England Spain and other Kingdomes Doct. But you say nothing of the Clergy I see you are no great friend to them to leave them out of your Politicks Eng. Gent. The truth is Doctor I could wish there had never been any the purity of Christian Religion as also the good and orderly Government of the World had been much better provided for without them as it was in the Apostolical time when we heard nothing of Clergy But my omitting their Reverend Lordships was no neglect for I meant to come to them in order for you know that the Northern People did not bring Christianity into these parts but found it here and were in time converted to it so that there could be no Clergy at the first but if I had said nothing at all of this Race yet I had committed no Solecism in the Politicks for the Bishops and great Abbots intervened in the States here upon the same FoundaÌ„tion that the other Peers do viz. for their great possessions and the dependence their Tenants and Vassals have upon them although they being a People of that great sanctity and knowledg scorn to intermix so much as Titles with us profane Lay-Ideots and therefore will be called Lords Spiritual But you will have a very venerable opinion of them if you do but consider how they came by these great possessions which made them claim a third part of the Government And truely not unjustly by my rule for I believe they had no less at one time than a third part of the Lands in most of these Countries Noble Ven. Pray how did they acquire these Lands was it not here by the Charitable donation of pious Christians as it was elsewhere Eng. Gent. Yes certainly very pious men some of them might be well meaning people but still such as were cheated by these holy men who told them perpetually both in publick and private that they represented God upon Earth being Ordained by Authority from him who was his Viceroy here and that what was given to them was given to God and he would repay it largely both in this World and the next This wheedle made our barbarous Ancestors newly Instructed in the Christian Faith if this Religion may be called so and sucking in this foolish Doctrine more than the Doctrine of Christ so zealous to these Vipers that they would have pluckt out their eyes to serve them much more bestow as they did the fruitfullest and best situate of their possessions upon them Nay some they perswaded to take upon them their Callings vow Chastity and give all they had to them and become one of them amongst whom I believe they found no more sanctity than they left in the World But this is nothing to another trick they had which was to insinuate into the most notorious and execrable Villains with which that Age abounded Men who being Princes and other great Men for such were the Tools they work'd with had treacherously poisoned or otherwise murdered their nearest Relations Fathers Brothers Wives to reign or enjoy their Estates These they did perswade into a belief that if they had a desire to be sav'd notwithstanding their execrable Villanies they need but part with some of those great possessions which they had acquired by those acts to their Bishopricks or Monasteries and they would pray for their Souls and they were so holy and acceptable to God that he would deny them nothing which they immediately performed so great was the ignorance and blindness of that Age and you shall hardly find in the story of those times any great Monastery Abbey or other Religious House in any of these Countries I speak confidently as to what concerns our own Saxons that had not its Foundation from some
themselves in any thing And it is full as impossible that any person or persons so inconsiderable in number as Magistrates and Rulers are should by force get an Empire to themselves Though I am not ignorant that a whole people have in imminent Dangers either from the Invasion of a powerful Enemy or from Civil Distractions put themselves wholly into the hands of one Illustrious Person for a time and that with good Success under the best Forms of Government But this is nothing to the Original of States Noble Ven. Sir I wonder how you come to pass over the Consideration of Paternal Government which is held to have been the beginning of Monarchies Eng. Gent. Really I did not think it worth the taking notice of for though it be not easie to prove a Negative yet I believe if we could trace all Foundations of Polities that now are or ever came to our knowledge since the World began we shall find none of them to have descended from Paternal Power we know nothing of Adam's leaving the Empire to Cain or Seth It was impossible for Noah to retain any Jurisdiction over his own three Sons who were dispersed into three parts of the World if our Antiquaries Calculate right and as for Abraham whilst he lived as also his Son Isaac they were out ordinary Fathers of Families and no question governed their own Houshold as all others do but when Iacob upon his Death-bed did relate to his Children the Promise Almighty God had made his Grandfather to make him a great Nation and give his Posterity a fruitful Territory he speaks not one word of the Empire of Reuben his first-born but supposes them all equal And so they were taken to be by Moses when he divided the Land to them by Lot and by Gods command made them a Commonwealth So that I believe this fancy to have been first started not by the solid Judgement of any man but to flatter some Prince and to assert for want of better Arguments the jus Divinum of Monarchy Noble Ven. I have been impertinent in interrupting you but yet now I cannot repent of it since your Answer hath given me so much satisfaction but if it be so as you say that Government was at first Instituted for the Interest and Preservation of Mankind how comes it to pass That there are and have been so many absolute Monarchies in the World in which it seems that nothing is provided for but the Greatness and Power of the Prince Eng. Gent. I have presumed to give you already my Reason why I take for granted that such a Power could never be given by the Consent of any People for a perpetuity for though the People of Israel did against the will of Samuel and indeed of God himself demand and afterwards chuse themselves a King yet he was never such a King as we speak of for that all the Orders of their Commonwealth the Sanhedrim the Congregation of the People the Princes of the Tribes c. did still remain in being as hath been excellently proved by a learned Gentleman of our Nation to whom I refer you it may then be enquired into how these Monarchies at first did arise History being in this point silent as to the Ancient Principalities we will Conjecture that some of them might very well proceed from the Corruption of better Governments which must necessarily cause a Depravation in manners as nothing is more certain than that Politick defects breed Moral ones as our Nation is a pregnant Example this Debauchery of manners might blind the understandings of a great many destroy the Fortunes of others and make them indigent insuse into very many a neglect and carelesness of the publick good which in all setled States is very much regarded so that it might easily come into the Ambition of some bold aspiring Person to affect Empire and as easily into his Power by fair pretences with some and promises of advantages with others to procure Followers and gain a numerous Party either to Usurp Tyranny over his own Countrey or to lead men forth to Conquer and Subdue another Thus it is supposed that Nimrod got his Kingdom who in Scripture is called a Great Hunter before God which Expositers interpret A great Tyrant The Modern Despotical Powers have been acquired by one of these two ways either by pretending by the first Founder thereof that he had a Divine Mission and so gaining not only Followers but even easie Access in some places without Force to Empire and afterwards dilateing their Power by great Conquests Thus Mahomet and Cingis Can began and established the Sarazen and Tartarian Kingdoms or by a long Series of Wisdom in a Prince or chief Magistrate of a mixt Monarchy and his Council who by reason of the Sleepiness and Inadvertency of the People have been able to extinguish the great Nobility or render them Inconsiderable and so by degrees taking away from the People their Protectors render them Slaves So the Monarchies of France and some other Countries have grown to what they are at this day there being left but a Shadow of the three States in any of these Mocarchies and so no bounds remaining to the Regal Power but since Property remains still to the Subjects these Governments may be said to be changed but not founded or established for there is no Maxim more Infallible and Holding in any Science than this is in the Politicks That Empire is founded in Property Force or Fraud may alter a Government but it is Property that must Found and Eternise it Upon this undeniable Aphorisme we are to build most of our subsequent Reasoning in the mean time we may suppose that hereafter the great power of the King of France may diminish much when his enraged and oppressed Subjects come to be commanded by a Prince of less Courage Wisdom and Military Vertue when it will be very hard for any such King to Govern Tyrannically a Country which is not entirely his own Doct. Pray Sir give me leave to ask you by the way what is the Reason that here in our Country where the Peerage is lessened sufficiently the King has not gotten as great an Addition of Power as accrews to the Crown in France Eng. Gent. You will understand that Doctor before I have finisht this discourse but to stay your Stomach till then you may please to know that in France the greatness of the Nobility which has been lately taken from them did not consist in vast Riches and Revenues but in great Priviledges and Jurisdictions which obliged the People to obey them whereas our great Peers in former times had not only the same great Dependences but very Considerable Revenues besides in Demesnes and otherwise This Vassallage over the People which the Peers of France had being abolisht the Power over those Tenants which before was in their Lords fell naturally and of course into the Crown although the Lands and possessions divested of those Dependences did
and do still remain to the Owners whereas here in England though the Services are for the most part worn out and insignificant yet for want of Providence and Policy in former Kings who could not foresee the danger a far off Entails have been suffered to be cut off and so two parts in ten of all those vast Estates as well Mannours as Demesnes by the Luxury and Folly of the Owners have been within these two hundred years purchased by the lesser Gentry and the Commons which has been so far from advantaging the Crown that it has made the Country scarce governable by Monarchy But if you please I will go on with my discourse about Government and come to this again hereafter Noble Ven. I beseech you Sir do Eng. Gent. I cannot find by the small reading I have that there were any other Governments in the World Anciently than these three Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy For the first I have no light out of Antiquity to convince me that there were in old times any other Monarchies but such as were absolutely Despotical all Kingdoms then as well in Greece as Macedon Epirus and the like and where it is said the Princes exercised their Power moderately as in Asia being altogether unlimited by any Laws or any Assemblies of Nobility or People Yet I must confess Aristotle when he reckons up the Corruptions of these three Governments calls Tyranny the Corruption of Monarchy which if he means a Change of Government as it is in the Corruptions of the other two then it must follow that the Philosopher knew of some other Monarchy at the first which afterwards degenerated into Tyranny that is into Arbitrary Power for so the Word Tyranny is most commonly taken though in modern Languages it signifies the ill Exercise of Power for certainly Arbitrary Government cannot be called Tyranny where the whole Property is in the Prince as we reasonably suppose it to have been in those Monarchies no more than it is Tyranny for you to govern your own House and Estate as you please But it is possible Aristotle might not in this speak so according to Terms of Art but might mean that the ill Government of a Kingdom or Family is Tyranny However we have one Example that puzzles Politicians and that is Egypt where Pharaoh is called King and yet we see that till Ioseph'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 Ioseph 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 insuse 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
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 your 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 Insalliable 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 Praefecti Iethroniani 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 Democracies 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 Kings usurpt the place that is did reign injussu Populi and excercise the Government Tyrannically the People drove him out as all People in the World that have Property will do in the like Case except some extraordinary qualifications in the Prince preserve him for one Age and afterwards appointed in his room two Magistrates and made them Annual which two had the same Command as well in their Armies as in their Cities and did not make the least alteration besides excepting that they chose an Officer that was to perform the Kings Function in certain Sacrifices which Numa appointed to be performed by the King left the People should think their Religion were changed This Officer was called Rex Sacrificulus If you are satisfied I will go on to the consideration of our Modern States Noble Ven. I am fully answered and besides am clearly of Opinion that no Government whether mixt Monarchy or Commonwealth can subsist without a Senate as well from the turbulent State of the Israelites under Moses till the Sanhedrin was instituted as from a certain Kingdom of the Vandals in Africa where after their Conquest of the Natives they appointed a Government consisting of a Prince and a Popular Assembly which latter within half a year beat the Kings brains out he having no bulwark of Nobility or Senate to defend him from them But I will divert you no longer Eng. Gent. Sir you are very right and we should have spoken something of that before if it had been the business of this Meeting to Discourse of the particular Models of Government but intending only to say so much of the Ancient Policy as to shew what Government in General is and upon what Basis it stands I think I have done it sufficiently to make way for the understanding of our own at least when I have said something of the Policies which are now extant and that with your favour I will do I shall need say little now of those Commonwealths which however they came by their Liberty either by Arms or Purchase are now much-what under the same kind of Policy as the Ancients were In Germany the Free Towns and many Princes make up the Body of a Commonwealth called the Empire of which the Emperour is Head this General Union hath its Diets or Parliaments where they are all represented and where all things concerning the Safety and Interest of Germany in General or that belong to Peace and War are Transacted these Diets never intermeddle with the particular Concerns or Policies of those Princes or States that make it up leaving to them their particular Soveraignties The several Imperial Cities or Commonwealths are divided into two kinds Lubeck's Law and Collen's Law which being the same exactly with the ancient Democracies and Optimacies I will say no more of them The Government of Swizerland and the Seven Provinces of the Low-Countries were made up in haste to Unite them against Persecution and Oppression and to help to defend themselves the better which they both have done very gallantly and successfully They seem to have taken their Pattern from the Grecians who when their Greatness began to decline and the several Tyrants who succeeded Alexander began to press hard upon them were forced to League themselves yet in severall Confederacies as that of the Etolians that of the Achaians c. for their mutual defence The Swisses consist of Thirteen Soveraignties some Cities which are most Aristocraticall and some Provinces which have but a Village for their head Township These are all Democracies and are Govern'd all by the Owners of Land who Assemble as our Free-Holders do at the County-Court These have their General Diets as in Germany The Government of the United Provinces has for its Foundation the Union of Vtrecht made in the beginning of their standing upon their Guard against the Cruelty and Oppression of the Spaniard and patcht up in haste and seeming to be compos'd only for necessity as a state of War has made Modern Statesmen Conjecture that it will not be very practicable in time of Peace and Security At their General Diet which is called the States General do intervene the Deputies of the Seven Provinces in what number their Principals please but all of them have but one Vote which are by consequence Seven and every one of the Seven hath a Negative so that nothing can pass without the Concurrence of the whole Seven Every one of these Provinces have a Counsel or Assembly of their own called the States Provincial who send and Instruct their Deputies to the States-General and perform other Offices belonging to the Peace and Quiet of the Province
five or six Thousand pounds a year as it is probable you have and keep forty Servants and at length by your neglect and the industry and thrift of your Domesticks you sell one Thousand to your Steward another to your Clerk of the Kitchen another to your Bayliff till all were gone can you believe that these Servants when they had so good Estates of their own and you nothing left to give them would continue to live with you and to do their service as before It is just so with a whole Kingdom In our Ancestors times most of the Members of our House of Commons thought it an honour to retain to some great Lord and to wear his blew Coat And when they had made up their Lord's Train and waited upon him from his own House to the Lords House and made a Lane for him to enter and departed to sit themselves in the Lower House of Parliament as it was then and very justly called can you think that any thing could pass in such a Parliament that was not ordered by the Lords Besides these Lords were the King 's great Council in the Intervals of Parliaments and were called to advise of Peace and War and the latter was seldom made without the consent of the major part if it were not they would not send their Tenants which was all the Militia of England besides the King's tenth part Can it be believed that in those days the Commons should dislike any thing the Lords did in the Intervals or that they would have disputed their Right to receive Appeals from Courts of Equity if they had pretended to it in those days or to mend Money-bills And what is the reason but because the Lords themselves at that time represented all their Tenants that is all the People in some sort and although the House of Commons did Assemble to present their Grievances yet all great Affairs of high Importance concerning the Government was Transacted by the Lords and the War which was made to preserve it was called the Barons Wars not the War of both Houses for although in antienter times the word Baron were taken in a larger sense and comprehended the Francklins or Freemen yet who reads any History of that War shall not find that any mention is made of the concurrence of any assembly of such men but that Simon Monford Earl of Leicester and others of the great ones did by their Power and Interest manage that contest Now if this Property which is gone out of the Peerage into the Commons had passed into the King's hands as it did in Egypt in the time of Ioseph as was before said the Prince had had a very easie and peaceable reign over his own Vassals and might either have refused justly to have Assembled the Parliament any more or if he had pleased to do it might have for ever managed it as he thought fit But our Princes have wanted a Ioseph that is a wise Councellor and instead of saving their Revenue which was very great and their expences small and buying in those Purchases which the vast expences and luxury of the Lords made ready for them they have alienated their own Inheritance so that now the crown-Crown-Lands that is the publick Patrimony is come to make up the interest of the Commons whilest the King must have a precarious Revenue out of the Peoples Purses and be beholding to the Parliament for his Bread in time of Peace whereas the Kings their Predecessors never asked Aid of his Subjects but in time of War and Invasion and this alone though there were no other decay in the Government is enough to make the King depend upon his People which is no very good condition for a Monarchy Noble Ven. But how comes it to pass that other Neighbouring Countries are in so settled a State in respect of England does their Property remain the same it was or is it come into the hands of the Prince You know you were pleased to admit that we should ask you en passant something of other Countries Eng. Gent. Sir I thank you for it and shall endeavour to satisfie you I shall say nothing of the small Princes of Germany who keep in a great measure their ancient bounds both of Government and Property and if their Princes now and then exceed their part yet it is in time of Troubles and War and things return into their right Chanel of Assembling the several States which are yet in being every where But Germany lying so exposed to the Invasion of the Turks on the one side and of the French on the other and having ever had enough to do to defend their several Liberties against the encroachments of the House of Austria in which the Imperial dignity is become in some sort Hereditary if there had been something of extraordinary power exercised of late years I can say Inter arma silent leges but besides their own particular States they have the Diet of the Empire which never fails to mediate and compose things if there be any great oppresson used by Princes to their subjects or from one Prince or State to another I shall therefore confine myself to the three great Kingdoms France Spain and Poland for as to Denmark and Sweden the first hath lately chang'd its Government and not only made the Monarchy Hereditary which was before Elective but has pull'd down the Nobility and given their Power to the Prince which how it will succeed time will shew Sweden remains in point of Constitution and Property exactly as it did anciently and is a well-Governed Kingdom The first of the other three is France of which I have spoken before and shall onely add That though it be very true that there is Property in France and yet the Government is Despotical at this present yet it is one of those violent States which the Grecians called Tyrannies For if a Lawfull Prince that is one who being so by Law and sworn to rule according to it breaks his Oaths and his Bonds and reigns Arbitrarily he becomes a Tyrant and an Usurper as to so much as he assumes more than the Constitution hath given him and such a Government being as I said violent and not natural but contrary to the Interest of the people first cannot be lasting when the adventitious props which support it fail and whilst it does endure must be very uneasie both to Prince and People the first being necessitated to use continual oppression and the latter to suffer it Doct. You are pleased to talk of the oppression of the People under the King of France and for that reason call it a violent Government when if I remember you did once to day extol the Monarchy of the Turks for well-founded and natural Are not the people in that Empire as much oppressed as in France Eng. Gent. By no means unless you will call it oppression for the grand Seignior to feed all his People out of the Product of his
not to teach nor will I presume in such a 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