constrained shamefully to prevaricate to make strained constructions of their Leagues to violate their Faith and to pass over all whatsoever respects of honour to travel to the ends of their ambition Whereas the English never can have any interest to propogate their Empire upon the body of Europe beyond those bounds which God by nature his instrument prescribed to them The most they pretend to is to be Arbiters between the Princes and States of Europe as we may see in the example of Henry 8. who living in an active time when three such great spirited Princes met as himself Charles V. and Frances I. of France might have made his own markets yet sought no more than to keep the Ballance equal between those two England then in Peace has been famous for the excellent vertue of loyalty and faithfulness and in all times for keeping close to that righteous Maxim of holding the Ballance of Europe steady a Maxim they took up above six hundred years ago In War they have been renowned for their courage redoubted strength and great atchievements In a word in War they have been just as well as valiant in Peace kind and in both sincere And for the profession of the true Religion without which all other things are either nothing or as good as nothing they have been celebrated above all the Nations of Europe It began there early and continued in the worst of times and since the Reformation her Divines has been the most learned and pious of the Christian world as all Forreign Divines will be ready to testifie These methinks should be powerful encouragements to this State to joyn with England England in whom the publick vertue of true meaning is inherent from whom both in Peace and War we may expect not only Justice but even generous goodness to allude to the most ancient distinction of the Jews and who against all other Nations are zealous against Popery But that it may appear we do not lay our stress upon general and rhetorical discourses there are other considerations of a more particular nature which must not be passed over England has been the principal instrument of saving this State twice from destruction once in the Infancy of their Common-wealth in the time of Queen Elizabeth against the Spaniard and now again in the late War from the French Again nothing can secure this State for the future against the mischiefs impending from France but the friendship of England And that England in conjunction with this State is able to ballance the French Monarchy I shall thus demonstrate France is larger than England but England will always afford more Souldiers than France I mean Foot and the strength of all Armies consists in the Infantry The reasons of this are these two 1. The division of the people In France and generally in all other Countreys there are but two divisions of the people the Nobless and the Peasants but in England we have three 1. The Nobless that is the Nobility and Gentry competent to furnish a sufficient Cavalry 2. The Yeomanry or middle sort of people which make up the great Body of the Kingdom and who are sufficient to furnish the greatest and strongest Infantry of any Kingdom or State in the Christian world And 3. the inferior sort or Servants I mean such as work for day-wages which are very inconsiderable in number to the Yeomanry The division of the people is one of the principal foundations of Empire and the division of the people in England being the best and most perfect of any other in all Europe it must necessarily follow that England is capable to endure stronger shocks than any other Kingdom or State founded upon the same ballance of Government and is the most perfect Government of its kind in Europe 2. In England the People that is the inferior Gentry and Yeomanry are an over-ballance both to the King Nobility and Church which is a defect in Monarchy and tends to the generation of a Commonwealth In France and Spain the King and the Nobility have destroyed the People but in England the King and the People have destroyed the Nobility I say then the strength of the Kingdom of England is in the inferior Gentry and Yeomanry and these exceeding all other Kingdoms in number strength and courage it must needs follow if the business should come to be tried where blows must decide that England would be found an over-match even to France it self if Demonstration be Demonstration But the cause and occasion how these two things come to be so that is why the Nobility of England are so depressed and the people become so formidable as you may see they are if you look but upon the House of Lords and the House of Commons in our present Parliaments I say the cause is those popular Statutes of Population against retainers of the Nobility and for Alienations of their Lands made by Henry 7. the Romulus of the English Kings which shews the unwariness of that politick King who in seeking to cure that dangerous flaw in the Government of the Nobilities being an over-match to the Prince made a far greater of making the Commons formidable for the one strikes only at a King they dislike the other at the Throne it self although it be true those effects came not to manifest themselves till above one hundred years after his death Therefore a wise Prince indeed he was but not long-sighted To the second The French have beaten and baffled the greatest part of the Christian world without fighting and have oppressed them at their own charge But if ever they should come to deal with an Enemy that would force them to fight they would shew themselves to be Frenchmen that is would suffer themselves to be perswaded to submit to more reasonable terms If you look upon the carriage of this whole War you may presently see that the wisest thing which the French thought they could do was ever to avoid fighting supposing surely that therein they imitated the wisdom of Fabius Maximus But this is most certain as the discourses upon Livy proves That a General who desires to keep the Field cannot avoid fighting when the Enemy presses and makes it his business to engage him For in such case there are but one of three ways The first is the way of Fabius of standing upon your guard and keeping your Army in places of Advantage and this is laudable and good when your Army is so strong that the Enemy dares not attaque you as it was in the case of Fabius and Hannibal for if Hannibal had advanced Fabius would have kept his ground and engaged him The second way to avoid fighting if your Enemy will needs attaque you is flying and fight or fly you must Philip of Macedon being invaded by the Romans resolved not to come to a Battel and to avoid it he took the way of Fabius encamped his Army upon the top of a Mountain and intrenched himself so
DISCOURSES UPON THE Modern Affairs OF EUROPE Tending to prove that the Illustrious FRENCH MONARCHY may be reduced to terms of greater moderation Dì Dendri dì sénno e dì Féde C'n'è mánco ché non Créde There is commonly less Money less Wisdom and less good Faith than men do account upon Verulam Et digiti pedum partim sunt eâ— ferro partim ex â—atoâ— quia exparte regnum futurum est â—urum ex â—arte foturum est fragile Dan. 2.42 Printed in the Year 1680. The PUBLISHER to the READER THE Author of these Discourses I know not But the same coming to my hands beyond any expectation of mine I thought I was bound to give the Publick whose mark is upon them credi◠〈◊〉 the same And because it is one essential property of a good Merchant to pay well I also thought my self obliged to render the effects of so good a hit into the common Bank where they are due It is true there are some things in them which seem not so fit for publick view but those things concerning the Author and not me who have a stock only going in the publick Company and am no private Trader I pass those considerations over seeing good things as the Philosopher long since observed the more common the better they are And he that cannot speak within doors may sometimes take liberty to speak without doors especially when those within doors seem to forget the most material points Something I would also say of the Discourse it self but because it is a Proverb as old as Apelles himself its Author That the Shoemaker must not go above his Last I will pray in aid of my Lord Bacon and desire him to be of Counsel for me And first for the method and manner of handling thus he speaks Advan of Lâ—â—â—â—ing The form of writing which best agrees with so variable and universal an argument as is the handling of Negotiations and scatter'd Occasions that would be of all other the fittest which Machiavil made choice of for the handling of mâ—â—iâ—rs of Policy and Government namely by Observations and Discourses as they â—erm them upon History and Examples For knowledge drawn freshly and as it were in our view out of Particulars knows the way best to Particulars again and it hath much the greater life for Practâ—se when the Discourse or Disceptation attends upon the Example than when the Example attends upon the Disceptation for here not only order but substance is respected And as to the matter who would not but be in a passion to see the world undone by insufficient Counsellors or to speak in our own Dialect so many good Ships lost as it were in the very mouth of the Haven through unskilful Pilots And to see fighting Armies neglected and impertinent things relied on Let him therefore speak to these two things To the first The speech of Themistoâ—les taken to himself was indeed somewhat uncivil and haughty but if it had been applied to others and at large certainly it may seem to comprehend in it a wise Observation and a grave Censure Desired at a Feast to touch a Lute he said he could not Fiddle but yet he could make a small Town a great City These words drawn to a politick sense do excellently express and distinguish two differing abilities in those that deal in business of Estate For if a true Survey be taken of all Counsellors and States-men that ever were and others promoted to publick charge there will be found though very rarely those which can make a small State great and yet cannot Fiddle as on the other side there will be found a great many that are very cunning upon the Cittern or Lute that is in Court-Trifles but yet are so far from being able to make a small State Great as their gift lies another way to bring a 〈◊〉 and Flourishing Estate to Ruine and Decay To the seâ—â—nd thus Walled Towns stored Arcenals and Armories goodly races of Horse Chariots of War Elephants Ordinance Artillery and the like all this is but a Sheep in a Lions skin except the breed and disposition of the People be stout and Warlike Nay number it self in Armies imports not much where the people is of a faint and weak courage For as Virgil saith It never troubles a Wolf how many the Sheep are And a little after A man may rightly make a judgment and set it down for a sure and certain truth that the principal point of all other which respects the Greatness of any Kingdom or State is to have a RACE of Military men Farewel DISCOVRSES c. Chap. I. THe great thing which has disturbed the Peace of Europe filled it with blood and slaughters and shaken the dismembred Kingdoms and States thereof has been the huge designe of the Universal Monarchy a designe which by a kind of Fascination has possessed the Genius of the Spanish and French Monarchies which therefore in their turns have been dangerous to all Europe But the French have made nearer approaches to the Throne of such extended Empire then the Spaniards Let us then look upon the means and advantages the most Christian King has to pursue so vast a designe as if he would plow up the Air To the end our minds may be stirred up if any thing will stir them to raise up those Banks which under that Providence to which nothing is so high to be above it nothing so low to be beneath it nothing so large but is bounded nor nothing so confused but is ordered by it will circumscribe such wild and boundless ambition within its own limits And for our incouragment let us by the way hear the judgment of that excellent Man Sr. Walter Raliegh in the case of the Spanish Monarchy which then was what France now is to the rest of Europe His words are these Since the fall of the Roman Empire omitting that of the Germains which had neither greatness nor continuance there hath been no State fearful in the East but that of the Turk nor in the West any Prince that hath spred his Wings far over his nest but the Spaniard who since the time that Ferdinand expelled the Moores out of Granada have made many attempts to make themselves Masters of all Europe And it is true that by the treasures of both Indies and by the many Kingdoms which they possesse in Europe they are at this day the most powerful But as the Turk is now counterpoised by the Persian so instead of so many millions as have been spent by the English French and Neatherlands in a defensive War and in diversions against them it is easie to demonstrate that with the charge of two hundred thowsand pound continued but for two yeares or three at the most they may not only be perswaded to live in peace but all their swelling and overflowing streams may be brought back into their natural Channels and old Banks But to go on France then is come to the
in a fair way to become a Feudal Province of France And thus we see England may be distressed without warring directly upon it It is the greatest blemish in the Reign of Henry the Seventh celebrated in our Histories for one of the wisest of all our Princes that he suffered Britany to be lost and annexed to the Crown of France a soul spot in so beautiful a Picture as he is taken by the Pencil of my Lord Bacon And the more I think of these things the more I am confirmed that we shall stir up the just indignation of those that are to come after us against our memories and it will be the wonder of succeeding Generations that so great a King as the King of England in a War that had for its ends an Universal Monarchy for the most Christian King and the subversion of the Protestant Religion and Interest The one as foolish and impossible to be effected as the other is full of monstrous and detestable impiety towards God And to which ends our Enemies have been travelling through a Sea of Blood and all those crooked ways the first attempter against God beat out to those that travel with Pride Ambition and Impiety I say that such a King in such a War and such a Peace as followed it should sit still and suffer himself to be as it were besieged in his own Kingdom whilst he suffered France not only to grow to an over-ballance to England in Naval force but to plant himself all along on the opposite shore of the main Continent and in the mean time to suffer the greatest part of Europe to be consumed with the flames of an unjust War and be sacrificed to the ambition of France An aggravation greater by how much England has been famous for holding and casting the Ballance of Europe and protection of the Protestant Religion Since therefore it is a royal vertue in Kings not only to avoid Flatterrers as a Pest but to encourage some body to tell them the truth roundly still preserving the dignity of their persons and the majesty of their state I think a man cannot do better than to bring things home to them for if Princes would but a little reflect and look back upon the times past where they might see the beauty that is upon the memory of good Princes and the deformity of that of the bad they would see the excellency of plain dealing and the odiousness of pernicious flattery For Holland It will be enough to say That if they suffer the Spanish Netherlands to be lost France will not only claim by a Title prior to theirs all the Conquests and Dominions of this State in Flanders and Brabant but may set up the Title of the House of Burgundy to the whole Seventeen Provinces and finally that they will have a very bad Neighbour I conclude therefore That it is the interest of England and Holland by all means not only to preserve the rest of the Spanish Netherlands from falling into the hands of France but to make him vomit up what he has already swallowed of them For besides what I have already said If France once becomes master of those Provinces Holland and the rest of the Provinces of the League will become an easie and cheap prey to him which concerns England not a little in point of Interest And to keep those Netherlands in the hands of Spain is I think more the advantage of England and Holland than it is of Spain it self For of Spain we are secure because he is weak at that distance and neither will nor can incroach upon his Neighbours and so we preserve the greatest Bank of security to both against the Inundations of France To conclude this part For the most Christian King we are no doubt to look upon him as the minister of Gods indignation howbeit he meaneth not so but has done all these things in pride and cruelty and attributed their success to his strength and wisdom For the power both of Satan and wicked Kings is from God but the will and malice is their own Therefore the French King has made use of all these powers and advantages to do evil evil I say than which the most merciless Tyrants and destroyers of the earth whom God has said he will destroy have not in any the most barbarous age of the world committed greater or more crying to the righteous God for vengeance And a Prince affected with so vast and wild ambition is to be looked on as an enemy to mankind as a proud attempter to destroy the bounds which God has set And therefore if so excellent hope that God will stop the way against our enemies if we return to him if the preservation of the true Religion the liberties of our Countreys the great interests of mankind or whatsoever other excellent consideration we can propose to our minds will move us let us behave our selves like men and do some great thing worthy our remembrance And this brings me to the second part of my discourse In the first we have seen the mischiefs let us now consider of the remedies Now because there is no separate Kingdom or State in Europe sufficicient to ballance the weighty Body of the French Monarchy nor any of their strengths in disjunction competent to be opposed against so formidable force therefore there must be a new fond of Power and Interest raised up sufficient to keep the ballance of Europe from being called back into a Chaos out of which the French may form an Universal Monarchy according to the Idea they have conceived thereof And this can by no means better be done than by England and the United Provinces entring into a new League for the mutual and reciprocal defence of themselves and their Confederates that shall be admitted into such League and for preservation and defence of the Spanish Netherlands and for restraining the further growth and increase of the French Monarchy and hindering their incroachments upon the rest of Europe The excellency of which League will appear by this That the ends of it are in a manner common to all Europe For though the preservation of the Protestant Religion be most the concernment of England and Holland yet the special and immediate end of the preservation of Flanders and the general end of holding the Ballance of Europe is Universal Upon occasion of the beginning of the War between the Latins and the Romans Machiavil has delivered this Rule That in all Consultations it is best to come immediately to the point in question and bring things to a result without too tedious a hesitation and suspence And the reason of this is founded upon divers observations which he gathers out of several parts of the Roman Story as That weak Commonwealths are generally irresolute and ill-advised as taking their measures more from necessity than election That 't is the property of weak States to do every thing amiss rnd never to do well but in spight
will yet add both strength and reputation to it But not to enter into Common-place discourses I will insist upon but one thing more in this place and it is this There is a Rule which Machiavel has observed That the best and most secure way to repress the insolence of an ambitious and powerful State is to preclude and stop up those wayes by which he would come to his greatness and that there is not a better or more secure way to suppress the insolence or cross-bite the designes of such then to take the same ways to prevent which he takes to advance them Now then I think it would be of great advantage to this League as every body may easily apprehend to put Ostend and Neuport into the hands of England And if Spain will suffer themselves to hear reason and be persuaded to do it I am without all doubts a way may be found how they may do it with infallible security to themselves of having the said places restored to them so that their end may be obtained and their hazard prevented Having now spoken to that part of the Parliaments confirmation I shall discourse and that very briefly the other part of the ratification by the General Estates and the more willingly because I think it may import this State in a double respect And I have conceived it thus The prescienâ—e predetermination and concourse of God none denies tho all have not conceived of them in the same modus But the Polititian has said That 't is a certain truth that the things of this world are determined and a set time appointed for their duration but those run throw the whole course which is assigned them by their Stars who keep their body in such Order that it may not alter at all or if it does it is for the better And the way to preserve such Bodies mixt bodies he speaks of as Common-wealths is renovation for no mere bodies are of long duration unless they be often renewed and the way be renew them is to reduce them to their first principles and they are reduced partly by external accident and partly by internal prudence Those alterations are therefore salutiferous which reduce them towards their principles But my designe is not to enter into the common-place of renovation therefore I go on And since it is in the nature of all things to decline and tend to depravation It is the wisdom of Governments to look often back to their first constitutions which are the very Formalis Ratio and Fundamental Laws of their Governments Therefore let the General Estates of the seaven Provinces be summoned to meet in the great Zael in the Hage to these two general ends 1. To renew their Common-League among themselves which will have these two admirable effects First to cure their internal disease and especially that kind of Politic Paralysis of the two Provinces of Groeningen and Friesland which tends to mutulation Secondly to restore a kind of new life and vigour to their Government No Government can live that has not extraordinary remedies to have recource to in extraordinary cases Rome had its Dictators which kept it in health and England has its Parliament without which its Government could not stand For this cause has our Parliaments so often renewed our Magna Charta neare forty times And 2. to ratifie this League with England For as the first defends them against internal diseases So this against external Force the two discases of which all Governments die And this will also give reputation abroad to the States thus recreated and fenced And if there be any other Argument necessary to inforce the proposition it may be drawn from the nature of the Government it self There are in Story and Politiks but three Divisions of Common-wealths First They are either Single as Athens Lacedemons c. Or by Leagues as the Achaians Aetolians Switz and the States Secondly they are divided into such as are for preservation as Lacedemon and Venice or for encrease as Athens and Rome Or thirdly Into Equal and unequal in Libration This is a a Government of a League and for preservation only and very unequal which whosoever shall thorowly penetrate shall find cause to apprehend the weight of this proposition for such another War would shake the States in pieces And there are but one of three wayes for them War Submission to France or a League with England And if there were time I think a man should not feare to want either matter or words to set home the Argument They are now but newly delivered from the most dangerous Crisis that ever their State passed under since its first formation wherein they have laboured under not only very dangerous domestic Convulsions but the powerful assaults of Forreign force And therefore what Phisitian that is not a Mountebank would not prescribe some potent restorative in such case I have now but two things to do to finish this second part of my discours The one is to set down some the just praises of the English Nation to the end these people may be moved to rely upon their friendship with the greater confidence And I would have don it elabouratly but that my discourse has already drawn it self out to so great a length The other is The admirable effect that will be produced by oposeing the English courage to the French fierceness Let us then but run them over The English have alwayes been sincere in their Leagues Alliances and Treaties I know presently what will be cast in our teeth and that is the infamous breach of the Triple League But as he shall alwayes be very far from making a true judgment that shall determin upon one or a few single actions so nothing can be more injurious then to impeach the Faith of a gallant Nation for that which no body have regreted more then themselves The Philosopher has said that actions denominate not the subject to be such And it is true in Divinity That a man is not to be júdged by a few or many single actions but by the course and tenor of his life I say then that the excellent virtue of faithfulness has been the general tenor of the English in all times Let not so foul an indignitie therefore be charged on them but let the crime lye at the doors of those few men who were the Authors and Counselors of it And in the mean time I will comfort my self with this hope that when the Sanction of our Parliament shall come to be put upon this League his Majestie and the whole Nation with him will be restored to the good opinion of all whose interest it is not to believe lies And let me say this that I have not found in Story any nation to be preferr'd to them for the above mentioned excellent qualitie wherein I may affirm that they have exceeded the Romans themselves For the Romans passionatly affecting an Universal Soveraigntie and Dominion were not seldom