Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	army_n	great_a	soldier_n	3,000	5	6.6453	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30880	An apology for the builder, or, A discourse shewing the cause and effects of the increase of building	Barbon, Nicholas, d. 1698.	1685 (1685)	Wing B704; ESTC R12425	15,212	39

Governments shew the infancy of a Country for from single Family-government first began those Governments were but so many families of great Men Now the large Boundaries that so many little Governments take up in a Country make one half of the Country useless For men are afraid to plant or sow too near their enemies Country for fear they should lose their Harvest Therefore the same Land cannot feed so many people as when it is under but one Government Besides without Arts a great number of People cannot live together the earth by the arts of Husbandry produceth ten times more food than it can naturally And neither can there be any great Cities for the Inhabitants have nothing to exchange for their food for it is the Arts of the City which are paid for the provisions of the Country To conclude nothing is so plain from ancient History as that Asia was first peopled and according to the Description of Moses began about Babylon And as Mankind increased and the Country filled with Inhabitants Arts were invented and they possest more ground till they spread themselves into Egypt and so over Africa and from thence into Greece over Europe and now Europe being full their swarm begins to fill America And all the ancient Descriptions of the Countries of Europe in the times of the Roman Greatness are just such as are now given of America and differs vastly from what they are now in the number of Cities Towns and Arts of Inhabitants For were America so well peopled as Europe is those great Countries that are possest there by the Spaniards French Dutch and English some of them bigger than their own Countries in Europe could not be so quietly held and injoyed by not a hundredth part of the people of their own Country And although the valor of the Roman Soldiers and their affected Bravery grown as it were a fashion and a popular Emulation conduced much to the greatness of the Roman Empire yet nothing promoted its success so much and gave it such large extent as the Infancy of Europe at that time being thinly inhabited with people without Arts and full of little Monarchies aud States For had it not been so Caesar could never have over-run Gallia Belgia Britany and some part of Germany and kept them in subjection with only ten Legions of Soldiers which was but fifty thousand men for we have seen within these late years much greater Armies in Belgia alone that is within the Seventeen Provinces and amongst them men not inferior either in courage or skill in War and yet have not wholly subdued one Province And perhaps had these Forces at the same time been sent into America they might have extended their conquest over as much ground and over as many people as Caesar did Nor was England so populous then as now it is For had it been Caesar would never at first have ventured to invade it with two Legions and at the second time when he designed a full conquest brought over with him but five Legions that is but five and twenty thousand men For although some may think from the great Armies we read of neer two Millions of men under Cyrus and Xerxes in Asia and of vast swarms of the Goths and Vandals in Europe in their Invasions under King Attila and others that the world was more populous than now because we hear of no such numbers of late yet if it be considered it demonstrates only the manner of their fighting and the infancy of the world The want of people and Arts rather than that it was populous For the Gentiles Armies were made up after the manner of the Jews by taking all that were able to bear Armes reckoning from about 20 years old to sixty For when Caesar had slain the Army of the Nervii being about 50000 men a valiant people one of the Seventeen Provinces the old men and Women Petitioning for mercy declared that there was not 500 men left in the whole Nation that were able to bear Arms. And if the King of England should reckon his Army after this manner Of his eight Million of Subjects as they are computed to be there could not be less than three Millions that were able to bear Armes which would be a greater Army than ever we read of which must shew that the world was thin of People since the Assyrian Empire the oldest and therefore most populous did never raise so great a number And those great numbers shew that they wanted Arts for we read that the Athenians a small but learned people baffled and destroyed all the great Army of Xerxes reckoned by some to be Seventeen hundred thousand men And Alexander with a small number of skilful and valiant Greeks subdued the then inhabited World And although the Goths and Vandals and the Cold parts of the World made their Invasion for want of room to live in yet that proceeded from the want of Arts. For by Arts the Earth is made more fruitful and by the invention of the Compass and Printing the World is made more habitable and conversable By the first the Countries Traffick and Exchange the Commodities they abound with for those they want The Timber Pitch and Tarr of the cold Countries are Exchanged for the Wine Brandy and Spices of the hot By the latter all Arts are easier discovered By Traffick and Arts the Inhabitants of the cold Countries are better fed better clothed and better lodged which make them indure the Extremities of their Climates better than formerly and as they increase they build new Towns inlarge their Cities and improve their own Country instead of invading and destroying their Neighbours But to return home It is plain that the natural increase of Mankind is the cause of the increase of the City and that there are no more Houses built every year in it than are necessary for the growth of the Inhabitants As will somewhat appear by the number of Apprentices made free and Marriages every year in the City By the best computation that I can learn there are no less than ten thousand Married every year in the City which is no great number considering the number of Inhabitants And if we should allow two Weddings in a Parish every week one with another there being a hundred and thirty Parishes in all it will much exceed this proportion Now in some Parishes there is seldom less than ten in a week And in Dukes-place and St. Katharine's being priviledg'd places there is ordinarily twenty or thirty in a week As to the number of Apprentices that come every year out of their time there are not less than Nine thousand which will not be thought too great a number if we reckon the Houses in the City to be about Fourscore thousand And if the fourth part of this number be allowed for the Gentry or those which live without Trades or Professions and the three other parts being Sixty thousand for Trades or Professions and one