WHEREAS my Lord Archon, being from Moses and Lycurgus the first
legislator that hitherto is found in history to have introduced or
erected an entire commonwealth at once, happened, like them also, to be
more intent upon putting the same into execution or action, than into
writing; by which means the model came to be promulgated or published
with more brevity and less illustration than are necessary for their
understanding who have not been acquainted with the whole proceedings
of the Council of legislators, and of the prytans, where it was asserted
and cleared from all objections and doubts: to the end that I may supply
what was wanting in the promulgated epitome to a more full and
perfect narrative of the whole, I shall rather take the commonwealth
practically; and as it has now given an account of itself in some years’
revolutions (as Dicearchus is said to have done that of Lacedaemon,
first transcribed by his hand some three or four hundred years after
the institution), yet not omitting to add for proof to every order such
debates and speeches of the legislators in their Council, or at least
such parts of them as may best discover the reason of the government;
nor such ways and means as were used in the institution or rise of the
building, not to be so well conceived, without some knowledge given of
the engines wherewithal the mighty weight was moved. But through the
entire omission of the Council of legislators or workmen that squared
every stone to this structure in the quarries of ancient prudence, the
proof of the first part of this discourse will be lame, except I
insert, as well for illustration as to avoid frequent repetition, three
remarkable testimonies in this place.
The first is taken out of the Commonwealth of Israel: “So Moses
hearkened to the voice of Jethro, his father-in-law, and did all that
he had said. And Moses chose able men out of all Israel, and made them
heads over the people;” tribunes, as it is in the vulgar Latin; or
phylarchs, that is, princes of the tribes, sitting upon twelve thrones,
and judging the twelve tribes of Israel; and next to these he chose
rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers
of tens, which were the steps and rise of this commonwealth from its
foundation or root to its proper elevation or accomplishment in the
Sanhedrim, and the congregation, already opened in the preliminaries.
The second is taken out of Lacedaemon, as Lycurgus (for the greater
impression of his institutions upon the minds of his citizens) pretended
to have received the model of that commonwealth from the oracle of
Apollo at Delphos, the words whereof are thus recorded by Plutarch in
the life of that famous legislator: “When thou shalt have divided the
people into tribes (which were six) and oboe (which were five in every
tribe), thou shalt constitute the Senate, consisting, with the two
Kings, of thirty councillors, who, according as occasion requires, shall
cause the congregation to be assembled between the bridge and the river
Gnacion, where the Senate shall propose to the people, and dismiss them
without suffering them to debate.” The oboe were lineages into which
every tribe was divided, and in each tribe there was another division
containing all those of the same that were of military age, which being
called the mora, was subdivided into troops and companies that were kept
in perpetual discipline under the command of a magistrate called the
polemarch.
The third is taken out of the Commonwealth of Rome, or those parts of
it which are comprised in the first and second books of Livy, where the
people, according to the institution by Romulus, are first divided into
thirty curias or parishes, whereof he elected, by three out of each
curia, the Senate, which, from his reign to that or Servius Tullius,
proposed to the parishes or parochial congregations; and these
being called the Comitia curiata, had the election of the kings,
the confirmation of their laws, and the last appeal in matters of
judicature, as appears in the case of Horatius that killed his sister;
till, in the reign of Servius (for the other kings kept not to the
institution of Romulus), the people being grown somewhat, the power
of the Curiata was for the greater part translated to the Centuriata
comitia instituted by this King, which distributed the people, according
to the sense of valuation of their estates, into six classes, every one
containing about forty centuries, divided into youth and elders; the
youth for field-service, the elders for the defence of their territory,
all armed and under continual discipline, in which they assembled both
upon military and civil occasions. But when the Senate proposed to the
people, the horse only, whereof there were twelve centuries, consisting
of the richest sort over and above those of the foot enumerated, were
called with the first classes of the foot to the suffrage; or if these
accorded not, then the second classes were called to them, but seldom or
never any of the rest. Wherefore the people, after the expulsion of the
kings, growing impatient of this inequality, rested not till they had
reduced the suffrage as it had been in the Comitia curiato to the
whole people again; but in another way, that is to say, by the Comitia
tributa, which thereupon were instituted, being a council where the
people in exigencies made laws without the Senate, which laws were
called plebiscita. This Council is that in regard whereof Cicero and
other great wits so frequently inveigh against the people, and sometimes
even Livy as at the first institution of it. To say the truth, it was a
kind of anarchy, whereof the people could not be excusable, if there had
not, through the courses taken by the Senate, been otherwise a necessity
that they must have seen the commonwealth run into oligarchy.
The manner how the Comitia curiata, centuriata or tributa were called,
during the time of the commonwealth, to the suffrage, was by lot: the
curia, century, or tribe, whereon the first lot fell, being styled
principium, or the prerogative; and the other curioe, centuries or
tribes, whereon the second, third, and fourth lots, etc., fell, the
jure vocatoe. From henceforth not the first classes, as in the times
of Servius, but the prerogative, whether curia, century, or tribe, came
first to the suffrage, whose vote was called omen proerogativum, and
seldom failed to be leading to the rest of the tribes. The jure vocatoe,
in the order of their lots, came next: the manner of giving suffrage
was, by casting wooden tablets, marked for the affirmative or the
negative, into certain urns standing upon a scaffold, as they marched
over it in files, which for the resemblance it bore was called the
bridge. The candidate, or competitor, who had most suffrages in a curia,
century, or tribe, was said to have that curia, century, or tribe;
and he who had most of the curioe, centuries, or tribes, carried the
magistracy.
These three places being premised, as such upon which there will be
frequent reflection, I come to the narrative, divided into two parts,
the first containing the institution, the second the constitution of the
commonwealth, in each whereof I shall distinguish the orders, as those
which contain the whole model, from the rest of the discourse, which
tends only to the explanation or proof of them.
In the institution or building of a commonwealth, the first work, as
that of builders, can be no other than fitting and distributing the
materials.
The materials of a commonwealth are the people, and the people of Oceana
were distributed by casting them into certain divisions, regarding their
quality, their age, their wealth, and the places of their residence or
habitation, which was done by the ensuing orders.
The first order “distributes the people into freemen or citizens and
servants, while such; for if they attain to liberty, that is, to live of
themselves, they are freemen or citizens.”
This order needs no proof, in regard of the nature of servitude, which
is inconsistent with freedom, or participation of government in a
commonwealth.
The second order “distributes citizens into youth and elders (such as
are from eighteen years of age to thirty, being accounted youth; and
such as are of thirty and upward, elders), and establishes that
the youth shall be the marching armies, and the elders the standing
garrisons of this nation.”
A commonwealth, whose arms are in the hands of her
servants, had need be situated, as is elegantly said of Venice by
Contarini, out of the reach of their clutches; witness the danger run
by that of Carthage in the rebellion of Spendius and Matho. But though
a city, if one swallow makes a summer, may thus chance to be safe, yet
shall it never be great; for if Carthage or Venice acquired any fame
in their arms, it is known to have happened through the mere virtue of
their captains, and not of their orders; wherefore Israel, Lacedaemon,
and Rome entailed their arms upon the prime of their citizens, divided,
at least in Lacedaemon and Rome, into youth and elders: the youth for
the field, and the elders for defence of the territory.
The third order “distributes the citizens into horse and foot, by the
sense or valuation of their estates; they who have above £100 a year in
lands, goods, or moneys, being obliged to be of the horse, and they
who have under that sum to be of the foot. But if a man has prodigally
wasted and spent his patrimony, he is neither capable of magistracy,
office, or suffrage in the commonwealth.”
Citizens are not only to defend the commonwealth, but according to their
abilities, as the Romans under Servius Tullius (regard had to their
estates), were some enrolled in the horse centuries, and others of the
foot, with arms enjoined accordingly, nor could it be otherwise in the
rest of the commonwealths, though out of historical remains, that are
so much darker, it be not so clearly probable. And the necessary
prerogative to be given by a commonwealth to estates, is in some measure
in the nature of industry, and the use of it to the public. “The Roman
people,” says Julius Exuperantius, “were divided into classes, and taxed
according to the value of their estates. All that were worth the sums
appointed were employed in the wars; for they most eagerly contend
for the victory; who fight for liberty in defence of their country and
possessions. But the poorer sort were polled only for their heads (which
was all they had) and kept in garrison at home in time of war; for these
might betray the armies for bread, by reason of their poverty, which is
the reason that Marius, to whom the care of the government ought not to
have been committed, was the first that led them into the field;” and
his success was accordingly. There is a mean in things; as exorbitant
riches overthrow the balance of a commonwealth, so extreme poverty
cannot hold it, nor is by any means to be trusted with it. The clause in
the order concerning the prodigal is Athenian, and a very laudable one;
for he that could not live upon his patrimony, if he comes to touch the
public money, makes a commonwealth bankrupt.
The fourth order “distributes the people according to the places of
their habitation, into parishes, hundreds, and tribes.”
For except the people be methodically distributed, they cannot be
methodically collected; but the being of a commonwealth consists in the
methodical collection of the people: wherefore you have the Israelitish
divisions into rulers of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of
tens; and of the whole commonwealth into tribes: the Laconic into oboe,
moras, and tribes; the Roman into tribes, centuries, and classes; and
something there must of necessity be in every government of the like
nature, as that in the late monarchy--by counties. But this being the
only institution in Oceana, except that of the agrarian, which required
any charge or included any difficulty, engages me to a more particular
description of the manner how it was performed, as follows:
A thousand surveyors, commissioned and instructed by the Lord Archon
and the Council, being divided into two equal numbers, each under the
inspection of two surveyors-general, were distributed into the northern
and southern parts of the territory, divided by the river Hemisua, the
whole whereof contains about 10,000 parishes, some ten of those being
assigned to each surveyor; for as to this matter there needed no great
exactness, it tending only by showing whither everyone was to, begin, to
the more orderly carrying repair and whereabout to on of the work; the
nature of their instructions otherwise regarding rather the number of
the inhabitants than of the parishes. The surveyors, therefore, being
every one furnished with a convenient proportion of urns, balls,
and balloting-boxes--in the use whereof they had been formerly
exercised--and now arriving each at his respective parish, being with
the people by teaching them their first lesson, which was the ballot;
and though they found them in the beginning somewhat froward, as at
toys, with which, while they were in expectation of greater matters from
a Council of legislators, they conceived themselves to be abused, they
came within a little while to think them pretty sport, and at length
such as might very soberly be used in good earnest; whereupon the
surveyors began the institution included in--
The first order, requiring “That upon the first Monday next ensuing the
last of December the bigger bell in every parish throughout the nation
be rung at eight of the clock in the morning, and continue ringing
for the space of one hour; and that all the elders of the parish
respectively repair to the church before the bell has done ringing,
where, dividing themselves into two equal numbers, or as near equal as
may be, they shall take their places according to their dignities, if
they be of divers qualities, and according to their seniority, if they
be of the same, the one half on the one side, and the other half on the
other, in the body of the church, which done, they shall make oath to
the overseers of the parish for the time being (instead of these the
surveyors were to officiate at the institution, or first assembly) by
holding up their hands, to make a fair election according to the laws of
the ballot, as they are hereafter explained, of such persons, amounting
to a fifth part of their whole number, to be their deputies, and to
exercise their power in manner hereafter explained, as they shall think
in their consciences to be fittest for that trust, and will acquit
themselves of it to the best advantage of the commonwealth. And oath
being thus made, they shall proceed to election, if the elders of the
parish amount to 1,000 by the ballot of the tribe, as it is in due place
explained, and if the elders of the parish amount to fifty or upward,
but within the number of 1,000, by the ballot of the hundred, as it is
in due place explained. But, if the elders amount not to fifty, then
they shall proceed to the ballot of the parish, as it is in this place
and after this manner explained.
“The two overseers for the time being shall seat themselves at the upper
end of the middle alley, with a table before them, their faces being
toward the congregation, and the constable for the time being shall set
an urn before the table, into which he shall put so many balls as there
be elders present, whereof there shall be one that is gilded, the rest
being white; and when the constable has shaken the urn, sufficiently to
mix the balls, the overseers shall call the elders to the urn, who from
each side of the church shall come up the middle alley in two files,
every man passing by the urn, and drawing out one ball; which, if it be
silver, he shall cast into a bowl standing at the foot of the urn, and
return by the outward alley on his side to his place. But he who
draws the golden ball is the proposer, and shall be seated between the
overseers, where he shall begin in what order he pleases, and name such
as, upon his oath already taken, he conceives fittest to be chosen,
one by one, to the elders; and the party named shall withdraw while the
congregation is balloting his name by the double box or boxes appointed
and marked on the outward part, to show which side is affirmative
and which negative, being carried by a boy or boys appointed by the
overseers, to every one of the elders, who shall hold up a pellet made
of linen rags between his finger and his thumb, and put it after such
a manner into the box, as though no man can see into which side he puts
it, yet any man may see that he puts in but one pellet or suffrage. And
the suffrage of the congregation being thus, given, shall be returned
with the box or boxes to the overseers, who opening the same, shall pour
the affirmative balls into a white bowl standing upon the table on the
right hand, to be numbered by the first overseer; and the negative into
a green bowl standing on the left hand, to be numbered by the second
overseer; and the suffrages being numbered, he who has the major part in
the affirmative is one of the deputies of the parish, and when so many
deputies are chosen as amount to a full fifth part of the whole number
of the elders, the ballot for that time shall cease. The deputies being
chosen are to be listed by the overseers in order as they were chosen,
except only that such as are horse must be listed in the first place
with the rest, proportionable to the number of the congregation, after
this manner.”
Anno Domini
THE LIST OF THE FIRST MOVER
A.A. Equestrian Order, First Deputy
B.B. Second Deputy,
C.C. Third Deputy,
D.D. Fourth Deputy,
E.E. Fifty Deputy,
Of the parish of in the hundred of and the tribe
of, which parish at the present election contains twenty
elders, whereof one is of the horse or equestrian order.
“The first and second in the list are overseers by consequence; the
third is the constable, and the fourth and fifth are churchwardens; the
persons so chosen are deputies of the parish for the space of one year
from their election, and no longer, nor may they be elected two years
together. This list, being the primum mobile, or first mover of
the commonwealth, is to be registered in a book diligently kept and
preserved by the overseers, who are responsible in their places, for
these and other duties to be hereafter mentioned, to the censors of the
tribe; and the congregation is to observe the present order, as they
will answer the contrary to the phylarch, or prerogative troop of the
tribe, which, in case of failure in the whole or any part of it, have
power to fine them or any of them at discretion, but under an appeal to
the Parliament.”
For proof of this order, first, in reason, it is with all politicians
past dispute that paternal power is in the right of nature; and this is
no other than the derivation of power from fathers of families as the
natural root of a commonwealth. And for experience, if it be otherwise
in that of Holland, I know no other example of the like kind. In Israel,
the sovereign power came clearly from the natural root, the elders of
the whole people; and Rome was born, Comitiis curiatis, in her parochial
congregations, out of which Romulus first raised her Senate, then all
the rest of the orders of that commonwealth, which rose so high: for the
depth of a commonwealth is the just height of it--
“She raises up her head unto the skies,
Near as her root unto the centre lies.”
And if the Commonwealth of Rome was born of thirty parishes, this of
Oceana was born of 10,000. But whereas mention in the birth of this
is made of an equestrian order, it may startle such as know that the
division of the people of Rome, at the institution of that commonwealth
into orders, was the occasion of its ruin. The distinction of the
patrician as a hereditary order from the very institution, engrossing
all the magistracies, was indeed the destruction of Rome; but to a
knight or one of the equestrian order, says Horace,
“Si quadringentis sex septem millia desunt,
Plebs eris.”
By which it should seem that this order was not otherwise hereditary
than a man’s estate, nor did it give any claim to magistracy; wherefore
you shall never find that it disquieted the commonwealth, nor does the
name denote any more in Oceana than the duty of such a man’s estate to
the public.
But the surveyors, both in this place and in others, forasmuch as they
could not observe all the circumstances of this order, especially that
of the time of election, did for the first as well as they could; and,
the elections being made and registered, took each of them copies
of those lists which were within their allotments, which done they
produced--
The sixth order, directing “in case a parson or vicar of a parish comes
to be removed by death or by the censors, that the congregation of the
parish assemble and depute one or two elders by the ballot, who upon
the charge of the parish shall repair to one of the universities of this
nation with a certificate signed by the overseers, and addressed to
the vice-chancellor, which certificate, giving notice of the death
or removal of the parson or vicar, of the value of the parsonage or
vicarage, and of the desire of the congregation to receive a probationer
from that university, the vice-chancellor, upon the receipt thereof,
shall call a convocation, and having made choice of a fit person, shall
return him in due time to the parish, where the person so returned shall
return the full fruits of the benefice or vicarage, and do the duty of
the parson or vicar, for the space of one year, as probationer; and
that being expired, the congregation of the elders shall put their
probationer to the ballot, and if he attains not to two parts in three
of the suffrage affirmative, he shall take his leave of the parish, and
they shall send in like manner as before for another probationer; but
if their probationer obtains two parts in three of the suffrage
affirmative, he is then pastor of that parish. And the pastor of the
parish shall pray with the congregation, preach the Word, and administer
the sacraments to the same, according to the directory to be hereafter
appointed by the Parliament. Nevertheless such as are of gathered
congregations, or from time to time shall join with any of them, are in
no wise obliged to this way of electing their teachers, or to give
their votes in this case, but wholly left to the liberty of their own
consciences, and to that way of worship which they shall choose, being
not popish, Jewish, or idolatrous. And to the end they may be the better
protected by the State in the exercise of the same, they are desired to
make choice, and such manner as they best like, of certain magistrates
in every one of their congregations, which we could wish might be four
in each of them, to be auditors in cases of differences or distaste, if
any through variety of opinions, that may be grievous or injurious to
them, shall fall out. And such auditors or magistrates shall have power
to examine the matter, and inform themselves, to the end that if they
think it of sufficient weight, they may acquaint the phylarch with it,
or introduce it into the Council of Religion; where all such causes
as those magistrates introduce shall from time to time be heard and
determined according to such laws as are or shall hereafter be provided
by the Parliament for the just defence of the liberty of conscience.”
This order consists of three parts, the first restoring the power of
ordination to the people, which, that it originally belongs to them,
is clear, though not in English yet in Scripture, where the apostles
ordained elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation, that
is, by the suffrage of the people, which was also given in some of
those cities by the ballot. And though it may be shown that the apostles
ordained some by the laying on of hands, it will not be shown that they
did so in every congregation.
Excommunication, as not clearly provable out of the Scripture, being
omitted, the second part of the order implies and establishes a national
religion; for there be degrees of knowledge in divine things; true
religion is not to be learned without searching the Scripture; the
Scriptures cannot be searched by us unless we have them to search; and
if we have nothing else, or (which is all one) understand nothing else
but a translation, we may be (as in the place alleged we have been)
beguiled or misled by the translation, while we should be searching the
true sense of the Scripture, which cannot be attained in a natural way
(and a commonwealth is not to presume upon that which is supernatural)
but by the knowledge of the original and of antiquity, acquired by our
own studies, or those of some others, for even faith comes by hearing.
Wherefore a commonwealth not making provision of men from time to time,
knowing in the original languages wherein the Scriptures were written,
and versed in those antiquities to which they so frequently relate, that
the true sense of them depends in great part upon that knowledge,
can never be secure that she shall not lose the Scripture, and by
consequence her religion; which to preserve she must institute some
method of this knowledge, and some use of such as have acquired it,
which amounts to a national religion.
The commonwealth having thus performed her duty toward God, as a
rational creature, by the best application of her reason to Scripture,
and for the preservation of religion in the purity of the same, yet
pretends not to infallibility, but comes in the third part of the order,
establishing liberty of conscience according to the instructions given
to her Council of Religion, to raise up her hands to heaven for further
light; in which proceeding she follows that (as was shown in the
preliminaries) of Israel, who, though her national religion was always
a part of her civil law, gave to her prophets the upper hand of all her
orders.
But the surveyors having now done with the parishes, took their leave;
so a parish is the first division of land occasioned by the first
collection of the people of Oceana, whose function proper to that place
is comprised in the six preceding orders.
The next step in the progress of the surveyors was to a meeting of the
nearest of them, as their work lay, by twenties; where conferring their
lists, and computing the deputies contained therein, as the number of
them in parishes, being nearest neighbors, amounted to 100, or as even
as might conveniently be brought with that account, they cast them and
those parishes into the precinct which (be the deputies ever since
more or fewer) is still called the hundred; and to every one of these
precincts they appointed a certain place, being the most convenient town
within the same, for the annual rendezvous; which done, each surveyor,
returning to his hundred, and summoning the deputies contained in his
lists to the rendezvous, they appeared and received--
The seventh order, requiring, “That upon the first Monday next ensuing
the last of January, the deputies of every parish annually assemble
in arms at the rendezvous of the hundred, and there elect out of their
number one justice of the peace, one juryman, one captain, one ensign of
their troop or century, each of these out of the horse; and one juryman,
one coroner, one high constable, out of the foot. The election to be
made by the ballot in this manner. The jurymen for the time being are
to be overseers of the ballot (instead of these, the surveyors are to
officiate at the first assembly), and to look to the performance of
the same according to what was directed in the ballot of the parishes,
saving that the high constable setting forth the urn shall have five
several suits of gold balls, and one dozen of every suit; whereof the
first shall be marked with the letter A, the second with the letter B,
the third with C, the fourth with D, and the fifth with E: and of each
of these suits he shall cast one ball into his hat, or into a little
urn, and shaking the balls together, present them to the first overseer,
who shall draw one, and the suit which is so drawn by the overseer shall
be of use for that day, and no other; for example, if the overseer drew
an A, the high constable shall put seven gold balls marked with the
letter A into the urn, with so many silver ones as shall bring them
even with the number of the deputies, who being sworn, as before, at
the ballot of the parish to make a fair election, shall be called to the
urn; and every man coming in manner as was there shown, shall draw one
ball, which, if it be silver, he shall cast it into a bowl standing at
the foot of the urn, and return to his place: but the first that draws a
gold ball (showing it to the overseers, who if it has not the letter of
the present ballot, have power to apprehend and punish him) is the first
elector, the second the second elector, and so to the seventh; which
order they are to observe in their function. “The electors as they are
drawn shall be placed upon the bench by the overseers, till the whole
number be complete, and then be conducted, with the list of the officers
to be chosen, into a place apart, where, being private, the first
elector shall name a person to the first office in the list; and if the
person so named, being balloted by the rest of the electors, attains
not to the better half of the suffrages in the affirmative, the first
elector shall continue nominating others, till one of them so nominated
by him attains to the plurality of the suffrages in the affirmative, and
be written first competitor to the first office. This done, the second
elector shall observe in his turn the like order; and so the rest of the
electors, naming competitors each to his respective office in the list,
till one competitor be chosen to every office: and when one competitor
is chosen to every office, the first elector shall begin again to name
a second competitor to the first office, and the rest successively shall
name to the rest of the offices till two competitors be chosen to every
office; the like shall be repeated till three competitors be chosen to
every office. And when three competitors are chosen to every office, the
list shall be returned to the overseers, or such as the overseers, in
case they or either of them happened to be electors, have substituted
in his or their place or places; and the overseers or substitutes
having caused the list to be read to the congregation, shall put
the competitors, in order as they are written, to the ballot of the
congregation; and the rest of the proceedings being carried on in
the manner directed in the fifth order, that competitor, of the three
written to each office, who has most of the suffrages above half in the
affirmative, is the officer. The list being after this manner completed,
shall be entered into a register, to be kept at the rendezvous of the
hundred, under inspection of the magistrates of the same, after the
manner following:
Anno Domini
THE LIST OF THE NEBULOSA
A.A. Equestrian Order, Justice of the Peace,
B.B. Equestrian Order, First Juryman,
C.C. Equestrian Order, Captain of the Hundred,
D.D. Equestrian Order, Ensign,
E.E. Second Juryman,
F.F. High Constable,
G.G. Coroner,
Of the hundred of in the tribe of, which hundred
consists at this election of 105 deputies.
“The list being entered, the high constable shall take three copies of
the same, whereof he shall presently return one to the lord high sheriff
of the tribe, a second to the lord custos rotulorum, and a third to the
censors; or these, through the want of such magistrates at the first
muster, may be returned to the orator, to be appointed for that tribe.
To the observation of all and every part of this order, the officers and
deputies of the hundred are all and every of them obliged, as they will
answer it to the phylarch, who has power, in case of failure in the
whole or any part, to fine all or any of them so failing at discretion,
or according to such laws as shall hereafter be provided in that case,
but under an appeal to the Parliament.” There is little in this order
worthy of any further account, but that it answers to the rulers
of hundreds in Israel, to the mora or military part of the tribe in
Lacedaemon, and to the century in Rome. The jurymen, being two in a
hundred, and so forty in a tribe, give the latitude allowed by the law
for exceptions. And whereas the golden balls at this ballot begin to be
marked with letters, whereof one is to be drawn immediately before it
begins, this is to the end that the letter being unknown, men may be
frustrated of tricks or foul play, whereas otherwise a man may bring a
golden ball with him, and make as if he had drawn it out of the urn. The
surveyors, when they had taken copies of these lists, had accomplished
their work in the hundreds.
So a hundred is the second division of land occasioned by the second
collection of the people, whose civil and military functions proper to
this place are comprised in the foregoing order.
Having stated the hundreds, they met once again by twenties, where there
was nothing more easy than to cast every twenty hundreds, as they lay
most conveniently together, into one tribe; so the whole territory of
Oceana, consisting of about 10,000 parishes, came to be cast into 1,000
hundreds, and into fifty tribes. In every tribe at the place appointed
for the annual rendezvous of the same, were then, or soon after begun
those buildings which are now called pavilions; each of them standing
with one open side upon fair columns, like the porch of some ancient
temple, and looking into a field capable of the muster of some 4,000
men; before each pavilion stand three pillars sustaining urns for
the ballot, that on the right hand equal in height to the brow of
a horseman, being called the horse urn, that on the left hand, with
bridges on either side to bring it equal in height with the brow of a
footman, being called the foot urn, and the middle urn, with a bridge
on the side toward the foot urn, the other side, as left for the horse,
being without one; and here ended the whole work of the surveyors, who
returned to the Lord Archon with this--
ACCOUNT OF THE CHARGE
Imprimis: Urns, balls, and balloting-boxes for 10,000 parishes,
the same being wooden-ware, £20,000
Item: Provision of the like kind for a thousand hundreds
3,000
Item: Urns and balls of metal, with balloting-boxes for fifty
tribes,
2,000
Item: For erecting of fifty pavilions,
60,000
Item: Wages for four surveyors-general at £1,000 a man
4,000
Item: Wages for the rest of the surveyors, being 1,000 at £250 a
man
250,000
Sum Total £339,000
This is no great matter of charge for the building of a commonwealth, in
regard that it has cost (which was pleaded by the surveyors) as much
to rig a few ships. Nevertheless that proves not them to be honest,
nor their account to be just; but they had their money for once, though
their reckoning be plainly guilty of a crime, to cost him his neck that
commits it another time, it being impossible for a commonwealth (without
an exact provision that it be not abused in this kind) to subsist; for
if no regard should be had of the charge (though that may go deep), yet
the debauchery and corruption whereto, by negligence in accounts, it
infallibly exposes its citizens, and thereby lessens the public faith,
which is the nerve and ligament of government, ought to be prevented.
But the surveyors being despatched, the Lord Archon was very curious in
giving names to his tribes, which having caused to be written in scrolls
cast into an urn, and presented to the councillors, each of them drew
one, and was accordingly sent to the tribe in his lot, as orators of
the same, a magistracy no otherwise instituted, than for once and pro
tempore, to the end that the council upon so great an occasion might
both congratulate with the tribes, and assist at the first muster in
some things of necessity to be differently carried from the established
administration and future course of the commonwealth.
The orators being arrived, every one as soon as might be, at the
rendezvous of his tribe, gave notice to the hundreds, and summoned the
muster which appeared for the most part upon good horses, and already
indifferently well armed; as to instance in one for all, the tribe of
Nubia, where Hermes de Caduceo, lord orator of the same, after a short
salutation and a hearty welcome, applied himself to his business, which
began with--
The eighth order requiring “That the lord high sheriff as
commander-in-chief, and the lord custos rotulorum as muster-master of
the tribe (or the orator for the first muster), upon reception of the
lists of their hundreds, returned to them by the high constables of the
same, presently cause them to be cast up, dividing the horse from
the foot, and listing the horse by their names in troops, each troop
containing about 100 in number, to be inscribed First, Second, or Third
troop, etc., according to the order agreed upon by the said magistrates;
which done, they shall list the foot in like manner, and inscribe the
companies in like order. These lists upon the eve of the muster shall
be delivered to certain trumpeters and drummers, whereof there shall
be fifteen of each sort (as well for the present as otherwise to be
hereafter mentioned) stipendiated by the tribe. And the trumpeters and
drummers shall be in the field before the pavilion, upon the day of the
muster, so soon as it is light, where they shall stand every one with
his list in his hand, at a due distance, placed according to the order
of the list, the trumpeters with the lists of the horse on the right
hand, and the drummers with the lists of the foot on the left hand;
where having sounded awhile, each of them shall begin to call and
continue calling the names of the deputies, as they come into the field,
till both the horse and foot be gathered by that means into their due
order. The horse and foot being in order, the lord lieutenant of the
tribe shall cast so many gold balls marked with the figures 1, 2, 3, 4,
etc., as there be troops of horse in the field, together with so many
silver balls as there be companies, marked in the same manner, into
a little urn, to which he shall call the captains; and the captains
drawing the gold balls shall command the horse, and those that draw the
silver the foot, each in the order of his lot. The like shall be done by
the conductor at the same time for the ensigns at another urn; and they
that draw the gold balls shall be cornets, the left ensigns.”
This order may puzzle the reader, but tends to a wonderful speed of the
muster, to which it would be a great matter to lose a day in ranging
and marshalling, whereas by virtue of this the tribe is no sooner in the
field than in battalia, nor sooner in battalia than called to the urns
or the ballot by virtue of--
The ninth order, “Whereby the censors (or the orator for the first
muster) upon reception of the lists of the hundreds from the high
constables, according as is directed by the seventh order are to make
their notes for the urns beforehand, with regard had to the lists of the
magistrates, to be elected by the ensuing orders, that is to say, by the
first list called the prime magnitude, six; and by the second called the
galaxy, nine. Wherefore the censors are to put into the middle urn for
the election of the first list twenty-four gold balls, with twenty-six
blanks or silver balls, in all sixty; and into the side urns sixty gold
balls, divided into each according to the different number of the horse
and foot; that is to say, if the horse and the foot be equal, equally,
and if the horse and the foot be unequal, unequally, by an arithmetical
proportion. The like shall be done the second day of the muster for
the second list, except that the censors shall put into the middle urn
thirty-six gold balls with twenty-four blanks, in all sixty; and sixty
gold balls into the side urns, divided respectively into the number of
the horse and the foot; and the gold balls in the side urns at either
ballot are by the addition of blanks to be brought even with the
number of the ballotants at either urn respectively. The censors having
prepared their notes, as has been shown, and being come at the day
appointed into the field, shall present a little urn to the lord high
sheriff, who is to draw twice for the letters to be used that day,
the one at the side urns, and the other at the middle. And the censors
having fitted the urns accordingly, shall place themselves in certain
movable seats or pulpits (to be kept for that use in the pavilion) the
first censor before the horse urn, the second before the foot urn, the
lord lieutenant doing the office of censor pro tempore at the middle
urn; where all and every one of them shall cause the laws of the ballot
to be diligently observed, taking a special care that no man be suffered
to come above once to the urn (whereof it more particularly concerns
the sub-censors, that is to say, the overseers of every parish, to be
careful, they being each in this regard responsible for their respective
parishes) or to draw above one ball, which if it be gold, he is to
present to the censor, who shall look upon the letter; and if it be not
that of the day, and of the respective urn, apprehend the party, who for
this or any other like disorder is obnoxious to the phylarch.”
This order being observed by the censors, it is not possible for the
people, if they can but draw the balls, though they understand nothing
at all of the ballot, to be out. To philosophize further upon this art,
though there be nothing more rational, were not worth the while, because
in writing it will be perplexed, and the first practice of it gives
the demonstration; whence it came to pass that the orator, after some
needless pains in the explanation of the two foregoing orders, betaking
himself to exemplify the same, found the work done to his hand, for the
tribe, as eager upon a business of this nature, had retained one of
the surveyors, out of whom (before the orator arrived) they had got the
whole mystery by a stolen muster, at which in order to the ballot they
had made certain magistrates pro tempore. Wherefore he found not only
the pavilion (for this time a tent) erected with three posts, supplying
the place of pillars to the urns, but the urns being prepared with a
just number of balls for the first ballot, to become the field, and the
occasion very gallantly with their covers made in the manner of helmets,
open at either ear to give passage to the hands of the ballotants, and
slanting with noble plumes to direct the march of the people.
Wherefore he proceeded to--
The tenth order, “Requiring of the deputies of the parishes, that upon
every Monday next ensuing the last of February, they make their personal
appearance, horse and foot in arms accordingly, at the rendezvous of
the tribe, where, being in discipline, the horse upon the right, and the
foot upon the left, before the pavilion, and having made oath by holding
up their hands, upon the tender of it by the lord high sheriff, to make
election without favor, and of such only as they shall judge fittest
for the commonwealth, the conductor shill take three balls, the one
inscribed with these words (outward files), another with these words
(inward files), and the third with these (middle files), which balls he
shall cast into a little urn, and present it to the lord high sheriff,
who, drawing one, shall give the words of command, as they are thereupon
inscribed, and the ballot shall begin accordingly. For example, if the
ball be inscribed ‘Middle files,’ the ballot shall begin by the middle;
that is, the two files that are middle to the horse shall draw out first
to the horse urn, and the two files that are middle to the foot shall
draw out first to the foot urn, and be followed by all the rest of the
files as they are next to them in order. The like shall be done by the
inward, or by the outward files in case they be first called. And the
files, as every man has drawn his ball, if it be silver, shall behind
at the urn to countermarch to their places, but he that has drawn a gold
ball at a side urn shall proceed to the middle urn, where if the balls
he draws be silver he shall also countermarch, but if it be gold he
shall take his place upon a form set across the pavilion, with his face
toward the lord high sheriff, who shall be seated in the middle of the
pavilion, with certain clerks by him, one of which shall write down the
names of every elector, that is, of every one that drew a gold ball at
the middle urn, and in the order his ball was drawn, till the electors
amount to six in number. And the first six electors, horse and foot
promiscuously, are the first order of electors; the second six (still
accounting them as they are drawn) the second order, the third six the
third order, and the fourth six the fourth order of electors; every
elector having place in his order, according to the order wherein he was
drawn. But so soon as the first order of electors is complete, the lord
high sheriff shall send them with a copy of the following list, and a
clerk that understands the ballot, immediately to a little tent standing
before the pavilion in his eye, to which no other person but themselves,
during the election, shall approach. The list shall be written in this
manner:”
Anno Domini
THE LIST OF THE PRIME MAGNITUDE, OR FIRST DAY’S ELECTION OF
MAGISTRATES
1. The Lord High Sheriff, Commander-in-Chief,
2. Lord Lieutenant,
3. Lord Custos Rotulorum, Muster-Master-General,
4. The Conductor, being Quarter-master General,
5. The First Censor,
6. The Second Censor,
Of the tribe of Nubia, containing at the present muster 700 horse
and 1,500 foot, in all 22,000 deputies.
“And the electors of the first band or order, being six, shall each
of them name to his respective magistracy in the left such as are not
already elected in the hundreds, till one competitor be chosen to every
magistracy in the list by the ballot of the electors of the first order,
which done, the list with the competitors thereunto annexed shall be
returned to the lord high sheriff by the clerk attending that order, but
the electors shall keep their places; for they have already given their
suffrage, and may not enter into the ballot of the tribe. If there
arises any dispute in an order of electors, one of the censors or
sub-censors appointed by them in case they be electors, shall enter into
the tent of that order, and that order shall stand to his judgment in
the decision of the controversy. The like shall be done exactly by each
other order of electors, being sent as they are drawn, each with another
copy of the same list, into a distinct tent, till there be returned to
the lord high sheriff four competitors to every magistracy in the list;
that is to say, one competitor elected to every office in every one of
the four orders, which competitors the lord high sheriff shall cause
to be pronounced or read by a crier to the congregation, and the
congregation having heard the whole lists repeated, the names shall be
put by the lord high sheriff to the tribe, one by one, beginning with
the first competitor in the first order, thence proceeding to the first
competitor in the second order, and so to the first in the third and
fourth orders. And the suffrages being taken in boxes by boys (as has
been already shown) shall be poured into the bowls standing before the
censors, who shall be seated at each end of the table in the pavilion,
the one numbering the affirmatives and the other the negatives, and he
of the four competitors to the first magistracy that has most above half
the suffrages of the tribe in the affirmative, is the first magistrate.
The like is to be done successively by the rest of the competitors in
their order. But because soon after the boxes are sent out for the first
name, there be others sent out for the second, and so for the third,
etc., by which means divers names are successively at one and the same
time in balloting; the boy that carries a box shall sing or repeat
continually the name of the competitor for whom that box is carrying,
with that also of the magistracy to which he is proposed. A magistrate
of the tribe happening to be an elector, may substitute any one of his
own order to execute his other function. The magistrates of the prime
magnitude being thus elected, shall receive the present charge of the
tribe.”
If it be objected against this order that the magistrates to be elected
by it will be men of more inferior rank than those of the hundreds, in
regard that those are chosen first, it may be remembered that so were
the burgesses in the former government, nevertheless the knights of the
shire were men of greater quality; and the election at the hundred is
made by a council of electors, of whom less cannot be expected than the
discretion of naming persons fittest for those capacities, with an eye
upon these to be elected at the tribe. As for what may be objected in
point of difficulty, it is demonstrable by the foregoing orders, that a
man might bring 10,000 men, if there were occasion, with as much ease,
and as suddenly to perform the ballot, as he can make 5,000 men, drawing
them out by double files, to march a quarter of a mile. But because at
this ballot, to go up and down the field, distributing the linen pellets
to every man, with which he is to ballot or give suffrage, would lose
a great deal of time, therefore a man’s wife, his daughters, or others,
make him his provision of pellets before the ballot, and he comes into
the field with a matter of a score of them in his pocket. And now I have
as good as done with the sport. The next is--
The eleventh order, “Explaining the duties and functions of the
magistrates contained in the list of the prime magnitude, and those of
the hundreds, beginning with the lord high sheriff, who, over and above
his more ancient offices, and those added by the former order, is
the first magistrate of the phylarch, or prerogative troop. The lord
lieutenant, over and above his duty mentioned, is commander-in-chief
of the musters of the youth, and second magistrate of the phylarch. The
custos rotulorum is to return the yearly muster-rolls of the tribe, as
well that of the youth as of the elders, to the rolls in emporium, and
is the third magistrate of the phylarch. The censors by themselves and
their sub-censors, that is, the overseers of the parishes, are to see
that the respective laws of the ballot be observed in all the popular
assemblies of the tribe. They have power also to put such national
ministers, as in preaching shall intermeddle with matters of government,
out of their livings, except the party appeals to the phylarch, or to
the Council of Religion, where in that case the censors shall prosecute.
All and every one of these magistrates, together with the justices of
peace, and the jurymen of the hundreds, amounting in the whole number to
threescore and six, are the prerogative troop or phylarch of the tribe.
“The function of the phylarch or prerogative troop is fivefold:
“First, they are the council of the tribe, and as such to govern the
musters of the same according to the foregoing orders, having cognizance
of what has passed in the congregation or elections made in the parishes
or the hundreds, with power to punish any undue practices, or variation
from their respective rules and orders, under an appeal to the
Parliament. A marriage legitimately is to be pronounced by the parochial
congregation, the muster of the hundred, or the phylarch. And if a
tribe have a desire (which they are to express at the muster by their
captains, every troop by his own) to petition the Parliament the
phylarch, as the council, shall frame the petition in the pavilion, and
propose it by clauses to the ballot of the whole tribe; and the clauses
that shall be affirmed by the ballot of the tribe, and signed by the
hands of the six magistrates of the prime magnitude, shall be received
and esteemed by the Parliament as the petition of the tribe, and no
other.
“Secondly, the phylarch has power to call to their assistance what
other troops of the tribe they please (he they elders or youth, whose
discipline will be hereafter directed), and with these to receive the
judges itinerant in their circuits, whom the magistrates of the phylarch
shall assist upon the bench, and the juries elsewhere in their proper
functions according to the more ancient laws and customs of this nation.
“Thirdly, the phylarch shall hold the court called the quartersessions
according to the ancient custom, and therein shall also hear causes in
order to the protection of liberty of conscience, by such rules as are
or shall hereafter be appointed by the Parliament.
“Fourthly, all commissions issued into the tribes by the Parliament,
or by the chancery, are to be directed to the phylarch, or some of that
troop, and executed by the same respectively.
“Fifthly, in the case of levies of money the Parliament shall tax
the phylarchs, the phylarchs shall tax the hundreds, the hundreds the
parishes, and the parishes shall levy it upon themselves. The parishes
having levied the tax-money accordingly, shall return it to the officers
of the hundreds, the hundred to the phylarchs, and the phylarchs to the
Exchequer. But if a man has ten children living, he shall pay no taxes;
if he has five living, he shall pay but half taxes; if he has been
married three years, or be above twenty-five years of age, and has no
child or children lawfully begotten, he shall pay double taxes. And
if there happen to grow any dispute upon these or such other orders as
shall or may hereto be added hereafter, the phylarchs shall judge the
tribes, and the Parliament shall judge the phylarchs. For the rest, if
any man shall go about to introduce the right or power of debate into
any popular council or congregation of this nation, the phylarch or any
magistrate of the hundred, or of the tribe, shall cause him presently to
be sent in custody to the Council of War.”
The part of the order relating to the rolls in Emporium being of
singular use, is not unworthy to be somewhat better opened. In what
manner the lists of the parishes, hundreds, and tribes are made, has
been shown in their respective orders, where, after the parties are
elected, they give an account of the whole number of the elders or
deputies in their respective assemblies or musters; the like for this
part exactly is done by the youth in their discipline (to be hereafter
shown) wherefore the lists of the parishes, youth and elders, being
summed up, give the whole number of the people able to bear arms, and
the lists of the tribes, youth and elders, being summed up, give the
whole number of the people bearing arms. This account, being annually
recorded by the master of the rolls, is called the “Pillar of Nilus,”
because the people, being the riches of the commonwealth, as they are
found to rise or fall by the degrees of this pillar, like that river,
give an account of the public harvest.
Thus much for the description of the first day’s work at the muster,
which happened (as has been shown) to be done as soon as said; for as in
practice it is of small difficulty, so requires it not much time, seeing
the great Council of Venice, consisting of a like number, begins at
twelve of the clock, and elects nine magistrates in one afternoon. But
the tribe being dismissed for this night, repaired to their quarters,
under the conduct of their new magistrates. The next morning returning
to the field very early, the orator proceeded to--
The twelfth order, “Directing the muster of the tribe in the second
day’s election, being that of the list called the galaxy; in which the
censors shall prepare the urns according to the directions given in the
ninth order for the second ballot; that is to say, with thirty-six gold
balls in the middle urn, making four orders, and nine electors in every
order, according to the number of the magistrates in the list of the
galaxy, which is as follows:
1. Knight 2. Knight
To be chosen out of the horse. 3. Deputy 4. Deputy 5. Deputy
To be chosen out of the horse. 6. Deputy 7. Deputy 8. Deputy 9. Deputy
To be chosen out of the foot.
“The rest of the ballot shall proceed exactly according to that of the
first day. But, forasmuch as the commonwealth demands as well the fruits
of a man’s body as of his mind, he that has not been married shall not
be capable of these magistracies till he be married. If a deputy already
chosen to be an officer in the parish, in the hundred, or in the
tribe, be afterward chosen of the galaxy, it shall be lawful for him to
delegate his office in the parish, in the hundred, or in the tribe,
to any one of his own order being not already chosen into office. The
knights and deputies being chosen, shall be brought to the head of the
tribe by the lord high sheriff, who shall administer to them this oath:
‘Ye shall well and truly observe and keep the orders and customs of this
commonwealth which the people have chosen.’ And if any of them shall
refuse the oath, he shall be rejected, and that competitor which had
the most voices next shall be called in his place, who, if he takes the
oath, shall be entered in the list; but if he also refuses the oath, he
who had most voices next shall be called, and so till the number of
nine out of those competitors which had most voices be sworn knights and
deputies of the galaxy. (This clause, in regard to the late divisions,
and to the end that no violence be offered to any man’s conscience,
to be of force but for the first three years only.) The knights of
the galaxy being elected and sworn, are to repair, by the Monday next
ensuing to the last of March, to the Pantheon or palace of justice,
situated in the metropolis of this commonwealth (except the Parliament,
by reason of a contagious sickness, or some other occasion, has
adjourned to another part of the nation), where they are to take their
places in the Senate, and continue in full power and commission as
senators for the full term of three years next ensuing the date of
their election. The deputies of the galaxy are to repair by the same day
(except as before excepted) to the halo situated in Emporium, where they
are to be listed of the prerogative tribe, or equal representative
of the people; and to continue in full power and commission as their
deputies for the full term of three years next ensuing their election.
But, forasmuch as the term of every magistracy or office in this
commonwealth requires an equal vacation, a knight or deputy of
the galaxy, having fulfilled his term of three years, shall not be
re-elected into the same galaxy or any other, till he has also fulfilled
his three years’ vacation.”
Whoever shall rightly consider the foregoing orders, will be as little
able to find how it is possible that a worshipful knight should declare
himself in ale and beef worthy to serve his country, as how my lord high
sheriff’s honor, in case he were protected from the law, could play
the knave. But though the foregoing orders, so far as they regard the
constitution of the Senate and the people, requiring no more as to an
ordinary election than is therein explained, that is but one-third part
of their knights and deputies, are perfect; yet must we in this place,
and as to the institution, of necessity erect a scaffold. For the
commonwealth to the first creation of her councils in full number,
required thrice as many as are eligible by the foregoing orders.
Wherefore the orator whose aid in this place was most necessary, rightly
informing the people of the reason, stayed them two days longer at the
muster, and took this course. One list, containing two knights and seven
deputies, he caused to be chosen upon the second day; which list being
called the first galaxy, qualified the parties elected of it with power
for the term of one year, and no longer: another list, containing two
knights and seven deputies more, he caused to be chosen the third day,
which list being called the second galaxy, qualified the parties elected
of it with power for the term of two years, and no longer. And upon the
fourth day he chose the third galaxy, according as it is directed by the
order, empowered for three years; which lists successively falling (like
the signs or constellations of one hemisphere, which setting, cause
those of the other to rise) cast the great orbs of this commonwealth
into an annual, triennial, and perpetual revolution.
The business of the muster being thus happily finished, Hermes de
Caduceo, lord orator of the tribe of Nubia, being now put into her first
rapture, caused one of the censor’s pulpits to be planted in front of
the squadron, and ascending into the same, spake after this manner:
“MY LORDS, THE MAGISTRATES AND THE PEOPLE OF THE TRIBE OF NUBIA:
“We have this day solemnized the happy nuptials of the two greatest
princes that are upon the earth or in nature, arms and councils, in the
mutual embraces whereof consists your whole commonwealth; whose councils
upon their perpetual wheelings, marches, and countermarches, create her
armies, and whose armies with the golden volleys of the ballot at once
create and salute her councils. There be those (such is the world at
present) that think it ridiculous to see a nation exercising its civil
functions in military discipline; while they, committing their buff to
their servants, come themselves to hold trenchards. For what avails it
such as are unarmed, or (which is all one) whose education acquaints
them not with the proper use of their swords, to be called citizens?
What were 2,000 or 3,000 of you, though never so well affected to your
country, but naked, to one troop of mercenary soldiers? If they should
come upon the field and say, ‘Gentlemen, it is thought fit that such
and such men should be chosen by you,’ where were your liberty? or,
‘Gentlemen, parliaments are exceeding good, but you are to have a
little patience; these times are not so fit for them,’ where were your
commonwealth? What causes the monarchy of the Turks but servants in
arms? What was it that begot the glorious Commonwealth of Rome but the
sword in the hands of her citizens? Wherefore my glad eyes salute the
serenity and brightness of this day with a shower that shall not cloud
it.
“Behold the army of Israel become a commonwealth, and the Commonwealth
of Israel remaining an army, with her rulers of tens and of fifties, her
rulers of hundreds and thousands, drawing near (as this day throughout
our happy fields) to the lot by her tribes, increased above threefold,
and led up by her phylarchs or princes, to sit upon fifty thrones,
judging the fifty tribes of Oceana! Or, is it Athens, breaking from
her iron sepulchre, where she has been so long trampled by hosts of
Janizaries? For certainly that is the voice of Theseus, having gathered
his scattered Athenians into one city. This freeborn nation lives
not upon the dole or bounty of one man, but distributing her annual
magistracies and honors with her own hand, is herself King People--(At
which the orator was awhile interrupted with shouts, but at length
proceeded.) is it grave Lacedaemon in her armed tribe, divided by her
oboe and her mora, which appears to chide me that I teach the people to
talk, or conceive such language as is dressed like a woman, to be a fit
usher of the joys of liberty into the hearts of men? is it Rome in
her victorious arms (for so she held her concio or congregation) that
congratulates with us, for finding out that which she could not hit
on, and binding up her Comitia curiata, centuriata, and tributa, in one
inviolable league of union? Or is it the great council of incomparable
Venice, bowling forth by the selfsame ballot her immortal commonwealth?
For, neither by reason nor by experience is it impossible that a
commonwealth should be immortal; seeing the people being the materials,
never die; and the form, which is motion, must, without opposition, be
endless. The bowl which is thrown from your hand, if there be no rub, no
impediment, shall never cease: for which cause the glorious luminaries
that are the bowls of God, were once thrown forever; and next these,
those of Venice. But certainly, my lords, whatever these great examples
may have shown us, we are the first that have shown to the world a
commonwealth established in her rise upon fifty such towers, and so
garrisoned as are the tribes of Oceana, containing 100,000 elders upon
the annual list, and yet but an outguard; besides her marching armies to
be equal in the discipline, and in the number of her youth.
“And forasmuch as sovereign power is a necessary but a formidable
creature, not unlike the powder which (as you are soldiers) is at once
your safety and your danger, being subject to take fire against you
as well as for you, how well and securely is she, by your galaxies so
collected as to be in full force and vigor and yet so distributed that
it is impossible you should be blown up by your own magazine? Let them
who will have it, that power if it be confined cannot be sovereign, tell
us, whether our rivers do not enjoy a more secure and fruitful reign
within their proper banks, than if it were lawful for them, in ravaging
our harvests, to spill themselves? whether souls, not confined to their
peculiar bodies, do govern them any more than those of witches in their
trances? whether power, not confined to the bounds of reason and virtue,
has any other bounds than those of vice and passion? or if vice and
passion be boundless, and reason and virtue have certain limits, on
which of these thrones holy men should anoint their sovereign? But to
blow away this dust, the sovereign power of a commonwealth is no more
bounded, that is to say straitened, than that of a monarch; but is
balanced. The eagle mounts not to her proper pitch, if she be bounded,
nor is free if she be not balanced. And lest a monarch should think he
can reach further with his sceptre, the Roman eagle upon such a balance
spread her wings from the ocean to Euphrates. Receive the sovereign
power; you have received it, hold it fast, embrace it forever in your
shining arms. The virtue of the loadstone is not impaired or limited,
but receives strength and nourishment, by being bound in iron. And so
giving your lordships much joy, I take my leave of this tribe.”
The orator descending, had the period of his speech made with a vast
applause and exultation of the whole tribe, attending him for that night
to his quarter, as the phylarch with some commanded troops did the next
day to the frontiers of the tribe, where leave was taken on both sides
with more tears than grief.
So a tribe is the third division of land occasioned by the third
collection of the people, whose functions proper to that place are
contained in the five foregoing orders.
The institution of the commonwealth was such as needed those props and
scaffolds which may have troubled the reader; but I shall here take them
away, and come to the constitution which stands by itself, and yields a
clearer prospect.
The motions, by what has been already shown, are spherical; and
spherical motions have their proper centre, for which cause (ere I
proceed further) it will be necessary, for the better understanding
of the whole, that I discover the centre whereupon the motions of this
commonwealth are formed.
The centre, or basis of every government, is no other than the
fundamental laws of the same.
Fundamental laws are such as state what it is that a man, and what the
means may call his own, that is to say, property; be whereby a man may
enjoy his own, that is to say, protection. The first is also called
dominion, and the second empire or sovereign power, whereof this (as
has been shown) is the natural product of the former, for such as is the
balance of dominion in a nation, such is the nature of its empire.
Wherefore the fundamental laws of Oceana, or the centre of this
commonwealth, are the agrarian and the ballot: the agrarian by the
balance of dominion preserving equality in the root; and the ballot by
an equal rotation conveying it into the branch, or exercise of sovereign
power, as, to begin with the former, appears by--
The thirteenth order, “Constituting the agrarian laws of Oceana,
Marpesia, and Panopea, whereby it is ordained, first, for all such lands
as are lying and being within the proper territories of Oceana, that
every man who is at present possessed, or shall hereafter be possessed,
of an estate in land exceeding the revenue of £2,000 a year, and having
more than one son, shall leave his lands either equally divided among
them, in case the lands amount to above £2,000 a year to each, or so
near equally, in case they come under, that the greater part or portion
of the same remaining to the eldest exceed not the value of £2,000
revenue. And no man, not in present possession of lands above the
value of £2,000 by the year, shall receive, enjoy (except by lawful
inheritance) acquire, or, purchase to himself lands within the said
territories, amounting, with those already in his possession, above the
said revenue. And if a man has a daughter or daughters, except she be an
heiress or they be heiresses, he shall not leave or give to any. One
of them in marriage, or otherwise, for her portion, above the value of
£1,500 in lands, goods, and moneys. Nor shall any friend, kinsman, or
kinswoman add to her or their portion or portions that are so provided
for, to make any one of them greater. Nor shall any man demand or have
more in marriage with any woman. Nevertheless an heiress shall enjoy her
lawful inheritance, and a widow, whatsoever the bounty or affection
of her husband shall bequeath to her, to be divided in the first
generation, wherein it is divisible according as has been shown.
“Secondly, for lands lying and being within the territories of Marpesia,
the agrarian shall hold in all parts as it is established in Oceana,
except only in the standard or proportion of estates in land, which
shall be set for Marpesia, at £500. And,
“Thirdly, for Panopea, the agrarian shall hold in all parts, as in
Oceana. And whosoever possessing above the proportion allowed by
these laws, shall be lawfully convicted of the same, shall forfeit the
overplus to the use of the State.”
Agrarian laws of all others have ever been the greatest bugbears, and
so in the institution were these, at which time it was ridiculous to see
how strange a fear appeared in everybody of that which, being good for
all, could hurt nobody. But instead of the proof of this order, I shall
out of those many debates that happened ere it could be passed, insert
two speeches that were made at the Council of legislators, the first by
the Right Honorable Philautus de Garbo, a young man, being heir-apparent
to a very noble family, and one of the councillors, who expressed
himself as follows:
“May it please your Highness, my Lord Archon of Oceana.
“If I did not, to my capacity, know from how profound a councillor I
dissent, it would certainly be no hard task to make it as light as the
day. First, that an agrarian is altogether unnecessary; secondly, that
it is dangerous to a commonwealth; thirdly, that it is insufficient to
keep out monarchy; fourthly, that it ruins families; fifthly, that it
destroys industry; and last of all, that though it were indeed of any
good use, it will be a matter of such difficulty to introduce in this
nation, and so to settle that it may be lasting, as is altogether
invincible.
“First, that an agrarian is unnecessary to a commonwealth, what clearer
testimony can there be than that the commonwealths which are our
contemporaries (Venice, to which your Highness gives the upper hand of
all antiquity, being one) have no such thing? And there can be no reason
why they have it not, seeing it is in the sovereign power at any time to
establish such an order, but that they need it not; wherefore no wonder
if Aristotle, who pretends to be a good commonwealths man, has long
since derided Phaleas, to whom it was attributed by the Greeks, for his
invention.
“Secondly, that an agrarian is dangerous to a commonwealth is affirmed
upon no slight authority seeing Machiavel is positive that it was the
dissension which happened about the agrarian that caused the destruction
of Rome; nor do I think that it did much better in Lacedaemon, as I
shall show anon.
“Thirdly, that it is insufficient to keep out monarchy cannot without
impiety be denied, the holy Scriptures bearing witness that the
Commonwealth of Israel, notwithstanding her agrarian, submitted her neck
to the arbitrary yoke of her princes.
“Fourthly, therefore, to come to my next assertion, that it is
destructive to families: this also is so apparent, that it needs pity
rather than proof. Why alas, do you bind a nobility (which no generation
shall deny to have been the first that freely sacrificed their blood to
the ancient liberties of this people) on an unholy altar? Why are the
people taught that their liberty, which, except our noble ancestors had
been born, must have long since been buried, cannot now be born except
we be buried? A commonwealth should have the innocence of the dove. Let
us leave this purchase of her birth to the serpent, which eats itself
out of the womb of its mother.
“Fifthly but it may be said, perhaps, that we are fallen from our first
love, become proud and idle. It is certain, my lords, that the hand
of God is not upon us for nothing. But take heed how you admit of such
assaults and sallies upon men’s estates, as may slacken the nerve of
labor, and give others also reason to believe that their sweat is vain;
or else, whatsoever be pretended, your agrarian (which is my fifth
assertion) must indeed destroy industry. For, that so it did in
Lacedaemon is most apparent, as also that it could do no otherwise,
where every man having his forty quarters of barley, with wine
proportionable, supplied him out of his own lot by his laborer or helot;
and being confined in that to the scantling above which he might not
live, there was not any such thing as a trade, or other art, except that
of war, in exercise. Wherefore a Spartan, if he were not in arms, must
sit and play with his Angers, whence ensued perpetual war, and, the
estate of the city being as little capable of increase as that of the
citizens, her inevitable ruin. Now what better ends you can propose to
yourselves in the like ways, I do not so well see as I perceive that
there may be worse; for Lacedaemon yet was free from civil war: but if
you employ your citizens no better than she did, I cannot promise you
that you shall fare so well, because they are still desirous of war that
hope that it may be profitable to them; and the strongest security you
can give of peace, is to make it gainful. Otherwise men will rather
choose that whereby they may break your laws, than that whereby your
laws may break them. Which I speak not so much in relation to the
nobility or such as would be holding, as to the people or them that
would be getting; the passion in these being so much the stronger, as
a man’s felicity is weaker in the fruition of things, than in their
prosecution and increase.
“Truly, my lords, it is my fear, that by taking of more hands, and the
best from industry, you will farther endamage it, than can be repaired
by laying on a few, and the worst; while the nobility must be forced to
send their sons to the plough, and, as if this were not enough, to marry
their daughters also to farmers.
“Sixthly, but I do not see (to come to the last point) how it is
possible that this thing should be brought about, to your good I mean,
though it may to the destruction of many. For that the agrarian of
Israel, or that of Lacedaemon, might stand, is no such miracle; the
lands, without any consideration of the former proprietor, being
surveyed and cast into equal lots, which could neither be bought, nor
sold, nor multiplied: so that they knew whereabout to have a man. But in
this nation no such division can be introduced, the lands being already
in the hands of proprietors, and such whose estates lie very rarely
together, but mixed one with another being also of tenures in nature
so different, that as there is no experience that an agrarian was ever
introduced in such a case, so there is no appearance how or reason
why it should: but that which is against reason and experience is
impossible.”
The case of my Lord Philautus was the most concerned in the whole
nation; for he had four younger brothers, his father being yet living,
to whom he was heir of £10,000 a year. Wherefore being a man both of
good parts and esteem, his words wrought both upon men’s reason and
passions, and had borne a stroke at the head of the business, if my Lord
Archon had not interposed the buckler in this oration:
“MY LORDS, THE LEGISLATORS OF OCEANA:
“My Lord Philautus has made a thing which is easy to seem hard; if the
thanks were due to his eloquence, it would be worthy of less praise
than that he owes it to his merit, and the love he has most deservedly
purchased of all men: nor is it rationally to be feared that he who is
so much beforehand in his private, should be in arrear in his public,
capacity. Wherefore, my lord’s tenderness throughout his speech arising
from no other principle than his solicitude lest the agrarian should
be hurtful to his country, it is no less than my duty to give the best
satisfaction I am able to so good a patriot, taking every one of his
doubts in the order proposed. And,
“First, whereas my lord, upon observation of the modern commonwealths,
is of opinion that an agrarian is not necessary: it must be confessed
that at the first sight of them there is some appearance favoring
his assertion, but upon accidents of no precedent to us. For the
commonwealths of Switzerland and Holland, I mean of those leagues, being
situated in countries not alluring the inhabitants to wantonness, but
obliging them to universal industry, have an implicit agrarian in the
nature of them: and being not obnoxious to a growing nobility (which,
as long as their former monarchies had spread the wing over them, could
either not at all be hatched, or was soon broken) are of no example to
us, whose experience in this point has been to the contrary. But what if
even in these governments there be indeed an explicit agrarian? For when
the law commands an equal or near equal distribution of a man’s estate
in land among his children, as it is done in those countries, a nobility
cannot grow; and so there needs no agrarian, or rather there is one.
And for the growth of the nobility in Venice (if so it be, for Machiavel
observes in that republic, as a cause of it, a great mediocrity of
estates) it is not a point that she is to fear, but might study, seeing
she consists of nothing else but nobility, by which, whatever their
estates suck from the people, especially if it comes equally, is
digested into the better blood of that commonwealth, which is all, or
the greatest, benefit they can have by accumulation. For how unequal
soever you will have them to be in their incomes, they have officers
of the pomp, to bring them equal in expenses, or at least in the
ostentation or show of them. And so unless the advantage of an estate
consists more in the measure than in the use of it, the authority of
Venice does but enforce our agrarian; nor shall a man evade or elude the
prudence of it, by the authority of any other commonwealth.
“For if a commonwealth has been introduced at once, as those of Israel
and Lacedaemon, you are certain to find her underlaid with this as the
main foundation; nor, if she is obliged more to fortune than prudence,
has she raised her head without musing upon this matter, as appears by
that of Athens, which through her defect in this point, says Aristotle,
introduced her ostracism, as most of the democracies of Greece. But,
not to restrain a fundamental of such latitude to any one kind of
government, do we not yet see that if there be a sole landlord of a
vast territory, he is the Turk? that if a few landlords overbalance a
populous country, they have store of servants? that if a people be in an
equal balance, they can have no lords? that no government can otherwise
be erected, than upon some one of these foundations? that no one of
these foundations (each being else apt to change into some other) can
give any security to the government, unless it be fixed? that through
the want of this fixation, potent monarchy and commonwealths have fallen
upon the heads of the people, and accompanied their own sad ruins with
vast effusions of innocent blood? Let the fame, as was the merit of
the ancient nobility of this nation, be equal to or above what has been
already said, or can be spoken, yet have we seen not only their glory
but that of a throne, the most indulgent to and least invasive for so
many ages upon the liberty of a people that the world has known, through
the mere want of fixing her foot by a proportionable agrarian upon
her proper foundation, to have fallen with such horror as has been a
spectacle of astonishment to the whole earth. And were it well argued
from one calamity, that we ought not to prevent another? Nor is
Aristotle so good a commonwealths man for deriding the invention of
Phaleas as in recollecting himself, where he says that democracies, when
a less part of their citizens overtop the rest in wealth, degenerate
into oligarchies and principalities; and, which comes nearer to the
present purpose, that the greater part of the nobility of Tarentum
coming accidentally to be ruined, the government of the few came by
consequence to be changed into that of the many.
“These things considered, I cannot see how an agrarian, as to the
fixation or security of a government, can be less than necessary. And
if a cure be necessary, it excuses not the patient, his disease being
otherwise desperate, that it is dangerous; which was the case of Rome,
not so stated by Machiavel, where he says, that the strife about the
agrarian caused the destruction of that commonwealth. As if when a
senator was not rich (as Crassus held) except he could pay an army, that
commonwealth could expect nothing but ruin whether in strife about the
agrarian, or without it. ‘Of late,’ says Livy, ‘riches have introduced
avarice, and voluptuous pleasures abounding have through lust and
luxury begot a desire of lasting and destroying all good orders.’ if the
greatest security of a commonwealth consists in being provided with the
proper antidote against this poison, her greatest danger, must be
from the absence of an agrarian, which is the whole truth of the Roman
example. For the Laconic, I shall reserve the further explication of it,
as my lord also did, to another place; and first see whether an agrarian
proportioned to a popular government be sufficient to keep out monarchy.
My lord is for the negative, and fortified by the people of Israel
electing a king. To which I say that the action of the people therein
expressed is a full answer to the objection of that example; for the
monarchy neither grew upon them, nor could; by reason of the agrarian,
possibly have invaded them, if they had not pulled it upon themselves by
the election of a king. Which being an accident, the like whereof is not
to be found in any other people so planted, nor in this till, as it
is manifest, they were given up by God to infatuation (for says he to
Samuel, ‘They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I
should not reign over them,), has something in it which is apparent, by
what went before, to have been besides the course of nature, and by what
followed.
“For the King having no other foundation than the calamities of the
people, so often beaten by their enemies, that despairing of themselves
they were contented with any change, if he had peace as in the days of
Solomon, left but a slippery throne to his successor, as appeared
by Rehoboam. And the agrarian, notwithstanding the monarchy thus
introduced, so faithfully preserved the root of that commonwealth, that
it shot forth oftener and by intervals continued longer than any other
government, as may be computed from the institution of the same by
Joshua, 1,465 years before Christ, to the total dissolution of it,
which happened in the reign of the emperor Adrian, 135 years after the
incarnation. A people planted upon an equal agrarian, and holding to it,
if they part with their liberty, must do it upon good-will, and make but
a bad title of their bounty. As to instance yet further in that which is
proposed by the present order to this nation, the standard whereof is
at £2,000 a year; the whole territory of Oceana being divided by this
proportion, amounts to 5,000 lots. So the lands of Oceana being thus
distributed, and bound to this distribution, can never fall to fewer
than 5,000 proprietors. But 5,000 proprietors so seized will not agree
to break the agrarian, for that were to agree to rob one another; nor to
bring in a king, because they must maintain him, and can have no benefit
by him; nor to exclude the people, because they can have as little by
that, and must spoil their militia. So the commonwealth continuing upon
the balance proposed, though it should come into 5,000 hands, can never
alter, and that it should ever come into 5,000 hands is as improbable as
anything in the world that is not altogether impossible.
“My lord’s other considerations are more private, as that, this order
destroys families; which is as if one should lay the ruin of some
ancient castle to the herbs which usually grow out of them, the
destruction of those families being that indeed which naturally produced
this order. For we do not now argue for that which we would have, but
for that which we are already possessed of, as would appear if a note
were but taken of all such as have at this day above £2,000 a year in
Oceana. If my lord should grant (and I will put it with the most) that
they who are proprietors in land, exceeding this proportion, exceed not
300, with what brow can the interest of so few be balanced with that of
the whole nation? or rather, what interest have they to put in such a
balance? they would live as they had been accustomed to do; who hinders
them? they would enjoy their estates; who touches them? they would
dispose of what they have according to the interest of their families;
it is that which we desire. A man has one son, let him be called; would
he enjoy his father’s estate? it is his, his son’s, and his son’s son’s
after him. A man has five sons, let them be called; would they enjoy
their father’s estate? It is divided among them; for we have four votes
for one in the same family, and therefore this must be the interest of
the family, or the family knows not its own interest. If a man shall
dispute otherwise, he must draw his arguments from custom and from
greatness, which was the interest of the monarchy, not of the family;
and we are now a commonwealth. If the monarchy could not bear with
such divisions because they tendered to a commonwealth, neither can
a commonwealth connive at such accumulations because they tend to a
monarchy. If the monarchy might make bold with so many for the good of
one, we may make bold with one for the good of so many, nay, for the
good of all.
“My lords, it comes into my mind, that which upon occasion of the
variety of parties enumerated in our late civil wars, was said by a
friend of mine coming home from his travels, about the latter end
of these troubles; that he admired how it came to pass, that younger
brothers, especially being so many more in number than their elder did
not unite as one man against a tyranny, the like whereof has not been
exercised in any other nation. And truly, when I consider that our
countrymen are none of the worst-natured, I must confess I marvel
much how it comes to pass that we should use our children as we do our
puppies--take one, lay it in the lap, feed it with every good bit, and
drown five; nay, yet worse, forasmuch as the puppies are once drowned,
whereas the children are left perpetually drowning. Really, my lords,
it is a flinty custom! and all this for his cruel ambition, that would
raise himself a pillar a golden pillar for his monument, though he has
children, his own reviving flesh, and a kind of immortality. And this is
that interest of a family, for which we are to think ill of a government
that will not endure it. But quiet ourselves; the land through which the
river Nilus wanders in one stream, is barren; but where it parts into
seven, it multiplies its fertile shores by distributing, yet keeping and
improving, such a propriety and nutrition, as is a prudent agrarian to a
well-ordered commonwealth.
“Nor (to come to the fifth assertion) is a political body rendered any
fitter for industry by having one gouty and another withered leg, than
a natural. It tends not to the improvement of merchandise that there be
some who have no need of their trading, and others that are not able to
follow it. If confinement discourages industry, an estate in money is
not confined, and lest industry should want whereupon to work, land is
not engrossed or entailed upon any man, but remains at its devotion.
I wonder whence the computation can arise, that this should discourage
industry. Two thousand pounds a year a man may enjoy in Oceana, as
much in Panopea, £500 in Marpesia; there be other plantations, and the
commonwealth will have more. Who knows how far the arms of our agrarian
may extend themselves? and whether he that might have left a pillar, may
not leave a temple of many pillars to his more pious memory? Where there
is some measure in riches, a man may be rich, but if you will have them
to be infinite, there will be no end of starving himself, and wanting
what he has: and what pains does such a one take to be poor Furthermore,
if a man shall think that there may be an industry less greasy or more
noble, and so cast his thoughts upon the commonwealth, he will have
leisure for her and she riches and honors for him; his sweat shall smell
like Alexander’s. My Lord Philautus is a young man who, enjoying his
£10,000 a year, may keep a noble house in the old way, and have homely
guests; and having but two, by the means proposed, may take the upper
hand of his great ancestors; with reverence to whom, I may say, there
has not been one of them would have disputed his place with a Roman
consul.
“My lord, do not break my heart; the nobility shall go to no other
ploughs than those which we call our consuls. But, says he, it having
been so with Lacedaemon, that neither the city nor the citizens were
capable of increase, a blow was given by that agrarian, which ruined
both. And what are we concerned with that agrarian, or that blow while
our citizens and our city (and that by our agrarian) are both capable
of increase? The Spartan, if he made a conquest, had no citizens to hold
it; the Oceaner will have enow. The Spartan could have no trade; the
Oceaner may have all. The agrarian in Laconia, that it might bind on
knapsacks, forbidding all other arts but that of war, could not make
an army of above 30,000 citizens. The agrarian in Oceana, without
interruption of traffic, provides us in the fifth part of the youth
an annual source or fresh spring of 100,000, besides our provincial
auxiliaries, out of which to draw marching armies; and as many elders,
not feeble, but men most of them in the flower of their age, and in arms
for the defence of our territories. The agrarian in Laconia banished
money, this multiplies it; that allowed a matter of twenty or thirty
acres to a man, this 2,000 or 3,000; there is no comparison between
them. And yet I differ so much from my lord, or his opinion that
the agrarian was the ruin of Lacedaemon, that I hold it no less than
demonstrable to have been her main support. For if, banishing all other
diversions, it could not make an army of above 30,000, then, letting in
all other diversions, it must have broken that army. Wherefore Lysander,
bringing in the golden spoils of Athens, irrevocably ruined that
commonwealth; and is a warning to us, that in giving encouragement to
industry, we also remember that covetousness is the root of all evil.
And our agrarian can never be the cause of those seditions threatened
by my lord, but is the proper cure of them, as Lucan notes well in the
state of Rome before the civil wars, which happened through the want of
such an antidote.
“Why then are we mistaken, as if we intended not equal advantages in our
commonwealth to either sex, because we would not have women’s fortunes
consist in that metal which exposes them to cutpurses? If a man cuts my
purse I may have him by the heels or by the neck for it; whereas a man
may cut a woman’s purse, and have her for his pains in fetters. How
brutish, and much more than brutish, is that commonwealth which prefers
the earth before the fruits of the womb? If the people be her treasure,
the staff by which she is sustained and comforted, with what justice can
she suffer them, by whom she is most enriched, to be for that cause the
most impoverished? And yet we see the gifts of God, and the bounties of
heaven in fruitful families, through this wretched custom of marrying
for money, become their insupportable grief and poverty. Nor falls this
so heavy upon the lower sort, being better able to shift for themselves,
as upon the nobility or gentry. For what avails it in this case, from
whence their veins have derived their blood; while they shall see the
tallow of a chandler sooner converted into that beauty which is required
in a bride? I appeal, whether my Lord Philautus or myself be the
advocate of nobility; against which, in the case proposed by me, there
would be nothing to hold the balance. And why is a woman, if she may
have but £1,500, undone? If she be unmarried, what nobleman allows his
daughter in that case a greater revenue than so much money may command?
And if she marry, no nobleman can give his daughter a greater portion
than she has. Who is hurt in this case?--nay, who is not benefited? If
the agrarian gives us the sweat of our brows without diminution; if it
prepares our table; if it makes our cup to overflow, and above all this,
in providing for our children, anoints our heads with that oil which
takes away the greatest of worldly cares; what man, that is not besotted
with a covetousness as vain as endless, can imagine such a constitution
to be his poverty? Seeing where no woman can be considerable for her
portion, no portion will be considerable with a woman; and so his
children will not only find better preferments without his brokage, but
more freedom of their own affections. “We are wonderful severe in laws,
that they shall not marry without our consent, as if it were care and
tenderness over them; but is it not lest we should not have the other
£1,000 with this son, or the other £100 a year more in jointure for that
daughter? These, when we are crossed in them, are the sins for which we
water our couch with tears, but not of penitence. Seeing whereas it is
a mischief beyond any that we can do to our enemies, we persist to make
nothing of breaking the affection of our children. But there is in this
agrarian a homage to pure and spotless love, the consequence whereof I
will not give for all your romances. An alderman makes not his daughter
a countess till he has given her £20,000, nor a romance a considerable
mistress till she be a princess; these are characters of bastard love.
But if our agrarian excludes ambition and covetousness, we shall at
length have the care of our own breed, in which we have been curious as
to our dogs and horses. The marriage-bed will be truly legitimate, and
the race of the commonwealth not spurious. But (impar magnanimis
ausis, imparque dolori) I am hurled from all my hopes by my lord’s last
assertion of impossibility, that the root from whence we imagine these
fruits should be planted or thrive in this soil. And why? Because of the
mixture of estates and variety of tenures. Nevertheless, there is yet
extant in the Exchequer an old survey of the whole nation; wherefore
such a thing is not impossible. Now if a new survey were taken at the
present rates, and the law made that no man should hold hereafter above
so much land as is valued therein at £2,000 a year, it would amount to
a good and sufficient agrarian. It is true that there would remain
some difficulty in the different kind of rents, and that it is a matter
requiring not only more leisure than we have, but an authority which
may be better able to bow men to a more general consent than is to be
wrought out of them by such as are in our capacity. Wherefore as to the
manner, it is necessary that we refer it to the Parliament; but as to
the matter, they cannot otherwise fix their government upon the right
balance.
“I shall conclude with a few words to some parts of the order, which
my lord has omitted. As first to the consequences of the agrarian to be
settled in Marpesia, which irreparably breaks the aristocracy of that
nation; being of such a nature, as standing, it is not possible that you
should govern. For while the people of that country are little better
than the cattle of the nobility, you must not wonder if, according as
these can make their markets with foreign princes, you find those to be
driven upon your grounds. And if you be so tender, now you have it
in your power, as not to hold a hand upon them that may prevent the
slaughter which must otherwise ensue in like cases, the blood will lie
at your door. But in holding such a hand upon them, you may settle the
agrarian; and in settling the agrarian, you give that people not only
liberty, but lands; which makes your protection necessary to their
security; and their contribution due to your protection, as to their own
safety.
“For the agrarian of Panopea, it allowing such proportions of so good
land, men that conceive themselves straitened by this in Oceana, will
begin there to let themselves forth, where every citizen will in time
have his villa. And there is no question, but the improvement of that
country by this means must be far greater than it has been in the best
of former times. I have no more to say, but that in those ancient and
heroic ages (when men thought that to be necessary which was virtuous)
the nobility of Athens, having the people so much engaged in their debt
that there remained no other question among these than which of those
should be king, no sooner heard Solon speak than they quitted their
debts, and restored the commonwealth; which ever after held a solemn
and annual feast called the Sisacthia, or Recision, in memory of that
action. Nor is this example the phoenix; for at the institution by
Lycurgus, the nobility having estates (as ours here) in the lands of
Laconia, upon no other valuable consideration than the commonwealth
proposed by him, threw them up to be parcelled by his agrarian. But
now when no man is desired to throw up a farthing of his money, or a
shovelful of his earth, and that all we can do is but to make a virtue
of necessity, we are disputing whether we should have peace or war.
For peace you cannot have without some government, nor any government
without the proper balance. Wherefore if you will not fix this which you
have, the rest is blood, for without blood you can bring in no other.”
By these speeches made at the institution of the agrarian you may
perceive what were the grounds of it. The next is--
The fourteenth order, “Constituting the ballot of Venice, as it is
fitted by several alterations, and appointed to every assembly, to
be the constant and only way of giving suffrage in this commonwealth,
according to the following scheme.”
I shall endeavor by the following figure to demonstrate the manner of
the Venetian ballot (a thing as difficult in discourse or writing, as
facile in practice) according to the use of it in Oceana. The whole
figure represents the Senate, containing, as to the house or form
of sitting, a square and a half; the tribunal at the upper end being
ascended by four steps. On the uppermost of these sit the magistrates
that constitute the signory of the commonwealth, that is to say, A the
strategus; B the orator; C the three commissioners of the great seal; D
the three commissioners of the Treasury, whereof one, E, exercises for
the present the office of a censor at the middle urn, F To the two upper
steps of the tribunal answer G, G-G, G, the two long benches next the
wall on each side of the house; the outwardmost of which are equal in
height to the uppermost step, and the innermost equal in height to the
next. Of these four benches consists the first seal; as the second seat
consists in like manner of those four benches H, H-H, H, which being
next the floor, are equal in height to the two nethermost steps of
the throne. So the whole house is distributed into two seats, each
consisting of four benches.
This distribution causes not only the greater conveniency; as will be
shown, to the senators in the exercise of their function at the ballot,
but a greater grace to the aspect of the Senate. In the middle of the
outward benches stand I, 12 the chairs of the censors, those being their
ordinary places, though upon occasion of the ballot they descend, and
sit where they are shown by K, K at each of the outward urns L, L. Those
M, M that sit with their tables, and the bowls N, N before them, upon
the halfspace or second step of the tribunal from the floor, are the
clerks or secretaries of the house. Upon the short seats O, O on the
floor (which should have been represented by woolsacks) sit: P, the two
tribunes of the horse. Q, the two tribunes of the foot; and R, R-R, R
the judges, all which magistrates are assistants, but have no suffrage.
This posture of the Senate considered, the ballot is performed as
follows:
First, whereas the gold balls are of several suits, and accordingly
marked with several letters of the alphabet, a secretary presents a
little urn (wherein there is one ball of every suit or mark) to the
strategus and the orator; and look what letter the strategus draws, the
same and no other is to be used for that time in the middle urn F; the
like for the letter drawn by the orator is to be observed for the side
urns L, L, that is to say if the strategus drew a ball with an A, all
the gold balls in the middle urn for that day are marked with the letter
A; and if the orator drew a B, all the gold balls in the side urn for
that day are marked with the letter B, which done immediately before
the ballot, and so the letter unknown to the ballotants, they can use no
fraud or juggling; otherwise a man might carry a gold ball in his hand,
and seem to have drawn it out of an urn. He that draws a gold ball at
any urn, delivers it to the censor or assessor of that urn, who views
the character, and allows accordingly of his lot.
The strategus and the orator having drawn for the letters, the urns are
prepared accordingly by one of the commissioners and the two censors.
The preparation of the urns is After this manner. If the Senate be to
elect, for example, the list called the tropic of magistrates, which is
this:
1. The Lord Strategus;
2. The Lord Orator;
3. The Third Commissioner of the Great Seal;
4. The Third Commissioner of the Treasury;
5. The First Censor;
6. The Second Censor;