recision of debts with Largius, was to violate all faith; that of
Virginius, as the most moderate, would have passed best, but that
there were private interests, that constant bane of the public, which
withstood it. So they concluded with Appius, who also had been dictator,
if the Consuls and some of the graver sort had not thought it altogether
unseasonable, at a time when the Volsci and the Sabines were up again,
to venture so far upon alienation of the people: for which cause
Valerius, being descended from the Publicolas, the most popular family,
as also in his own person of a mild nature, was rather trusted with so
rigid a magistracy. Whence it happened that the people, though they knew
well enough against whom the Dictator was created, feared nothing from
Valerius; but upon a new promise made to the same effect with that of
Servilius, hoped better another time, and throwing away all disputes,
gave their names roundly, went out, and, to be brief, came home again
as victorious as in the former action, the Dictator entering the city in
triumph. Nevertheless, when he came to press the Senate to make good his
promise, and do something for the ease of the people, they regarded him
no more as to that point than they had done Servilius. Whereupon the
Dictator, in disdain to be made a stale, abdicated his magistracy, and
went home. Here, then, was a victorious army without a captain, and a
Senate pulling it by the beard in their gowns. What is it (if you have
read the story, for there is not such another) that must follow? Can
any man imagine that such only should be the opportunity upon which this
people could run away?
“Alas, poor men, the AEqui and the Volsci and the Sabines were nothing,
but the fathers invincible! There they sat, some 300 of them armed all
in robes, and thundering with their tongues, without any hopes in
the earth to reduce them to any tolerable conditions. Wherefore, not
thinking it convenient to abide long so near them, away marches the
army, and encamps in the fields. This retreat of the people is called
the secession of Mount Aventin, where they lodged, very sad at their
condition, but not letting fall so much as a word of murmur against the
fathers. The Senate by this time were great lords, had the whole city to
themselves; but certain neighbors were upon the way that might come to
speak with them, not asking leave of the porter. Wherefore their minds
became troubled, and an orator was posted to the people to make as good
conditions with them as he could; but, whatever the terms were, to bring
them home, and with all speed. And here it was covenanted between the
Senate and the people, that these should have magistrates of their own
election, called the tribunes, upon which they returned.
“To hold you no longer, the Senate having done this upon necessity, made
frequent attempts to retract it again, while the tribunes, on the other
side, to defend what they had got, instituted their Tributa Comitia,
or council of the people; where they came in time, and, as disputes
increased, to make laws without the authority of the Senate, called
plebiscita. Now to conclude in the point at which I drive: such were the
steps whereby the people of Rome came to assume debate, nor is it in art
or nature to debar a people of the like effect, where there is the like
cause. For Romulus, having in the election of his Senate squared out a
nobility for the support of a throne, by making that of the patricians
a distinct and hereditary order, planted the commonwealth upon two
contrary interests or roots, which, shooting forth, in time produced two
commonwealths, the one oligarchical in the nobility, the other a mere
anarchy of the people, and ever after caused a perpetual feud and enmity
between the Senate and the people, even to death.
“There is not a more noble or useful question in the politics than that
which is started by Machiavel, whether means were to be found whereby
the enmity that was between the Senate and the people of Rome could
have been removed? Nor is there any other in which we, on the present
occasion, are so much concerned, particularly in relation to this
author; forasmuch as his judgment in the determination of the question
standing, our commonwealth falls. And he that will erect a commonwealth
against the judgment of Machiavel, is obliged to give such reasons
for his enterprise as must not go a-begging. Wherefore to repeat the
politician very honestly, but somewhat more briefly, he disputes thus:
“‘There be two sorts of commonwealths, the one for preservation, as
Lacedaemon and Venice; the other for increase, as Rome.
“‘Lacedaemon, being governed by a King and a small Senate, could
maintain itself a long time in that condition, because the inhabitants,
being few, having put a bar upon the reception of strangers, and living
in a strict observation of the laws of Lycurgus, which now had got
reputation, and taken away all occasion of tumults, might well continue
long in tranquillity. For the laws of Lycurgus introduced a greater
equality in estates, and a less equality in honors, whence there was
equal poverty; and the plebeians were less ambitious, because the honors
or magistracies of the city could extend but to a few and were not
communicable to the people, nor did the nobility by using them ill ever
give them a desire to participate of the same. This proceeded from the
kings, whose principality, being placed in the midst of the nobility,
had no greater means whereby to support itself than to shield the people
from all injury; whence the people, not fearing empire, desired it not;
and so all occasion of enmity between the Senate and the people was
taken away. But this union happened especially from two causes: the one
that the inhabitants of Lacedaemon being few, could be governed by the
few; the other, that, not receiving strangers into their commonwealth,
they did not corrupt it, nor increase it to such a proportion as was not
governable by the few.
“‘Venice has not divided with her plebeians, but all are called
gentlemen that be in administration of the government; for which
government she is more beholden to chance than the wisdom of her
law-makers; for many retiring to those islands, where that city is now
built, from the inundations of barbarians that overwhelmed the Roman
Empire, when they were increased to such a number that to live together
it was necessary to have laws, they ordained a form of government,
whereby assembling often in council upon affairs, and finding their
number sufficient for government, they put a bar upon all such as
repairing afterward to their city should become inhabitants, excluding
them from participation of power. Whence they that were included in the
administration had right, and they that were excluded, coming afterward,
and being received upon no other conditions to be inhabitants, had no
wrong, and therefore had no occasion, nor (being never trusted with
arms) any means to be tumultuous. Wherefore this commonwealth might very
well maintain itself in tranquillity.
“‘These things considered, it is plain that the Roman legislators, to
have introduced a quiet state, must have done one of these two things:
either shut out strangers, as the Lacedemonians; or, as the Venetians,
not allowed the people to bear arms. But they did neither. By which
means the people, having power and increase, were in perpetual tumult.
Nor is this to be helped in a commonwealth for increase, seeing if Rome
had cut off the occasion of her tumults, she must have cut off the means
of her increase, and by consequence of her greatness.
“‘Wherefore let a legislator consider with himself whether he would make
his commonwealth for preservation, in which case she may be free from
tumults; or for increase, in which case she must be infested with them.
“‘If he makes her for preservation, she may be quiet at home, but will
be in danger abroad. First, because her foundation must be narrow,
and therefore weak, as that of Lacedaemon, which lay but upon 30,000
citizens; or that of Venice, which lies but upon 3,000. Secondly, such
a commonwealth must either be in peace, or war; if she be in peace,
the few are soonest effeminated and corrupted and so obnoxious also to
faction. If in war, succeeding ill, she is an easy prey; or succeeding
well, ruined by increase: a weight which her foundation is not able to
bear. For Lacedaemon, when she had made herself mistress upon the matter
of all Greece, through a slight accident, the rebellion of Thebes,
occasioned by the conspiracy of Pelopidas discovering this infirmity of
her nature, the rest of her conquered cities immediately fell off, and
in the turn as it were of a hand reduced her from the fullest tide to
the lowest ebb of her fortune. And Venice having possessed herself of a
great part of Italy by her purse, was no sooner in defence of it put to
the trial of arms than she lost all in one battle.
“‘Whence I conclude that in the ordination of a commonwealth a
legislator is to think upon that which is most honorable, and, laying
aside models for preservation, to follow the example of Rome conniving
at, and temporizing with, the enmity between the Senate and the people,
as a necessary step to the Roman greatness. For that any man should
find out a balance that may take in the conveniences and shut out the
inconveniences of both, I do not think it possible.’ These are the words
of the author, though the method be somewhat altered, to the end that I
may the better turn them to my purpose.
“My lords, I do not know how you hearken to this sound; but to hear
the greatest artist in the modern world giving sentence against our
commonwealth is that with which I am nearly concerned. Wherefore, with
all honor due to the prince of politicians, let us examine his reasoning
with the same liberty which he has asserted to be the right of a free
people. But we shall never come up to him, except by taking the business
a little lower, we descend from effects to their causes. The causes of
commotion in a commonwealth are either external or internal. External
are from enemies, from subjects, or from servants. To dispute then what
was the cause why Rome was infested by the Italian, or by the servile
wars; why the slaves took the capitol; why the Lacedaemonians were near
as frequently troubled with their helots as Rome with all those; or why
Venice, whose situation is not trusted to the faith of men, has as good
or better quarter with them whom she governs, than Rome had with the
Latins; were to dispute upon external causes. The question put by
Machiavel is of internal causes; whether the enmity that Was between the
Senate and the people of Rome might have been removed. And to determine
otherwise of this question than he does, I must lay down other
principles than he has done. To which end I affirm that a commonwealth,
internally considered, is either equal or unequal. A commonwealth that
is internally equal, has no internal cause of commotion, and therefore
can have no such effect but from without. A commonwealth internally
unequal has no internal cause of quiet, and therefore can have no such
effect but by diversion.
“To prove my assertions, I shall at this time make use of no other
than his examples. Lacedaemon was externally unquiet, because she was
externally unequal, that is as to her helots; and she was internally at
rest, because she was equal in herself, both in root and branch; in the
root by her agrarian, and in branch by the Senate, inasmuch as no man
was thereto qualified but by election of the people. Which institution
of Lycurgus is mentioned by Aristotle, where he says that rendering his
citizens emulous (not careless) of that honor, he assigned to the people
the election of the Senate. Wherefore Machiavel in this, as in other
places, having his eye upon the division of patrician and plebeian
families as they were in Rome, has quite mistaken the orders of this
commonwealth, where there was no such thing. Nor did the quiet of it
derive from the power of the kings, who were so far from shielding the
people from the injury of the nobility, of which there was none in
his sense but the Senate, that one declared end of the Senate at the
institution was to shield the people from the kings, who from that time
had but single votes. Neither did it proceed from the straitness of the
Senate, or their keeping the people excluded from the government, that
they were quiet, but from the equality of their administration, seeing
the Senate (as is plain by the oracle, their fundamental law) had no
more than the debate, and the result of the commonwealth belonged to the
people.
“Wherefore when Theopompus and Polydorus, Kings of Lacedaemon, would
have kept the people excluded from the government by adding to the
ancient law this clause, ‘If the determination of the people be faulty,
it shall be lawful for the Senate to resume the debate,’ the people
immediately became unquiet, and resumed that debate, which ended not
till they had set up their ephors, and caused that magistracy to be
confirmed by their kings.” For when Theopompus first ordained that
the ephori or overseers should be created at Lacedaemon, to be such a
restraint upon the kings there as the tribunes were upon the consuls at
Rome, the Queen complained to him, that by this means he transmitted
the royal authority greatly diminished to his children: “I leave indeed
less,” answered he, “but more lasting.” And this was excellently said;
for that power only is safe which is limited from doing hurt. Theopompus
therefore, by confining the kingly power within the bounds of the laws,
did recommend it by so much to the people’s affection as he removed it
from being arbitrary.’ By which it may appear that a commonwealth for
preservation, if she comes to be unequal, is as obnoxious to enmity
between the Senate and the people as a commonwealth for increase; and
that the tranquillity of Lacedaemon was derived from no other cause than
her equality.
“For Venice, to say that she is quiet because she disarms her subjects,
is to forget that Lacedaemon disarmed her helots, and yet could not in
their regard be quiet; wherefore if Venice be defended from external
causes of commotion, it is first through her situation, in which respect
her subjects have no hope (and this indeed may be attributed to her
fortune); and, secondly, through her exquisite justice, whence they have
no will to invade her. But this can be attributed to no other cause than
her prudence, which will appear to be greater, as we look nearer; for
the effects that proceed from fortune, if there be any such thing, are
like their cause, inconstant. But there never happened to any other
commonwealth so undisturbed and constant a tranquillity and peace in
herself as are in that of Venice; wherefore this must proceed from some
other cause than chance. And we see that as she is of all others the
most quiet, so the most equal commonwealth. Her body consists of one
order, and her Senate is like a rolling stone, as was said, which never
did, nor, while it continues upon that rotation, never shall gather the
moss of a divided or ambitious interest, much less such a one as that
which grasped the people of Rome in the talons of their own eagles. And
if Machiavel, averse from doing this commonwealth right, had considered
her orders, as his reader shall easily perceive he never did, he must
have been so far from attributing the prudence of them to chance, that
he would have touched up his admirable work to that perfection which,
as to the civil part, has no pattern in the universal world but this of
Venice.
“Rome, secure by her potent and victorious arms from all external causes
of commotion, was either beholden for her peace at home to her enemies
abroad, or could never rest her head. My lords, you that are parents
of a commonwealth, and so freer agents than such as are merely natural,
have a care. For, as no man shall show me a commonwealth born straight
that ever became crooked, so no man shall show me a commonwealth born
crooked that ever became straight. Rome was crooked in her birth, or
rather prodigious. Her twins, the patrician and plebeian orders, came,
as was shown by the foregoing story, into the world, one body but two
heads, or rather two bellies; for, notwithstanding the fable out of
AEsop, whereby Menenius Agrippa, the orator that was sent from the
Senate to the people at Mount Aventin, showed the fathers to be the
belly, and the people to be the arms and the legs (which except that,
how slothful soever it might seem, they were nourished, not these only,
but the whole body must languish and be dissolved), it is plain that the
fathers were a distinct belly, such a one as took the meat indeed out of
the people’s mouths, but abhorring the agrarian, returned it not in
the due and necessary nutrition of a commonwealth. Nevertheless, as the
people that live about the cataracts of Nilus are said not to hear the
noise, so neither the Roman writers, nor Machiavel the most conversant
with them, seem among so many of the tribunitian storms to hear their
natural voice; for though they could not miss of it so far as to
attribute them to the strife of the people for participation in
magistracy, or, in which Machiavel more particularly joins, to that
about the agrarian, this was to take the business short, and the remedy
for the disease.
“A people, when they are reduced to misery and despair, become their
own politicians, as certain beasts, when they are sick, become their own
physicians, and are carried by a natural instinct to the desire of such
herbs as are their proper cure; but the people, for the greater part,
are beneath the beasts in the use of them. Thus the people of Rome,
though in their misery they had recourse by instinct, as it were, to the
two main fundamentals of a commonwealth, participation of magistracy and
the agrarian, did but taste and spit at them, not (which is necessary in
physic) drink down the potion, and in that their healths. For when they
had obtained participation of magistracy it was but lamely, not to a
full and equal rotation in all elections; nor did they greatly regard it
in what they had got. And when they had attained to the agrarian, they
neglected it so far as to suffer the law to grow obsolete; but if you do
not take the due dose of your medicines (as there be slight tastes which
a man may have of philosophy that incline to atheism) it may chance to
be poison, there being a like taste of the politics that inclines to
confusion, as appears in the institution of the Roman tribunes, by which
magistracy and no more the people were so far from attaining to peace,
that they in getting but so much, got but heads for an eternal feud;
whereas if they had attained in perfection either to the agrarian, they
had introduced the equality and calm of Lacedaemon, or to rotation, and
they had introduced that of Venice: and so there could have been no more
enmity between the Senate and the people of Rome than there was between
those orders in Lacedaemon, or is now in Venice. Wherefore Machiavel
seems to me, in attributing the peace of Venice more to her luck than
her prudence, of the whole stable to have saddled the wrong horse;
for though Rome in her military part could beat it better, beyond
all comparison, upon the sounding hoof, Venice for the civil part has
plainly had the wings of Pegasus.
“The whole question then will come upon this point, whether the people
of Rome could have obtained these orders? And first, to say that they
could not have obtained them without altering the commonwealth, is no
argument; seeing neither could they, without altering the commonwealth,
have obtained their tribunes, which nevertheless were obtained. And if
a man considers the posture that the people were in when they obtained
their tribunes, they might as well, and with as great ease (forasmuch
as the reason why the nobility yielded to the tribunes was no other
than that there was no remedy) have obtained anything else. And for
experience, it was in the like case that the Lacedaemonians did set up
their ephors, and the Athenians, after the battle of Plataea, bowed the
Senate (so hard a thing it is for a commonwealth that was born crooked
to become straight) as much the other way. Nor, if it be objected
that this must have ruined the nobility (and in that deprived the
commonwealth of the greatness which she acquired by them), is this
opinion holding, but confuted by the sequel of the story, showing
plainly that the nobility, through the defect of such orders (that is
to say, of rotation and the agrarian), came to eat up the people; and
battening themselves in luxury, to be, as Sallust speaks of them, ‘a
most sluggish and lazy nobility, in whom, besides the name, there was no
more than in a statue;’ and to bring so mighty a commonwealth, and of so
huge a glory, to so deplorable an end. Wherefore means might have been
found to remove the enmity that was between the Senate and the people of
Rome.
“My lords, if I have argued well, I have given you the comfort and
assurance that, notwithstanding the judgment of Machiavel, your
commonwealth is both safe and sound; but if I have not argued well, then
take the comfort and assurance which he gives you while he is firm, that
a legislator is to lay aside all other examples, and follow that of Rome
only, conniving and temporizing with the enmity between the Senate and
the people as a necessary step to the Roman greatness. Whence it follows
that your commonwealth, at the worst, is that which he has given you his
word is the best.
“I have held your lordships long, but upon an account of no small
importance, which I can now sum up in these few words: where there is a
liquorishness in a popular assembly to debate, it proceeds not from
the constitution of the people, but of the commonwealth. Now that your
commonwealth is of such a constitution as is naturally free from this
kind of intemperance, is that which, to make good, I must divide the
remainder of my discourse into two parts:
“The first, showing the several constitutions of the assemblies of the
people in other commonwealths;
“The second, comparing our assembly of the people with theirs; and
showing how it excludes the inconveniences and embraces the conveniences
of them all.
“In the beginning of the first part I must take notice, that among
the popular errors of our days it is no small one that men imagine the
ancient governments of this kind to have consisted for the most part
of one city that is, of one town; whereas by what we have learned of my
‘lords that owned them, it appears that there was not any considerable
one of such a Constitution but Carthage, till this in our days of
Venice.
“For to begin with Israel, it consisted of the twelve tribes, locally
spread or quartered throughout the whole territory, and these being
called together by trumpets, constituted the Church or assembly of
the people. The vastness of this weight, as also the slowness thence
unavoidable, became a great cause (as has been shown at large by my Lord
Phosphorus) of the breaking that commonwealth; notwithstanding that
the Temple, and those religious ceremonies for which the people were at
least annually obliged to repair thither, were no small ligament of the
tribes, otherwise but slightly tacked together.
“Athens consisted of four tribes, taking in the whole people, both of
the city and of the territory; not so gathered by Theseus into one
town, as to exclude the country, but to the end that there might be some
capital of the commonwealth: though true it be, that the congregation,
consisting of the inhabitants within the walls, was sufficient to all
intents and purposes, without those of the country. These also being
exceeding numerous, became burdensome to themselves and dangerous to
the commonwealth; the more for their ill-education, as is observed by
Xenophon and Polybius, who compare them to mariners that in a calm are
perpetually disputing and swaggering one with another, and never lay
their hands to the common tackling or safety till they be all endangered
by some storm. Which caused Thucydides, when he saw this people through
the purchase of their misery become so much wiser as to reduce their
Comitia or assemblies to 5,000, to say in his eighth book: ‘And now, at
least in my time, the Athenians seem to have ordered their State aright,
consisting of a moderate tempor both of the few (by which he means the
Senate of the Bean) and of the many,’ or the 5,000. And he does not only
give you his judgment, but the best proof of it; for ‘this,’ says he,
‘was the first thing that, after so many misfortunes past, made the city
again to raise her head.’ The place I would desire your lordships to
note, as the first example that I find, or think is to be found, of a
popular assembly by way of representative.
“Lacedaemon consisted of 30,000 citizens dispersed throughout Laconia,
one of the greatest provinces in all Greece, and divided, as by some
authors is probable, into six tribes. Of the whole body of these,
being gathered, consisted the great Church or assembly, which had the
legislative power; the little church, gathered sometimes for matters of
concern within the city, consisted of the Spartans only. These happened,
like that of Venice, to be good constitutions of a congregation, but
from an ill-cause the infirmity of a commonwealth, which through her
paucity was oligarchical.
“Wherefore, go which way you will, it should seem that without a
representative of the people, your commonwealth, consisting of a whole
nation, can never avoid falling either into oligarchy or confusion.
“This was seen by the Romans, whose rustic tribes, extending themselves
from the river Arno to the Vulturnus, that is, from Fesulae or Florence
to Capua, invented a way of representative by lots: the tribe upon which
the first fell being the prerogative, and some two or three more
that had the rest, the jure vocatoe. These gave the suffrage of the
commonwealth in two meetings; the prerogative at the first assembly, and
the jure vocatoe at a second.
“Now to make the parallel: all the inconveniences that you have observed
in these assemblies are shut out, and all the conveniences taken into
your prerogative. For first, it is that for which Athens, shaking
off the blame of Xenophon and Polybius, came to deserve the praise of
Thucydides, a representative. And, secondly, not, as I suspect in
that of Athens, and is past suspicion in this of Rome, by lot, but by
suffrage, as was also the late House of Commons, by which means in your
prerogatives all the tribes of Oceana are jure vocatoe; and if a man
shall except against the paucity of the standing number, it is a wheel,
which in the revolution of a few years turns every hand that is fit,
or fits every hand that it turns to the public work. Moreover, I am
deceived if, upon due consideration, it does not fetch your tribes, with
greater equality and ease to themselves and to the government, from the
frontiers of Marpesia, than Rome ever brought any one of hers out of her
pomoeria, or the nearest parts of her adjoining territories. To this you
may add, that whereas a commonwealth, which in regard of the people is
not of facility in execution, were sure enough in this nation to be
cast off through impatience; your musters and galaxies are given to the
people, as milk to babes, whereby when they are brought up through four
days’ election in a whole year (one at the parish, one at the hundred,
and two at the tribe) to their strongest meat, it is of no harder
digestion than to give their negative or affirmative as they see cause.
There be gallant men among us that laugh at such an appeal or umpire;
but I refer it whether you be more inclining to pardon them or me, who I
confess have been this day laughing at a sober man, but without meaning
him any harm, and that is Petrus Cunaeus, where speaking of the nature
of the people, he says, ‘that taking them apart, they are very simple,
but yet in their assemblies they see and know something, and so runs
away without troubling himself with what that something is. Whereas the
people, taken apart, are but so many private interests; but if you take
them together, they are the public interest.
“The public interest of a commonwealth, as has been shown, is nearest
that of mankind, and that of mankind is right reason; but with
aristocracy (whose reason or interest, when they are all together,
as appeared by the patricians, is but that of a party) it is quite
contrary: for as, taken apart, they are far wiser than the people
considered in that manner, so, being put together, they are such fools,
who by deposing the people, as did those of Rome, will saw off the
branch whereupon they sit, or rather destroy the root of their own
greatness. Wherefore Machiavel, following Aristotle, and yet going
before him, may well assert, ‘that the people are wiser and more
constant in their resolutions than a prince:’ which is the prerogative
of popular government for wisdom. And hence it is that the prerogative
of your commonwealth, as for wisdom so for power, is in the people,
which (though I am not ignorant that the Roman prerogative was so
called a proerogando, because their suffrage was first asked) gives the
denomination to your prerogative tribe.”
The elections, whether annual or triennial, being shown by the
twenty-second, that which comes in the next place to be considered is--
The twenty-third order, “Showing the power, function, and manner of
proceeding of the prerogative tribe.
“The power or function of the prerogative is of two parts: the one of
result, in which it is the legislative, power, the other of judicature,
in which regard it is the highest court, and the last appeal in this
commonwealth.
“For the former part (the people by this constitution being not obliged
by any law that is not of their own making or confirmation, by the
result of the prerogative, their equal representative) it shall not be
lawful for the Senate to require obedience from the people, nor for the
people to give obedience to the Senate in or by any law that has not
been promulgated, or printed and published for the space of six weeks,
and afterward proposed by the authority of the Senate to the prerogative
tribe, and resolved by the major vote of the same in the affirmative.
Nor shall the Senate have any power to levy war, men, or money,
otherwise than by the consent of the people so given, or by a law so
enacted, except in cases of exigence, in which it is agreed that the
power, both of the Senate and the people, shall be in the dictator
so qualified, and for such a term of time, as is according to that
constitution already prescribed. While a law is in promulgation, the
censors shall animadvert upon the Senate, and the tribunes upon the
people, that there be no laying of heads together, no conventicles or
canvassing to carry on or oppose anything; but that all may be done in a
free and open way.
“For the latter part of the power of the prerogative, or that whereby
they are the supreme judicatory of this nation, and of the provinces of
the same, the cognizances of crimes against the majesty of the people,
such as high treason, as also of peculation, that is, robbery of the
treasury, or defraudation of the commonwealth, appertains to this tribe.
And if any person or persons, provincials or citizens, shall appeal to
the people, it belongs to the prerogative to judge and determine the
case; provided that if the appeal be from any court of justice in this
nation or the provinces, the appellant shall first deposit £100 in the
court from which he appeals, to be forfeited to the same if he be cast
in his suit by the people. But the power of the Council of War being the
expedition of this commonwealth, and the martial law of the strategus
in the field, are those only from which there shall lie no appeal to the
people.
“The proceeding of the prerogative in case of a proposition is to be
thus ordered: The magistrates, proposing by authority of the Senate,
shall rehearse the whole matter, and expound it to the people; which
done, they shall put the whole together to the suffrage, with three
boxes, the negative, the affirmative, and the non-sincere; and the
suffrage being returned to the tribunes, and numbered in the presence
of the proposers. If the major vote be in the non-sincere, the proposer
shall desist, and the Senate shall resume the debate. If the major vote
be in the negative, the proposers shall desist, and the Senate, too. But
if the major vote be in the affirmative, then the tribe is clear and the
proposers shall begin and put the whole matter, with the negative
and the affirmative (leaving out the non-sincere) by clauses; and the
suffrages being taken and numbered by the tribunes in the presence of
the proposers, shall be written and reported by the tribunes of the
Senate. And that which is proposed by the authority of the Senate, and
confirmed by the command of the people, is the law of Oceana.
“The proceeding of the prerogative in a case of judicature is to be thus
ordered: The tribunes being auditors of all causes appertaining to
the cognizance of the people, shall have notice of the suit or trial,
whether of appeal or otherwise, that is to be commenced; and if any one
of them shall accept of the same, it appertains to him to introduce it.
A cause being introduced, and the people mustered or assembled for the
decision of the same, the tribunes are presidents of the court, having
power to keep it to orders, and shall be seated upon a scaffold erected
in the middle of the tribe. Upon the right hand shall stand a seat or
large pulpit assigned to the plaintiff or the accuser; and, upon the
left, another for the defendant, each if they please with his counsel.
And the tribunes (being attended upon such occasions with so many
ballotins, secretaries, doorkeepers, and messengers of the Senate as
shall be requisite) one of them shall turn up a glass of the nature
of an hour-glass, but such a one as is to be of an hour and a half’s
running; which being turned up, the party or counsel on the right hand
may begin to speak to the people. If there be papers to be read, or
witnesses to be examined, the officer shall lay the glass sideways
till the papers be read and the witnesses examined, and then turn it up
again; and so long as the glass is running, the party on the right hand
has liberty to speak, and no longer. The party on the right hand having
had his time, the like shall be done in every respect for the party on
the left. And the cause being thus heard, the tribunes shall put
the question to the tribe with a white, a black, and a red box (or
non-sincere), whether guilty or not guilty. And if the suffrage being
taken, the major vote be in the non-sincere, the cause shall be reheard
upon the next juridicial day following, and put to the question in the
same manner. If the major vote comes the second time in the non-sincere,
the cause shall be heard again upon the third day; but at the third
hearing the question shall be put without the non-sincere. Upon the
first of the three days in which the major vote comes in the white box,
the party accused is absolved; and upon the first of them in which
it comes in the black box, the party accused is condemned. The party
accused being condemned, the tribunes (if the case be criminal) shall
put with the white and the black box these questions, or such of them
as, regard had to the case, they shall conceive most proper:
1. Whether he shall have a writ of ease;
2. Whether he shall be fined so much or so much;
3. Whether he shall be confiscated;
4. Whether he shall be rendered incapable of magistracy;
5. Whether he shall be banished;
6. Whether he shall be put to death.
“These, or any three of these questions, whether simple or such as shall
be thought fitly mixed, being put by the tribunes, that which has most
above half the votes in the black box is the sentence of the people,
which the troop of the third class is to see executed accordingly.
“But whereas by the constitution of this commonwealth it may appear that
neither the propositions of the Senate nor the judicature of the people
will be so frequent as to hold the prerogative in continual employment,
the Senate, a main part of whose office it is to teach and instruct
the people, shall duly (if they have no greater affairs to divert
them) cause an oration to be made to the prerogative by some knight or
magistrate of the Senate, to be chosen out of the ablest men, and from
time to time appointed by the orator of the house, in the great hall of
the Pantheon, while the Parliament resides in the town, or in some grove
or sweet place in the field, while the Parliament for the heat of
the year shall reside in the country, upon every Tuesday, morning or
afternoon.
“And the orator appointed for the time to this office shall first repeat
the orders of the commonwealth with all possible brevity; and then,
making choice of one or some part of it, discourse thereof to the
people. An oration or discourse of this nature, being afterward
perused by the Council of State, may as they see cause be printed and
published.”
The Archon’s comment upon the order I find to have been of this sense:
“MY LORDS:
“To crave pardon for a word or two in further explanation of what
was read, I shall briefly show how the constitution of this tribe or
assembly answers to their function; and how their function, which is of
two parts, the former in the result or legislative power, the latter
in the supreme judicature of the commonwealth, answers to their
constitution. Machiavel has a discourse, where he puts the question,
‘Whether the guard of liberty may with more security be committed to the
nobility or to the people?’ Which doubt of his arises through the want
of explaining his terms; for the guard of liberty can signify nothing
else but the result of the commonwealth; so that to say that the guard
of liberty may be committed to the nobility, is to say that the result
may be committed to the Senate, in which case the people signify
nothing.
“Now to show it was a mistake to affirm it to have been thus in
Lacedaemon, sufficient has been spoken; and whereas he will have it
to be so in Venice also: ‘They,’ says Contarini, ‘in whom resides the
supreme power of the whole commonwealth, and of the laws, and upon whose
orders depends the authority as well of the Senate as of all the other
magistrates, is the Great Council.’ It is institutively in the Great
Council, by the judgment of all that know that commonwealth; though, for
the reasons shown, it be sometimes exercised by the Senate. Nor need
I run over the commonwealths in this place for the proof of a thing so
doubtless, and such as has been already made so apparent, as that the
result of each was in the popular part of it. The popular part of yours,
or the prerogative tribe, consists of seven deputies (whereof three are
of the horse) annually elected out of every tribe of Oceana; which being
fifty, amounts to 150 horse and 200 foot. And the prerogative consisting
of three of these lists, consists of 450 horse and 600 foot, besides
those of the provinces to be hereafter mentioned; by which means the
overbalance in the suffrage remaining to the foot by 150 votes, you have
to the support of a true and natural aristocracy the deepest root of a
democracy that has been ever planted.
“Wherefore there is nothing in art or nature better qualified for the
result than this assembly it is noted out of Cicero by Machiavel, ‘That
the people, though they are not so prone to find out truth of themselves
as to follow custom or run into error yet if they be shown truth, they
not only acknowledge and embrace it very suddenly, but are the most
constant and faithful guardians and conservators of it.’ it is your
duty and office, whereto you are also qualified by the orders of this
commonwealth, to have the people as you have your hawks and greyhounds,
in leashes and slips, to range the fields and beat the bushes for them,
for they are of a nature that is never good at this sport, but when you
spring or start their proper quarry. Think not that they will stand to
ask you what it is, or less know it than your hawks and greyhounds do
theirs; but presently make such a flight or course, that a huntsman may
as well undertake to run with his dogs, or a falconer to fly with his
hawk, as an aristocracy at this game to compare with the people. The
people of Rome were possessed of no less a prey than the empire of the
world, when the nobility turned tails, and perched among daws upon the
tower of monarchy. For though they did not all of them intend the thing,
they would none of them endure the remedy, which was the agrarian.
“But the prerogative tribe has not only the result, but is the supreme
judicature, and the ultimate appeal in this commonwealth. For the
popular government that makes account to be of any standing, must make
sure in the first place of the appeal to the people. As an estate in
trust becomes a man’s own if he be not answerable for it, so the
power of a magistracy not accountable to the people, from whom it was
received, becoming of private use, the commonwealth loses her liberty
Wherefore the right of supreme judicature in the people (Without which
there can be no such thing as popular government) is confirmed by the
constant practice of all commonwealths; as that of Israel in the cases
of Achan, and of the tribe of Benjamin, adjudged by the congregation.
“The dicasterian, or court called the heliaia in Athens, which (the
comitia of that commonwealth consisting of the whole people, and so
being too numerous to be a judicatory) was constituted sometimes of
500, at others of 1,000, or, according to the greatness of the cause, of
1,500, elected by the lot out of the whole body of the people, had, with
the nine Archons that were presidents, the cognizance of such causes as
were of highest importance in that State. The five ephors in Lacedaemon,
which were popular magistrates, might question their kings, as appears
by the cases of Pausanias, and of Agis, who being upon his trial in this
court, was cried to by his mother to appeal to the people, as Plutarch
has it in his life. The tribunes of the people of Rome (like, in the
nature of their magistracy, and for some time in number, to the ephors,
as being, according to Halicarnassus and Plutarch, instituted in
imitation of them) had power to summon any man, his magistracy at least
being expired (for from the Dictator there lay no appeal) to answer for
himself to the people. As in the case of Coriolanus, who was going
about to force the people, by withholding corn from them in a famine,
to relinquish the magistracy of the tribunes, in that of Spurius Cassius
for affecting tyranny, of Marcus Sergius for running away at Veii, of
Caius Lucretius for spoiling his province, of Junius Silanus for making
war without a command from the people against the Cimbri, with divers
others. And the crimes of this nature were called loesoe majestatis,
or high treason. Examples of such as were arraigned or tried for
peculation, or defraudation of the commonwealth, were Marcus Curius
for intercepting the money of the Samnites, Salinator for the unequal
division of spoils to his soldiers, Marcus Posthumius for cheating the
commonwealth by a feigned shipwreck. Causes of these two kinds were of
a more public nature; but the like power upon appeals was also exercised
by the people in private matters, even during the time of the kings, as
in the case of Horatius. Nor is it otherwise with Venice, where the
Doge Loredano was sentenced by the great Council, and Antonio Grimani,
afterward doge, questioned, for that he, being admiral, had suffered the
Turk to take Lepanto in view of his fleet.
“Nevertheless, there lay no appeal from the Roman dictator to the
people; which, if there had, might have cost the commonwealth dear,
when Spurius Melius, affecting empire, circumvented and debauched the
tribunes: whereupon Titus Quintus Cincinnatus was created Dictator, who
having chosen Servilius Ahala to be his lieutenant, or magister equitum,
sent him to apprehend Melius, whom, while he disputed the commands of
the Dictator and implored the aid of the people, Ahala cut off upon
the place. By which example you may see in what cases the dictator may
prevent the blow which is ready sometimes to fall ere the people be
aware of the danger. Wherefore there lies no appeal from the Dieci,
or the Council of Ten, in Venice, to the Great Council, nor from our
Council of War to the people. For the way of proceeding of this tribe,
or the ballot, it is, as was once said for all, Venetian.
“This discourse of judicatories whereupon we are fallen, brings us
rather naturally than of design from the two general orders of every
commonwealth, that is to say, from the debating part, or the Senate, and
the resolving part, or the people, to the third, which is the executive
part or the magistracy, whereupon I shall have no need to dwell, for the
executive magistrates of this commonwealth are the strategus in arms;
the signory in their several courts, as the chancery, the exchequer; as
also the councils in divers cases within their instructions; the censors
as well in their proper magistracy, as in the Council of Religion; the
tribunes in the government of the prerogative, and that judicatory; and
the judges with their courts; of all which so much is already said or
known as may suffice.
“The Tuesday lectures or orations to the people will be of great benefit
to the Senate, the prerogative, and the whole nation. To the Senate,
because they will not only teach your Senators elocution, but keep the
system of the government in their memories. Elocution is of great use to
your Senators, for if they do not understand rhetoric (giving it at this
time for granted that the art were not otherwise good) and come to treat
with, or vindicate the cause of the commonwealth against some other
nation that is good at it, the advantage will be subject to remain upon
the merit of the art, and not upon the merit of the cause. Furthermore,
the genius or soul of this government being in the whole and in
every part, they will never be of ability in determination upon any
particular, unless at the same time they have an idea of the whole.
That this therefore must be, in that regard, of equal benefit to the
prerogative, is plain; though these have a greater concernment in it.
For this commonwealth is the estate of the people; and a man, you know,
though he be virtuous, yet if he does not understand his estate, may run
out or be cheated of it. Last of all, the treasures of the politics will
by this means be so opened, rifled, and dispersed, that this nation
will as soon dote, like the Indians, upon glass beads, as disturb your
government with whimsies and freaks of mother-wit, or suffer themselves
to be stuttered out of their liberties. There is not any reason why
your grandees, your wise men of this age, that laugh out and openly at
a commonwealth as the most ridiculous thing, do not appear to be, as in
this regard they are, mere idiots, but that the people have not eyes.”
There remains no more relating to the Senate and the people than--
The twenty-fourth order, “Whereby it is lawful for the province of
Marpesia to have thirty knights of their own election continually
present in the Senate of Oceana, together with sixty deputies of horse,
and 120 of foot in the prerogative tribe, endued with equal power
(respect had to their quality and number) in the debate and result of
this commonwealth, provided that they observe the course or rotation
of the same by the annual return of ten knights, twenty deputies of the
horse, and forty of the foot. The like in all respects is lawful for
Panopea; and the horse of both the provinces amounting to one troop, and
the foot to one company, one captain and one cornet of the horse shall
be annually chosen by Marpesia, and one captain and one ensign of the
foot shall be annually chosen by Panopea.”
The orb of the prerogative being thus complete, is not unnaturally
compared to that of the moon, either in consideration of the light
borrowed from the Senate, as from the sun; or of the ebbs and floods
of the people, which are marked by the negative or affirmative of this
tribe. And the constitution of the Senate and the people being shown,
you have that of the Parliament of Oceana, consisting of the Senate
proposing, and of the people resolving, which amounts to an act of
Parliament. So the Parliament is the heart, which, consisting of two
ventricles, the one greater and replenished with a grosser matter, the
other less and full of a purer, sucks in and spouts forth the vital
blood of Oceana by a perpetual circulation. Wherefore the life of
this government is no more unnatural or obnoxious upon this score to
dissolution than that of a man; nor to giddiness than the world; seeing
the earth, whether it be itself or the heavens that are in rotation, is
so far from being giddy, that it could not subsist without motion. But
why should not this government be much rather capable of duration
and steadiness by motion? Than which God has ordained no other to the
universal commonwealth of mankind: seeing one generation comes and
another goes, but the earth remains firm forever, that is, in her proper
situation or place, whether she be moved or not moved upon her proper
centre. The Senate, the people, and the magistracy, or the Parliament so
constituted, as you have seen, is the guardian of this commonwealth, and
the husband of such a wife as is elegantly described by Solomon: “She is
like the merchant’s ships; she brings her food from far. She considers
a field, and buys it: with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She perceives that her merchandise is good. She stretches forth her
hands to the poor. She is not afraid of the snow for her household; for
all her household are clothed with scarlet. She makes herself coverings
of tapestry, her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known (by
his robes) in the gates, when he sits among the senators of the land.”
The gates, or inferior courts, were branches, as it were, of the
Sanhedrim, or Senate, of Israel. Nor is our commonwealth a worse
housewife, nor has she less regard to her magistrates; as may pear by--
The twenty-fifth order, “That, whereas the public revenue is through the
late civil wars dilapidated, the excise, being improved or improvable to
the revenue of £1,000,000, be applied, for the space of eleven years to
come, to the reparation of the same, and for the present maintenance of
the magistrates, knights, deputies, and other officers, who, according
to their several dignities and functions, shall annually receive toward
the support of the same, as follows:
“The lord strategus marching, is, upon another account, to have
field-pay as general.
Per Annum
The lord strategus sitting...... £2,000
The lord orator...... 2,000
The three commissioners of the seal... 4,500
The three commissioners of the treasury... 4,500
The two censors.... 3,000
The 290 knights, at £500 a man..... 145,000
The four ambassadors-in-ordinary.... 12,000
The Council of War for intelligence.... 3,000
The master of the ceremonies..... 500
The master of the horse...... 500
His substitute..... 150
The twelve ballotins for their winter liveries 240
For summer liveries... 120
For their board-wages...... 480
For the keeping of three coaches of state,
twenty-four coach-horses, with coachmen
and postilions.......... 1,500
For the grooms, and keeping of sixteen
great horses for the master of the
horse, and for the ballotins whom he
is to govern and instruct in the art
of riding.......... 480
The twenty secretaries of the Parliament... 2,000
The twenty doorkeepers, who are to attend
with pole-axes,
For their coats....... 200
For their board-wages.... 1,000
The twenty messengers, which are trumpeters,
For their coats.... 200
For their board-wages..... 1,000
For ornament of the masters of the youth... 5,000
Sum £189,370
“Out of the personal estates of every man, who at his death bequeaths
not above forty shillings to the muster of that hundred wherein it lies,
shall be levied one per cent. till the solid revenue of the muster of
the hundred amounts to £50 per annum for the prizes of the youth.
“The twelve ballotins are to be divided into three regions, according to
the course of the Senate; the four of the first region to be elected at
the tropic out of such children as the knights of the same shall offer,
not being under eleven years of age, nor above thirteen. And their
election shall be made by the lot at an urn set by the sergeant of the
house for that purpose in the hall of the Pantheon. The livery of the
commonwealth for the fashion or the color may be changed at the election
of the strategus according to his fancy. But every knight during his
session shall be bound to give to his footman, or some one of his
footmen, the livery of the commonwealth.
“The prerogative tribe shall receive as follows:
By the week
The two tribunes of the horse..... £14 0
The two tribunes of the foot..... 12 0
The three captains of the horse..... 15 0
The three cornets..... 9 0
The three captains of the foot.... 12 0
The three ensigns........ 7 0
The 442 horse, at £2 a man..... 884 0
The 592 foot, at £1 10s a man.... 888 0
The six trumpeters..... 7 10
The three drummers........... 2 5
Sum by the week................ £1,850 15
Sum by the year............. £96,239 0
The total of the Senate, the people,
and the magistracy.................... £287,459 15
“The dignity of the commonwealth, and aids of the several magistracies
and offices thereto belonging, bring provided for as aforesaid, the
overplus of the excise, with the product of the sum rising, shall be
carefully managed by the Senate and the people through the diligence of
the officers of the Exchequer, till it amount to £8,000,000, or to the
purchase of about £400,000 solid revenue. At which time, the term of
eleven years being expired, the excise, except it be otherwise ordered
by the Senate and the people, shall be totally remitted and abolished
forever.”
At this institution the taxes, as will better appear in the Corollary,
were abated about one-half, which made the order, when it came to be
tasted, to be of good relish with the people in the very beginning;
though the advantages then were no ways comparable to the consequences
to be hereafter shown. Nevertheless, my Lord Epimonus, who with much ado
had been held till now, found it midsummer moon, and broke out of bedlam
in this manner.
“MY LORD ARCHON:
“I have a singing in my head like that of a cart-wheel, my brains are
upon a rotation; and some are so merry, that a man cannot speak his
griefs, but if your high-shod prerogative, and those same slouching
fellows your tribunes, do not take my lord strategus’s and my lord
orator’s heads, and jolt them together under the canopy, then let me be
ridiculous to all posterity. For here is a commonwealth, to which if a
man should take that of the ‘prentices in their ancient administration
of justice at Shrovetide, it were an aristocracy. You have set the very
rabble with truncheons in their hands, and the gentry of this nation,
like cocks with scarlet gills, and the golden combs of their salaries to
boot, lest they should not be thrown at.
“Not a night can I sleep for some horrid apparition or other; one while
these myrmidons are measuring silks by their quarterstaves, another
stuffing their greasy pouches with my lord high treasurer’s jacobuses.
For they are above 1,000 in arms to 300, which, their gowns being pulled
over their ears, are but in their doublets and hose. But what do I speak
of 1,000? There be 2,000 in every tribe, that is, 100,000 in the whole
nation, not only in the posture of an army, but in a civil capacity
sufficient to give us what laws they please. Now everybody knows that
the lower sort of people regard nothing but money; and you say it is
the duty of a legislator to presume all men to be wicked: wherefore they
must fall upon the richer, as they are an army; or, lest their minds
should misgive them in such a villany, you have given them encouragement
that they have a nearer way, seeing it may be done every whit as well as
by the overbalancing power which they have in elections. There is a fair
which is annually kept in the centre of these territories at Kiberton,
a town famous for ale, and frequented by good fellows; where there is a
solemnity of the pipers and fiddlers of this nation (I know not whether
Lacedaemon, where the Senate kept account of the stops of the flutes and
of the fiddle-strings of that commonwealth, bad any such custom) called
the bull-running, and he that catches and holds the bull, is the annual
and supreme magistrate of that comitia or congregation, called king
piper, without whose license it is not lawful for any of those citizens
to enjoy the liberty of his calling; nor is he otherwise legitimately
qualified (or civitate donatus) to lead apes or bears in any
perambulation of the same. Mine host of the Bear, in Kiberton, the
father of ale, and patron of good football and cudgel players, has any
time since I can remember been grand-chancellor of this order.
“Now, say I, seeing great things arise from small beginnings, what
should hinder the people, prone to their own advantage and loving money,
from having intelligence conveyed to them by this same king piper and
his chancellor, with their loyal subjects the minstrels and bear-wards,
masters of ceremonies, to which there is great recourse in their
respective perambulations, and which they will commission and instruct,
with directions to all the tribes, willing and commanding them, that
as they wish their own good, they choose no other into the next primum
mobile but of the ablest cudgel and football players? Which done as
soon as said, your primum mobile, consisting of no other stuff, must of
necessity be drawn forth into your nebulones and your galimofries; and
so the silken purses of your Senate and prerogative being made of sows’
ears, most of them blacksmiths, they will strike while the iron is
hot, and beat your estates into hob-nails, mine host of the Bear being
strategus, and king piper lord orator. Well, my lords, it might have
been otherwise expressed, but this is well enough a-conscience. In your
way, the wit of man shall not prevent this or the like inconvenience;
but if this (for I have conferred with artists) be a mathematical
demonstration, I could kneel to you, that ere it be too late we might
return to some kind of sobriety. If we empty our purses with these
pomps, salaries, coaches, lackeys, and pages, what can the people say
less than that we have dressed a Senate and a prerogative for nothing
but to go to the park with the ladies?”
My Lord Archon, whose meekness resembled that of Moses, vouchsafed this
answer:
“My LORDS:
“For all this, I can see my Lord Epimonus every night in the park, and
with ladies; nor do I blame this in a young man, or the respect which is
and ought to be given to a sex that is one-half of the commonwealth of
mankind, and without which the other would be none: but our magistrates,
I doubt, may be somewhat of the oldest to perform this part with much
acceptation; and, as the Italian proverb says, ‘Servire e non gradire
e cosa da far morire.’ Wherefore we will lay no certain obligation upon
them in this point, but leave them, if it please you, to their own fate
or discretion. But this (for I know my Lord Epimonus loves me, though
I can never get his esteem) I will say, if he had a mistress should use
him so, he would find it a sad life; or I appeal to your lordships, how
I can resent it from such a friend, that he puts king piper’s politics
in the balance with mine. King piper, I deny not, may teach his bears to
dance, but they have the worst ear of all creatures. Now how he
should make them keep time in fifty several tribes, and that two years
together, for else it will be to no purpose, may be a small matter with
my lord to promise; but it seems to me of impossible performance. First,
through the nature of the bean; and, secondly, through that of the
ballot; or how what he has hitherto thought so hard, is now come to be
easy; but he may think that for expedition they will eat up these balls
like apples.
“However, there is so much more in their way by the constitution of
this, than is to be found in that of any other commonwealth, that I am
reconciled, it now appearing plainly that the points of my lord’s
arrows are directed at no other white than to show the excellency of our
government above others; which, as he proceeds further, is yet plainer;
while he makes it appear that there can be no other elected by the
people but smiths:
“‘Brontesque Steropesque et nudus membra Pyracmon:’
“Othoniel, Aod, Gideon, Jephtha, Samson, as in Israel; Miltiades,
Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, Pericles, as in Athens; Papyrius,
Cincinnatus, Camillus, Fabius Scipio, as in Rome: smiths of the fortune
of the commonwealth; not such as forged hob-nails, but thunderbolts.
Popular elections are of that kind, that all of the rest of the world
is not able, either in number or glory, to equal those of these three
commonwealths. These indeed were the ablest cudgel and football players;
bright arms were their cudgels, and the world was the ball that lay
at their feet. Wherefore we are not so to understand the maxim of
legislators, which holds all men to be wicked, as if it related to
mankind or a commonwealth, the interests whereof are the only straight
lines they have whereby to reform the crooked; but as it relates to
every man or party, under what color soever he or they pretend to be
trusted apart, with or by the whole. Hence then it is derived, which is
made good in all experience, that the aristocracy is ravenous, and not
the people. Your highwaymen are not such as have trades, or have been
brought up to industry; but such commonly whose education has pretended
to that of gentlemen. My lord is so honest, he does not know the maxims
that are of absolute necessity to the arts of wickedness; for it is
most certain, if there be not more purses than thieves, that the thieves
themselves must be forced to turn honest, because they cannot thrive
by their trade; but now if the people should turn thieves, who sees not
that there would be more thieves than purses? wherefore that a whole
people should turn robbers or levellers, is as impossible in the end as
in the means.
“But that I do not think your artist which you mentioned, whether
astronomer or arithmetician, can tell me how many barley-corns would
reach to the sun, I could be content he were called to the account, with
which I shall conclude this point: when by the way I have chid my lords
the legislators, who, as if they doubted my tackling could not hold,
would leave me to flag in a perpetual calm, but for my Lord Epimonus,
who breathes now and then into my sails and stirs the waters. A ship
makes not her way so briskly as when she is handsomely brushed by the
waves, and tumbles over those that seem to tumble against her; in which
case I have perceived in the dark that light has been struck even out of
the sea, as in this place, where my Lord Epimonus feigning to give us
a demonstration of one thing, has given it of another, and of a better.
For the people of this nation, if they amount in each tribe to 2,000
elders and 2,000 youths upon the annual roll, holding a fifth to
the whole tribe, then the whole of a tribe, not accounting women and
children, must amount to 20,000; and so the whole of all the tribes,
being fifty, to 1,000,000.
“Now you have 10,000 parishes, and reckoning these one with another,
each at £1,000 a year dry-rent, the rent or revenue of the nation, as it
is or might be let to farm, amounts to £10,000,000; and £10,000,000 in
revenue divided equally to 1,000,000 of men, comes but to £10 a year to
each wherewith to maintain himself, his wife and children. But he that
has a cow upon the common, and earns his shilling by the day at his
labor, has twice as much already as this would come to for his share;
because if the land were thus divided, there would be nobody to set him
on work. So my Lord Epimonus’s footman, who costs him thrice as much as
one of these could thus get, would certainly lose by his bargain. What
should we speak of those innumerable trades whereupon men live, not only
better than others upon good shares of lands, but become also purchasers
of greater estates? Is not this the demonstration which my lord meant,
that the revenue of industry in a nation, at least in this, is three
or four-fold greater than that of the mere rent? If the people then
obstruct industry, they obstruct their own livelihood; but if they
make a war, they obstruct industry. Take the bread out of the people’s
mouths, as did the Roman patricians, and you are sure enough of a war,
in which case they may be levellers; but our agrarian causes their
industry to flow with milk and honey. It will be owned that this is
true, if the people were given to understand their own happiness; but
where is it they do that? Let me reply with the like question, where
do they not? They do not know their happiness it should seem in France,
Spain, and Italy; but teach them what it is, and try whose sense is the
truer.
“As to the late wars in Germany, it has been affirmed to me there, that
the princes could never make the people to take arms while they had
bread, and have therefore suffered countries now and then to be wasted
that they might get soldiers. This you will find to be the certain pulse
and temper of the people; and if they have been already proved to be the
most wise and constant order of a government, why should we think
(when no man can produce one example of the common soldiery in an army
mutinying because they had not captains’ pay) that the prerogative
should jolt the heads of the Senate together because these have the
better salaries, when it must be as evident to the people in a nation,
as to the soldiery in an army, that it is no more possible their
emoluments of this kind should be afforded by any commonwealth in the
world to be made equal with those of the Senate, than that the common
soldiers should be equal with the captains? It is enough for the common
soldier that his virtue may bring him to be a captain, and more to the
prerogative, that each of them is nearer to be a senator.
“If my lord thinks our salaries too great, and that the commonwealth is
not housewife enough, whether is it better housewifery that she should
keep her family from the snow, or suffer them to burn her house that
they may warm themselves? for one of these must be. Do you think that
she came off at a cheaper rate when men had their rewards by £1,000 or
£2,000 a year in land if inheritance? if you say that they will be
more godly than they have been, it may be ill taken; and if you cannot
promise that, it is time we find out some way of stinting at least, if
not curing them of that same sacra fames. On the other side, if a poor
man (as such a one may save a city) gives his sweat to the public, with
what conscience can you suffer his family in the meantime to starve?
but he that lays his hand to this plough shall not lose by taking it
off from his own, and a commonwealth that will mend this shall be
penny-wise. The Sanhedrim of Israel, being the supreme, and a constant
court of judicature, could not choose but be exceeding gainful. The
Senate of the Bean in Athens, because it was but annual, was moderately
salaried; but that of the Areopagites, being for life, bountifully; and
what advantages the senators of Lacedaemon had, where there was little
money or use of it, were in honors for life. The patricians having no
profit, took all. Venice being a situation where a man goes but to the
door for his employment, the honor is great and the reward very little;
but in Holland a councillor of state has £1,500 Flemish a year,
besides other accommodations. The States-General have more. And that
commonwealth looks nearer her penny than ours needs to do.
“For the revenue of this nation, besides that of her industry,
it--amounts, as has been shown, to £10,000,000; and the salaries in
the whole come not to £300,000 a year. The beauty they will add to the
commonwealth will be exceeding great, and the people will delight in
this beauty of their commonwealth; the encouragement they will give to
the study of the public being very progitable, the accommodation they
will afford to your magistrates very honorable and easy. And the sum,
when it or twice as much was spent in bunting and housekeeping, was
never any grievance to the people. I am ashamed to stand huckling upon
this point; it is sordid. Your magistrates are rather to be provided
with further accommodations. For what if there should be sickness?
whither will you have them to remove? And this city in the soundest
times, for the heat of the year, is no wholesome abode: have a care of
their healths to whom you commit your own. I would have the Senate and
the people, except they see cause to the contrary, every first of June
to remove into the country air for the space of three months. You are
better fitted with summer-houses for them than if you had built them to
that purpose.
“There is some twelve miles distant the convallium upon the river
Halcionia, for the tribunes and the prerogative, a palace capable of
1,000 men; and twenty miles distant you have Mount Celia, reverend as
well for the antiquity as state of a castle completely capable of
the Senate, the proposers having lodgings in the convallium, and the
tribunes in Celia, it holds the correspondency between the Senate and
the people exactly And it is a small matter for the proposers,
being attended with the coaches and officers of state, besides other
conveniences of their own, to go a matter of five or ten miles (those
seats are not much farther distant) to meet the people upon any heath or
field that shall be appointed: where, having despatched their business,
they may hunt their own venison (for I would have the great walled
park upon the Halcionia to belong to the signory, and those about the
convallium to the tribunes) and so go to supper. Pray, my lords, see
that they do not pull down these houses to sell the lead of them; for
when--you have considered on it, they cannot be spared. The founders of
the school in Hiera provided that the boys should have a summer seat.
You should have as much care of these magistrates. But there is such a
selling, such a Jewish humor in our republicans, that I cannot tell
what to say to it; only this, any man that knows what belongs to a
commonwealth, or how diligent every nation in that case has been to
preserve her ornaments, and shall see the waste lately made (the woods
adjoining to this city, which served for the delight and health of it,
being cut down to be sold for threepence), will you tell that they who
did such things would never have made a commonwealth. The like may be
said of the ruin or damage done upon our cathedrals, ornaments in which
this nation excels all others. Nor shall this ever be excused upon the
score of religion; for though it be true that God dwells not in houses
made with hands, yet you cannot hold your assemblies but in such houses,
and these are of the best that have been made with hands. Nor is it well
argued that they are pompous, and therefore profane, or less proper for
divine service, seeing the Christians in the primitive Church chose
to meet with one accord in the Temple, so far were they from any
inclination to pull it down.”
The orders of this commonwealth, so far, or near so far as they concern
the elders, together with the several speeches at the institution, which
may serve for the better understanding of them as so many commentaries,
being shown, I should now come from the elders to the youth, or from the
civil constitution of this government to the military, but that I judge
this the fittest place whereinto, by the way, to insert the government
of the city though for the present but perfunctorily.
“‘The metropolis or capital city of Oceana is commonly called Emporium,
though it consists of two cities distinct, as well in name as in
government, whereof the other is called Hiera, for which cause I shall
treat of each apart, beginning with Emporium.
“Emporium, with the liberties, is under a twofold division, the one
regarding the national, and the other the urban or city government. It
is divided, in regard of the national government, into three tribes, and
in respect of the urban into twenty six, which for distinction’s sake
are called wards, being contained under three tribes but unequally;
wherefore the first tribe containing ten wards is called scazon, the
second containing eight metoche, and the third containing as many
telicouta, the bearing of which names in mind concerns the better
understanding of the government.
“Every ward has her wardmote, court, or inquest, consisting of all that
are of the clothing or liveries of companies residing within the same.
“Such are of the livery or clothing as have attained to the dignity to
wear gowns and parti-colored hoods or tippets, according to the rules
and ancient customs of their respective companies.
“A company is a brotherhood of tradesmen professing the same art,
governed according to their charter by a master and wardens. Of these
there be about sixty, whereof twelve are of greater dignity than the
rest, that is to say, the mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers,
goldsmiths, skinners, merchant-tailors, haberdashers, salters,
ironmongers, vintners, clothworkers, which, with most of the rest, have
common halls, divers of them being of ancient and magnificent structure,
wherein they have frequent meetings, at the summons of their master or
wardens, for the managing and regulation of their respective trades and
mysteries. These companies, as I shall show, are the roots of the whole
government of the city. For the liveries that reside in the same ward,
meeting at the wardmote inquest (to which it belongs to take cognizance
of all sorts of nuisances and violations of the customs and orders of
the city, and to present them to the court of aldermen), have also power
to make election of two sorts of magistrates or officers; the first
of elders or aldermen of the ward, the second of deputies of the same,
otherwise called common councilmen.
“The wards in these elections, because they do not elect all at once,
but some one year and some another, observe the distinction of the three
tribes; for example, the scazon, consisting of ten wards, makes election
the first year of ten aldermen, one in each ward, and of 150 deputies,
fifteen in each ward, all which are triennial magistrates or officers,
that is to say, are to bear their dignity for the space of three years.
“The second year the metoche, consisting of eight wards, elects eight
aldermen, one in each ward, and 120 deputies, fifteen in each ward,
being also triennial magistrates.
“The third year telicouta, consisting of a like number of wards, elects
an equal number of like magistrates for a like term. So that the whole
number of the aldermen, according to that of the wards, amounts to
twenty-six; and the whole number of the deputies, to 390.
“The aldermen thus elected have divers capacities; for, first, they
are justices of the peace for the term, and in consequence of their
election. Secondly, they are presidents of the wardmote and governors
each of that ward whereby he was elected. And last of all, these
magistrates being assembled together, constitute the Senate of the city,
otherwise called the court of aldermen; but no man is capable of this
election that is not worth £10,000. This court upon every new election
makes choice of nine censors out of their own number.
“The deputies in like manner being assembled together, constitute the
prerogative tribe of the city, otherwise called the common council, by
which means the Senate and the people of the city were comprehended, as
it were, by the motion of the national government, into the same wheel
of annual, triennial, and perpetual revolution.
“But the liveries, over and above the right of these elections by their
divisions mentioned, being assembled all together at the guild of the
city, constitute another assembly called the common hall.
“The common hall has the right of two other elections; the one of the
lord mayor, and the other of the two sheriffs, being annual magistrates.
The lord mayor can be elected out of no other than one of the twelve
companies of the first ranks; and the common hall agrees by the
plurality of suffrages upon two names, which, being presented to the
lord mayor for the time being, and the court of the aldermen, they elect
one by their scrutiny. For so they call it, though it differs from
that of the commonwealth. The orator or assistant to the lord mayor
in holding of his courts, is some able lawyer elected by the court of
aldermen, and called the recorder of Emporium.
“The lord mayor being thus elected, has two capacities: one regarding
the nation, and the other the city. In that which regards the city,
he is president of the court of aldermen, having power to assemble the
same, or any other council of the city, as the common council or common
hall, at his will and pleasure; and in that which regards the nation, he
is commander-in-chief of the three tribes whereinto the city is divided;
one of which he is to bring up in person at the national muster to the
ballot, as his vice-comites, or high sheriffs, are to do by the other
two, each at their distinct pavilion, where the nine aldermen, elected
censors, are to officiate by three in each tribe, according to the rules
and orders already given to the censors of the rustic tribes. And the
tribes of the city have no other than one common phylarch, which is the
court of aldermen and the common council, for which cause they elect not
at their muster the first list called the prime magnitude.
“The conveniences of this alteration of the city government, besides the
bent of it to a conformity with that of the nation, were many, whereof
I shall mention but a few: as first, whereas men under the former
administration, when the burden of some of these magistracies lay
for life, were oftentimes chosen not for their fitness, but rather
unfitness, or at least unwillingness to undergo such a weight, whereby
they were put at great rates to fine for their ease; a man might now
take his share in magistracy with that equity which is due to the
public, and without any inconvenience to his private affairs. Secondly,
whereas the city (inasmuch as the acts of the aristocracy, or court of
aldermen, in their former way of proceeding, were rather impositions
than propositions) was frequently disquieted with the inevitable
consequence of disorder in the power of debate exercised by the
popular part, or common council; the right of debate being henceforth
established in the court of aldermen, and that of result in the common
council, killed the branches of division in the root. Which for the
present may suffice to have been said of the city of Emporium.
“That of Hiera consists as to the national government of two tribes, the
first called agoroea, the second propola; but as to the peculiar policy
of twelve manipuls, or wards divided into three cohorts, each cohort
containing four wards, whereof the wards of the first cohort elect for
the first year four burgesses, one in each ward, the wards of the second
cohort for the second year four burgesses, one in each ward, and the
wards of the third cohort for the third year four burgesses, one in each
ward, all triennial magistrates; by which the twelve burgesses,
making one court for the government of this city according to their
instructions by act of Parliament, fall likewise into an annual,
triennial, and perpetual revolution.
“This court being thus constituted, makes election of divers
magistrates; as first, of a high steward, who is commonly some person of
quality, and this magistracy is elected in the Senate by the scrutiny of
this court; with him they choose some able lawyer to be his deputy, and
to hold the court; and last of all they elect out of their own number
six censors.
“The high steward is commander-in-chief of the two tribes, whereof he in
person brings up the one at the national muster to the ballot, and his
deputy the other at a distinct pavilion; the six censors chosen by the
court officiating by three in each tribe at the urns; and these tribes
have no other phylarch but this court.
“As for the manner of elections and suffrage, both in Emporium and
Hiera, it may be said, once for all, that they are performed by ballot,
and according to the respective rules already given.
“There be other cities and corporations throughout the territory, whose
policy being much of this kind, would be tedious and not worth the labor
to insert, nor dare I stay. Juvenum manus emicat ardens.”
I return, according to the method of the commonwealth, to the remaining
parts of her orbs, which are military and provincial; the military,
except the strategus, and the polemarchs or field-officers, consisting
of the youth only, and the provincial consisting of a mixture both of
elders and of the youth.
To begin with the youth, or the military orbs, they are circles to
which the commonwealth must have a care to keep close. A man is a spirit
raised by the magic of nature; if she does not stand safe, and so that
she may set him to some good and useful work, he spits fire, and blows
up castles; for where there is life, there must be motion or work; and
the work of idleness is mischief, but the work of industry is health.
To set men to this, the commonwealth must begin betimes with them, or
it will be too late; and the means whereby she sets them to it is
education, the plastic art of government. But it is as frequent as sad
in experience (whether through negligence, or, which in the consequence
is all one or worse, over-fondness in the domestic performance of this
duty) that innumerable children come to owe their utter perdition to
their own parents, in each of which the commonwealth loses a citizen.
Wherefore the laws of a government, how wholesome soever in themselves,
are such as, if men by a congruity in their education be not bred to
find a relish in them, they will be sure to loathe and detest. The
education therefore of a man’s own children is not wholly to be
committed or trusted to himself. You find in Livy the children of
Brutus, having been bred under monarchy, and used to a court life,
making faces at the Commonwealth of Rome: “A king (say they) is a man
with whom you may prevail when you have need there should be law, or
when you have need there should be no law; he has favors in the right,
and he frowns not in the wrong place; he knows his friends from
his enemies. But laws are deaf, inexorable things, such as make no
difference between a gentleman and an ordinary fellow; a man can never
be merry for them, for to trust altogether to his own innocence is a sad
life.” Unhappy wantons! Scipio, on the other side, when he was but a boy
(about two or three and twenty), being informed that certain patricians
of Roman gentlemen, through a qualm upon the defeat which Hannibal had
given them at Cannae, were laying their heads together and contriving
their flight with the transportation of their goods out of Rome, drew
his sword, and setting himself at the door of the chamber where they
were at council, protested “that who did not immediately swear not to
desert the commonwealth, he would make his soul to desert his body.” Let
men argue as they please for monarchy, or against a commonwealth, the
world shall never see any man so sottish or wicked as in cool blood to
prefer the education of the sons of Brutus before that of Scipio; and
of this mould, except a Melius or a Manlius, was the whole youth of that
commonwealth, though not ordinarily so well cast.
Now the health of a government and the education of the youth being
of the same pulse, no wonder if it has been the constant practice of
well-ordered commonwealths to commit the care and feeling of it to
public magistrates. A duty that was performed in such a manner by the
Areopagites, as is elegantly praised by Isocrates, “the Athenians (says
he) write not their laws upon dead walls, nor content themselves with
having ordained punishments for crimes, but provide in such a way, by
the education of their youth, that there be no crimes for punishment.”
He speaks of those laws which regarded manners, not of those orders
which concerned the administration of the commonwealth, lest you should
think he contradicts Xenophon and Polybius. The children of Lacedaemon,
at the seventh year of their age, were delivered to the poedonomi, or
schoolmasters, not mercenary, but magistrates of the commonwealth, to
which they were accountable for their charge; and by these at the age of
fourteen they were presented to other magistrates called the beidioei,
having the inspection of the games and exercises, among which that of
the platanista was famous, a kind of fight in squadrons, but somewhat
too fierce. When they came to be of military age they were listed of
the mora, and so continued in readiness for public service under the
discipline of the polemarchs. But the Roman education and discipline by
the centuries and classes is that to which the Commonwealth of Oceana
has had a more particular regard in her three essays, being certain
degrees by which the youth commence as it were in arms for magistracy,
as appears by--
The twenty-sixth order, instituting, “That if a parent has but one son,
the education of that one son shall be wholly at the disposition of that
parent. But whereas there be free schools erected and endowed, or to
be erected and endowed in every tribe of this nation, to a sufficient
proportion for the education of the children of the same (which schools,
to the end there be no detriment or hindrance to the scholars upon case
of removing from one to another, are every of them to be governed by
the strict inspection of the censors of the tribes, both upon the
schoolmaster’s manner of life and teaching, and the proficiency of the
children, after the rules and method of that in Hiera) if a parent has
more sons than one, the censors of the tribes shall animadvert upon and
punish him that sends not his sons within the ninth year of their age to
some one of the schools of a tribe, there to be kept and taught, if he
be able, at his own charges; and if he be not able, gratis, till they
arrive at the age of fifteen years. And a parent may expect of his sons
at the fifteenth year of their age, according to his choice or ability,
whether it be to service in the way of apprentices to some trade or
otherwise, or to further study, as by sending them to the inns of court,
of chancery, or to one of the universities of this nation. But he
that takes not upon him one of the professions proper to some of those
places, shall not continue longer in any of them than till he has
attained to the age of eighteen years; and every man having not at
the age of eighteen years taken upon him, or addicted himself to the
profession of the law, theology, or physic, and being no servant, shall
be capable of the essays of the youth, and no other person whatsoever,
except a man, having taken upon him such a profession, happens to lay
it by ere he arrives at three or four and twenty years of age, and be
admitted to this capacity by the respective. Phylarchs being satisfied
that he kept not out so long with any design to evade the service of the
commonwealth; but, that being no sooner at his own disposal, it was no
sooner in his choice to come in. And if any youth or other person of
this nation have a desire to travel into foreign countries upon occasion
of business, delight, or further improvement of his education, the
same shall be lawful for him upon a pass obtained from the censors in
Parliament, putting a convenient limit to the time, and recommending him
to the ambassadors by whom he shall be assisted, and to whom he shall
yield honor and obedience in their respective residences. Every youth at
his return from his travel is to present the censors with a paper of his
own writing, containing the interest of state or form of government of
the countries, or some one of the countries, where he has been; and
if it be good, the censors shall cause it to be printed and published,
prefixing a line in commendation of the author.
“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of December, the whole youth of
every parish, that is to say, every man (not excepted by the foregoing
part of the order), being from eighteen years of age to thirty, shall
repair at the sound of the bell to their respective church, and being
there assembled in presence of the overseers, who are to govern the
ballot, and the constable who is to officiate at the urn, shall, after
the manner of the elders, elect every fifth man of their whole number
(provided that they choose not above one of two brothers at one
election, nor above half if they be four or upward) to be a stratiot
or deputy of the youth; and the list of the stratiots so elected
being taken by the overseers, shall be entered in the parish book, and
diligently preserved as a record, called the first essay. They whose
estates by the law are able, or whose friends are willing, to mount
them, shall be of the horse, the rest are of the foot. And he who has
been one year of this list, is not capable of being re-elected till
after another year’s interval.
“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of January, the stratiots being
mustered at the rendezvous of their respective hundreds, shall, in the
presence of the jurymen, who are overseers of that ballot, and of the
high constable who is to officiate at the urn, elect out of the horse
of their troop or company one captain, and one ensign or cornet, to
the command of the same. And the jurymen having entered the list of the
hundred into a record to be diligently kept at the rendezvous of the
same, the first public game of this commonwealth shall begin and be
performed in this manner. Whereas there is to be at every rendezvous of
a hundred, one cannon, culverin, or saker, the prize arms being forged
by sworn armorers of this commonwealth, and for their proof, besides
their beauty, viewed and tried at the tower of Emporium, shall be
exposed by the justice of peace appertaining to that hundred (the said
justice with the jurymen being judges of the game), and the judges shall
deliver to the horseman that gains the prize at the career, one suit
of arms being of the value £20, to the pikeman that gains the prize
at throwing the bullet, one suit of arms of the value of £10, to the
musketeer that gains the prize at the mark with his musket, one suit of
arms of the value of £10, and to the cannoneer that gains the prize at
the mark with the cannon, culverin, or saker, a chain of silver being
the value of £10, provided that no one man at the same muster plays
above one of the prizes. Whosoever gains a prize is bound to wear it
(if it be his lot) upon service; and no man shall sell or give away any
armor thus won, except he has lawfully attained to two or more of them
at the games.
“The games being ended, and the muster dismissed, the captain of the
troop or company shall repair with a copy of the list to the lord
lieutenant of the tribe, and the high constable with a duplicate of
the same to the custos rotulorum, or muster-master general, to be also
communicated to the censors; in each of which the jurymen, giving a
note upon every name of an only son, shall certify the list is without
subterfuge or evasion; or, if it be not, an account of those upon whom
the evasion or subterfuge lies, to the end that the phylarch or the
censors may animadvert accordingly.
“And every Wednesday next ensuing the last of February, the lord
lieutenant, custos rotulorum, the censors, and the conductor, shall
receive the whole muster of the youth of that tribe at the rendezvous of
the same, distributing the horse and foot with their officers, according
to the directions given in the like case for the distribution of the
elders; and the whole squadron being put by that means in battalia,
the second game of this commonwealth shall begin by the exercise of the
youth in all the parts of their military discipline according to the
orders of Parliament, or direction of the Council of War in that case.
And the £100 allowed by the Parliament for the ornament of the muster
in every tribe, shall be expended by the phylarch upon such artificial
castles, citadels, or the like devices, as may make the best and most
profitable sport for the youth and their spectators.
“Which being ended, the censors having prepared the urns by putting
into the horse-urn 220 gold balls, whereof ten are to be marked with
the letter M and other ten with the letter P; into the foot-urn 700 gold
balls, whereof fifty are to be marked, with the letter M and fifty with
the letter P; and after they have made the gold balls in each urn, by
the addition of silver balls to the same, in number equal with the horse
and foot of the stratiots, the lord lieutenant shall call the stratiots
to the urns, where they that draw the silver balls shall return to
their places, and they that draw the gold balls shall fall off to the
pavilion, where, for the space of one hour, they may chop and change
their balls according as one can agree with another, whose lot he likes
better.
“But the hour being out, the conductor separating them whose gold balls
have no letter from those whose balls are marked, shall cause the crier
to call the alphabet, as first A; whereupon all they whose gold balls
are not marked, and whose surnames begin with the letter A, shall repair
to a clerk appertaining to the custos rotulorum, who shall first take
the names of that letter; then those of B, and so on, till all the names
be alphabetically enrolled. And the youth of this list being 600 foot
in a tribe, that is, 30,000 foot in all the tribes; and 200 horse in a
tribe, that is, 10,000 horse in all the tribes, are the second essay of
the stratiots, and the standing army of this commonwealth to be always
ready upon command to march. They whose balls are marked with M,
amounting, by twenty horse and fifty foot in a tribe, to 2,500 foot and
500 horse in all the tribes, and they whose balls are marked with P, in
every point correspondent, are parts of the third essay; they in M being
straight to march for Marpesia, and they of P for Panopea, to the ends
and according to the further directions following in the order for the
provincial orbs.
“If the polemarchs or field officers be elected by the scrutiny of the
Council of War, and the strategus commanded by the Parliament or the
Dictator to march, the lord lieutenants (who have power to muster and
discipline the youth so often as they receive orders for the same from
the Council of War) are to deliver the second essay, or so many of them
as shall be commanded, to the conductors, who shall present them to the
lord strategus at the time and place appointed by his Excellency to be
the general rendezvous of Oceana, where the Council of War shall have
the accommodation of horses and arms for his men in readiness; and the
lord strategus having armed, mounted, and distributed them, whether
according to the recommendation of their prize arms, or otherwise,
shall lead them away to his shipping, being also ready and provided with
victuals, ammunition, artillery, and all other necessaries; commanding
them, and disposing of the whole conduct of the war by his sole power
and authority. And this is the third essay of the stratiots, which being
shipped, or marched out of their tribes, the lord lieutenants shall
re-elect the second essay out of the remaining part of the first, and
the Senate another strategus.
“If any veteran or veterans of this nation, the term of whose youth or
militia is expired, having a desire to be entertained in the further
service of the commonwealth, shall present him or themselves at the
rendezvous of Oceana to the strategus, it is in his power to take on
such and so many of them as shall be agreed by the polemarchs, and to
send back an equal number of the stratiots.
“And for the better managing of the proper forces of this nation, the
lord strategus, by appointment of the Council of War, and out of such
levies as they shall have made in either or both of the provinces to
that end, shall receive auxiliaries by sea or elsewhere at some certain
place, not exceeding his proper arms in number.
“And whosoever shall refuse any one of his three essays, except upon
cause shown, he be dispensed withal by the phylarch, or, if the phylarch
be not assembled, by the censors of his tribe, shall be deemed a helot
or public servant, shall pay a fifth part of his yearly revenue,
besides all other taxes, to the commonwealth for his protection, and be
incapable of bearing any magistracy except such as is proper to the law.
Nevertheless if a man has but two sons, the lord lieutenant shall not
suffer above one of them to come to the Urn at one election of the
second essay, and though he has above two sons, there shall not come
above half the brothers at one election; and if a man has but one son,
he shall not come to the urn at all without the consent of his parents,
or his guardians, nor shall it be any reproach to him or impediment to
his bearing of magistracy.”
This order, with relation to foreign expeditions, will be proved and
explained together with--
The twenty-seventh order, “Providing, in case of invasion apprehended,
that the lords high sheriffs of the tribes, upon commands received from
the Parliament or the Dictator, distribute the bands of the elders into
divisions, after the nature of the essays of the youth; and that the
second division or essay of the elders, being made and consisting of
30,000 foot and 10,000 horse, be ready to march with the second essay of
the youth, and be brought also by the conductors to the strategus.
“The second essay of the elders and youth being marched out of their
tribes, the lords high sheriffs and lieutenants shall have the remaining
part of the annual bands both of elders and youth in readiness, which,
if the beacons be fired, shall march to the rendezvous to be in that
case appointed by the Parliament or the Dictator: And the beacons being
fired, the curiata comitia, or parochial congregations, shall elect a
fourth both of elders and youth to be immediately upon the guard of the
tribes, and dividing themselves as aforesaid, to march also in their
divisions according to orders, which method in case of extremity shall
proceed to the election of a third, or the levy of a second, or of the
last man in the nation, by the power of the lords high sheriffs, to the
end that the commonwealth in her utmost pressure may show her trust that
God in his justice will remember mercy, by humbling herself, and yet
preserving her courage, discipline, and constancy, even to the last drop
of her blood and the utmost farthing.
“The services performed by the youth, or by the elders, in case of
invasion, and according to this order, shall be at their proper cost and
charges that are any ways able to endure it; but if there be such as are
known in their parishes to be so indigent that they cannot march out of
their tribes, nor undergo the burden in this case incumbent, then the
congregations of their parishes shall furnish them with sufficient sums
of money to be repaid upon the certificate of the same by the Parliament
when the action shall be over. And of that which is respectively
enjoined by this order, any tribe, parish, magistrate, or person that
shall fail, is to answer for it, at the Council of War, as a deserter of
his country.”
The Archon, being the greatest captain of his own, if not of any age,
added much to the glory of this commonwealth, by interweaving the
militia with more art and lustre than any legislator from or before the
time of Servius Tullius, who constituted the Roman militia. But as the
bones or skeleton of a man, though the greatest part of his beauty be
contained in their proportion or symmetry, yet shown without flesh are a
spectacle that is rather horrid than entertaining, so without discourses
are the orders of a commonwealth; which, if she goes forth in that
manner, may complain of her friends that they stand mute and staring
upon her. Wherefore this order was thus fleshed by the Lord Archon:
“MY LORDS:
“Diogenes seeing a young fellow drunk, told him that his father was
drunk when he begot him. For this, in natural generation, I must confess
I see no reason; but in the political it is right. The vices of the
people are from their governors; those of their governors from
their laws or orders; and those of their laws or orders from their
legislators. Whatever was in the womb imperfect, as to her proper work,
comes very rarely or never at all to perfection afterward; and the
formation of a citizen in the womb of the commonwealth is his education.
“Education by the first of the foregoing orders is of six kinds: at the
school, in the mechanics, at the universities, at the inns of court or
chancery, in travels, and in military discipline, some of which I shall
but touch, and some I shall handle more at large.
“That which is proposed for the erecting and endowing of schools
throughout the tribes, capable of all the children of the same, and able
to give to the poor the education of theirs gratis, is only matter of
direction in case of very great charity, as easing the needy of the
charge of their children from the ninth to the fifteenth year of their
age, during which time their work cannot be profitable; and restoring
them when they may be of use, furnished with tools whereof there are
advantages to be made in every work, seeing he that can read and use his
pen has some convenience by it in the meanest vocation. And it cannot
be conceived but that which comes, though in small parcels, to the
advantage of every man in his vocation, must amount to the advantage of
every vocation, and so to that of the whole commonwealth. Wherefore this
is commended to the charity of every wise-hearted and well-minded man,
to be done in time, and as God shall stir him up or enable him; there
being such provision already in the case as may give us leave to proceed
without obstruction.
“Parents, under animadversion of the censors, are to dispose of their
children at the fifteenth year of their age to something; but what, is
left, according to their abilities or inclination, at their own choice.
This, with the multitude, must be to the mechanics, that is to say to
agriculture or husbandry, to manufactures, or to merchandise.
“Agriculture is the bread of the nation; we are hung upon it by the
teeth; it is a mighty nursery of strength, the best army, and the most
assured knapsack; it is managed with the least turbulent or ambitious,
and the most innocent hands of all other arts. Wherefore I am of
Aristotle’s opinion, that a commonwealth of husbandmen--and such is
ours--must be the best of all others. Certainly my lords, you have no
measure of what ought to be, but what can be, done for the encouragement
of this profession. I could wish I were husband good enough to direct
something to this end; but racking of rents is a vile thing in the
richer sort, an uncharitable one to the poorer, a perfect mark of
slavery, and nips your commonwealth in the fairest blossom. On the other
side, if there should be too much ease given in this kind, it would
occasion sloth, and so destroy industry, the principal nerve of a
commonwealth. But if aught might be done to hold the balance even
between these two, it would be a work in this nation equal to that for
which Fabius was surnamed Maximus by the Romans.