XIV. Those who have a just idea of the Deity, cannot fall into so gross
an error; but we don’t on that account cease to err. It is true, we do
not worship conquerors as deities, but we celebrate them as heroes.
What is this, but debasing so noble an epithet? True heroes are wrought
and fashioned by virtue, and therefore we should reject all those
as spurious and ill-made, which are fabricated in the workshops of
ambition. A great and a bad man are contradictions in terms. Agesilaus
answered wisely, to one who was extolling the greatness of the King of
Persia, and at the same time took occasion to insinuate a remark on the
smallness of the kingdom of Sparta, compared to the Persian empire. His
reply was: _He only can be greater than me, who is better than me._ He
could not have spoke more to the purpose, if he had read the celebrated
saying of St. Austin, in the following words: _In his, quæ non mole,
sed virtute, præstant, idem est majus esse, quod melius esse. With
regard to those things, which are estimated, not by the bulk, but by
the virtue or excellence of them, that is greatest, which is best._
XV. Let a Theodosius, a Charles the Great, a Godfrey of Bulloign, a
George Castriotus, be celebrated as heroes; and, in fine, all those in
whom Fortune assisted Valour, and Valour Justice; those, who only drew
their swords in the cause of Heaven, or for the good of the public;
those, who in wars take to themselves the toil and the danger only, and
leave untouched as the property of others, the fruits and acquisitions;
those, who are pacific by inclination, and warriors through necessity;
finally, all those, who, as an example to posterity, have by their
actions, impressed an idea on the minds of men, that they were just,
clement, wise, and animated Princes, in whose sceptres justice reigned,
and whose swords never wounded their own consciences.
XVI. But discard from the stock of heroes, those crowned Tigers called
conquering Princes, and let them be numbered with the delinquents.
Throw down their statues, and translate their images, from the Palace
to the dens of wild beasts, that the copies at least may be placed
among company, and in such a situation, as suited the characters of the
originals. I will in this place give a general trait or description of
all conquering Princes, which I find delineated in very lively colours,
in the words of a Prince on his death-bed, to whom they gave this
epithet, which was William the First of England.
XVII. This prince, in that last stage of life, in which a man finding
himself on the verge of eternity, begins to see things in their true
light; and at the period of time, when the eyes of the soul open,
with the same pace with which those of the body proceed to shut;
and when the thoughts of his past victories gnawed his conscience,
without feeding his ambition. At this crisis, either from motives of
repentance, despair, or from a desire to unburthen himself, after
reflecting with horror on the sum of his past actions, in the presence
of many nobles who surrounded his bed--He made this confession: _I have
hated the English, I have dishonoured their Nobility, I have mortified
and oppressed the people, and have been the cause of the death of
infinite numbers, by famine and the sword; and to sum up the whole, I
have desolated this fine and illustrious kingdom, by the murder and
destruction of thousands and tens of thousands of its inhabitants._ In
these few lines, are painted, in their true colours, the exploits of
that conqueror; and the same tints, would serve to delineate those of
most others who have been dignified with that epithet.
XVIII. I had almost said all; for as I observed before, the dropsical
thirst of rule and dominion, which is a disease common to all
conquerors, inclines them to aggrandise and extend their empire with
respect to foreigners; and also, to enlarge and increase their power
among their own subjects. The ambition that agitates them, not only
makes them pant to beat down the boundaries of the crown, but those of
justice also. Not content to govern by law, they aspire at despotism.
They look upon equity as an impediment to, and a restriction of their
grandeur, and can only find enlargements proportioned to the views of
their souls, in tyranny. That kingdom is in an unhappy state, where he
who rules and presides over it, has his head filled with this caprice.
The misfortune is, that many are poisoned with these notions and
dispositions, who are no conquerors, nor entertain the least thoughts
of being such, unless it is in the subjugation of their own subjects.
XIX. This is a species of conquest, the most odious, and the most
cheap; for it is not acquired by valour, but by craft and cunning; not
by the fatigues of the field, but by the cabals of the cabinet. But
notwithstanding they conquer their own subjects, and render them more
submissive, and by binding liberty with stronger and heavier chains,
convert vassalage to slavery; they should remember, that dominion is
only hereditary, for so long as it is conducted with justice; but
that when it comes to be exercised with violence, it is usurpation.
But that is an unhappy harvest, which ambition reaps by such means.
How is a Prince benefited, if, by putting the bodies of his subjects
under a hard state of servitude, he loses their souls, and alienates
their affections? He loses the best part of his subjects, which is
their love, and gets in return for it a small portion more of fear;
and he estranges from him their hearts, by oppressing their breasts.
He deprives himself of the greatest sweet or pleasure of reigning,
which consists in seeing his legal commands obeyed with chearfulness
and inclination. What delight can the prospect of a government afford,
where you contemplate every vassal, as a fierce animal, who supports
with indignation the chain that confines him? What security can a
Prince have against the invasions of foreign powers, who has made his
subjects disaffected to him? Or what security against the intrigues and
resentment of his own people, whom, by his absurd conduct, he has made
angry, and weaned of their affections for him? The monarchs of the east
can best answer these queries, and tell, how by affecting to be so much
the arbiters of the lives of their subjects, the subjects frequently
have erected themselves into being the arbiters of the lives of their
Princes.