As to the principle, the above-mentioned vices may be profitable to private men, but they can never be so to the government, if it be popular or mixed: No people was ever the better for that which renders them weak or base; and a duly created magistracy, governing a nation with their consent, can have no interest distinct from that of the publick, or desire to diminish the strength of the people, which is their own, and by which they subsist. On the other side, the absolute monarch who governs for himself, and chiefly seeks his own preservation, looks upon the strength and bravery of his subjects as the root of his greatest danger, and frequently desires to render them weak, base, corrupt, and unfaithful to each other, that they may neither dare to attempt the breaking of the yoke he lays upon them, nor trust one another in any generous design for the recovery of their liberty. So that the same corruption which preserves such a prince, if it were introduced by a people, would weaken, if not utterly destroy them.
Again, all things have their continuance from a principle in nature suitable to their original: all tyrannies have had their beginnings from corruption. The histories of Greece, Sicily, and Italy shew that all those who made themselves tyrants in several places, did it by the help of the worst, and the slaughter of the best: Men could not be made subservient to their lusts whilst they continued in their integrity; so as their business was to destroy those who would not be corrupted. They must therefore endeavour to maintain or increase the corruption by which they attain their greatness: If they fail in this point, they must fall as Tarquin, Pisistratus, and others have done; but if they succeed so far that the vicious part do much prevail, the government is secure, tho the prince may be in danger. And the same thing doth in a great measure accidentally conduce to the safety of his person: For they who for the most part are the authors of great revolutions, not being so much led by a particular hatred to the man, as by a desire to do good to the publick, seldom set themselves to conspire against the tyrant, unless he be altogether detestable and intolerable, if they do not hope to overthrow the tyranny.
The contrary is seen in all popular and well-mixed governments: they are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld otherwise than by virtue: The worst men always conspiring against them, they must fall, if the best have not power to preserve them. Wheresoever therefore a people is so governed, the magistrates will obviate afar off the introduction of vices, which tend as much to the ruin of their persons and government, as to the preservation of the prince and his. This is evidenced by experience. ’Tis not easy to name a monarch that had so many good qualities as Julius Caesar, till they were extinguished by his ambition, which was inconsistent with them: He knew that his strength lay in the corruption of the people, and that he could not accomplish his designs without increasing it. He did not seek good men, but such as would be for him; and thought none sufficiently addicted to his interests, but such as stuck at the performance of no wickedness that he commanded: he was a soldier according to Caesar’s heart who said,
And lest such as were devoted to him should grow faint in villainy, he industriously inflamed their fury:
Having spread this poison amongst the soldiers, his next work was by corrupting the tribunes to turn the power to the destruction of the people, which had been erected for their preservation; and pouring the treasures he had gained by rapine in Gaul into the bosom of Curio, made him an instrument of mischief, who had been a most eminent supporter of the laws. Tho he was thought to have affected the glory of sparing Cato, and with trouble to have found that he despised life when it was to be accounted his gift; yet in suspecting Brutus and Cassius, he shew’d he could not believe that virtuous men who loved their country could be his friends. Such as carry on the like designs with less valour, wit, and generosity of spirit, will always be more bitterly bent to destroy all that are good, knowing that the deformity of their own vices is rendered most manifest, when they are compared with the good qualities of those who are most unlike them; and that they can never defend themselves against the scorn and hatred they incur by their vices, unless such a number can be infected with the same, and made to delight in the recompences of iniquity that foment them, as may be able to keep the rest of the people in subjection.
The same thing happens even when the usurpation is not so violent as that of Agathocles, Dionysius, or the last king of Denmark, who in one day by the strength of a mercenary soldiery overthrew all the laws of his country: and a lawfully created magistrate is forced to follow the same ways as soon as he begins to affect a power which the laws do not confer upon him. I wish I could say there were few of these; but experience shews that such a proportion of wisdom, moderation of spirit, and justice is requir’d in a supreme magistrate, to render him content with a limited power, as is seldom found. Man is of an aspiring nature, and apt to put too high a value upon himself; they who are raised above their brethren, tho but a little, desire to go farther; and if they gain the name of king, they think themselves wronged and degraded, when they are not suffer’d to do what they please.
In these things they never want masters; and the nearer they come to a power that is not easily restrained by law, the more passionately they desire to abolish all that opposes it: and when their hearts are filled with this fury, they never fail to chuse such ministers as will be subservient to their will: and this is so well known, that those only approach them who resolve to be so. Their interests as well as their inclinations incite them to diffuse their own manners as far as they can, which is no less than to bring those who are under their power to all that wickedness of which the nature of man is capable; and no greater testimony can be given of the efficacy of these means towards the utter corruption of nations, than the accursed effects we see of them in our own and the neighbouring countries.
It may be said that some princes are so full of virtue and goodness, as not to desire more power than the laws allow, and are not obliged to chuse ill men, because they desire nothing but what the best are willing to do. This may be, and sometimes is: the nation is happy that has such a king: but he is hard to find, and more than a human power is required to keep him in so good a way. The strength of his own affections will ever be against him: Wives, children, and servants will always join with those enemies that arise in his own breast to pervert him: if he has any weak side, any lust unsubdued, they will gain the victory. He has not search’d into the nature of man, who thinks that anyone can resist when he is thus on all sides assaulted: Nothing but the wonderful and immediate power of God’s spirit can preserve him; and to allege it will be nothing to the purpose, unless it can be proved that all princes are blessed with such an assistance, or that God hath promised it to them and their successors forever, by what means soever they came to the crowns they enjoy.
Nothing is farther from my intention than to speak irreverently of kings; and I presume no wise man will think I do so, if I profess, that having observed as well as I can what history and daily experience teach us concerning the virtues and religions that are or have been from the beginning of the world encouraged and supported by monarchs, the methods they have follow’d since they have gone under the name of Christians, their moral as well as their theological graces, together with what the Scriptures tell us of those who in the last days will principally support the throne of Antichrist; I cannot be confident that they are generally in an extraordinary manner preserved by the hand of God from the vices and frailties to which the rest of mankind is subject. If no man can shew that I am in this mistaken, I may conclude, that as they are more than any other men in the world exposed to temptations and snares, they are more than any in danger of being corrupted, and made instruments of corrupting others, if they are no otherwise defended than the rest of men.
This being the state of the matter on both sides, we may easily collect, that all governments are subject to corruption and decay; but with this difference, that absolute monarchy is by principle led unto, or rooted in it; whereas mixed or popular governments are only in a possibility of falling into it: As the first cannot subsist, unless the prevailing part of the people be corrupted; the other must certainly perish, unless they be preserved in a great measure free from vices: and I doubt whether any better reason can be given, why there have been and are more monarchies than popular governments in the world, than that nations are more easily drawn into corruption than defended from it; and I think that monarchy can be said to be natural in no other sense, than that our depraved nature is most inclined to that which is worst.
To avoid unnecessary disputes, I give the name of popular governments to those of Rome, Athens, Sparta, and the like, tho improperly, unless the same may also be given to many that are usually called monarchies, since there is nothing of violence in either; the power is conferr’d upon the chief magistrates of both by the free consent of a willing people, and such a part as they think fit is still retained and executed in their own assemblies; and in this sense it is that our author seems to speak against them. As to popular government in the strictest sense (that is pure democracy, where the people in themselves, and by themselves, perform all that belongs to government), I know of no such thing; and if it be in the world, have nothing to say for it. In asserting the liberty, generally, as I suppose, granted by God to all mankind, I neither deny, that so many as think fit to enter into a society, may give so much of their power as they please to one or more men, for a time or perpetually, to them and their heirs, according to such rules as they prescribe; nor approve the disorders that must arise if they keep it entirely in their own hands: And looking upon the several governments, which under different forms and names have been regularly constituted by nations, as so many undeniable testimonies, that they thought it good for themselves and their posterity so to do, I infer, that as there is no man who would not rather chuse to be governed by such as are just, industrious, valiant and wise, than by those that are wicked, slothful, cowardly and foolish; and to live in society with such as are qualified like those of the first sort, rather than with those who will be ever ready to commit all manner of villainies, or want experience, strength or courage, to join in repelling the injuries that are offer’d by others: So there are none who do not according to the measure of understanding they have, endeavour to set up those who seem to be best qualified, and to prevent the introduction of those vices, which render the faith of the magistrate suspected, or make him unable to perform his duty, in providing for the execution of justice, and the publick defence of the state against foreign or domestick enemies. For as no man who is not absolutely mad, will commit the care of a flock to a villain, that has neither skill, diligence, nor courage to defend them, or perhaps is maliciously set to destroy them, rather than to a stout, faithful, and wise shepherd; ’tis less to be imagined that any would commit the same error in relation to that society which comprehends himself with his children, friends, and all that is dear to him.
The same considerations are of equal force in relation to the body of every nation: For since the magistrate, tho the most perfect in his kind, cannot perform his duty, if the people be so base, vicious, effeminate and cowardly, as not to second his good intentions; those who expect good from him, cannot desire so to corrupt their companions that are to help him, as to render it impossible for him to accomplish it. Tho I believe there have been in all ages bad men in every nation, yet I doubt whether there was one in Rome, except a Catiline or a Caesar, who design’d to make themselves tyrants, that would not rather have wished the whole people as brave and virtuous as in the time of the Carthaginian Wars, than vile and base as in the days of Nero and Domitian. But ’tis madness to think, that the whole body would not rather wish to be as it was when virtue flourished, and nothing upon earth was able to resist their power, than weak, miserable, base, slavish, and trampled under foot by any that would invade them; and forced as a chattel to become a prey to those that were strongest. Which is sufficient to shew, that a people acting according to the liberty of their own will, never advance unworthy men, unless it be by mistake, nor willingly suffer the introduction of vices: Whereas the absolute monarch always prefers the worst of those who are addicted to him, and cannot subsist unless the prevailing part of the people be base and vicious.
If it be said, that those governments in which the democratical part governs most, do more frequently err in the choice of men or the means of preserving that purity of manners which is required for the well-being of a people, than those wherein aristocracy prevails; I confess it, and that in Rome and Athens the best and wisest men did for the most part incline to aristocracy. Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, Cicero, and others, were of this sort: But if our author there seek patrons for his absolute monarchy, he will find none but Phalaris, Agathocles, Dionysius, Catiline, Cethegus, Lentulus, with the corrupted crew of mercenary rascals, who did, or endeavour’d to set them up. These are they quibus ex honesto nulla est spes; 5 they abhor the dominion of the law, because it curbs their vices, and make themselves subservient to the lusts of a man who may nourish them. Similitude of interests, manners, and designs, is a link of union between them: Both are enemies to popular and mixed government; and those governments are enemies to them, and by preserving virtue and integrity, oppose both; knowing, that if they do not, they and their governments must certainly perish.
That our author’s book may appear to be a heap of incongruities and contradictions, ’tis not amiss to add to what has already been observed, that having asserted absolute monarchy to be the only natural government, he now says, that the nature of all people is to desire liberty without restraint. 1 But if monarchy be that power which above all restrains liberty, and subjects all to the will of one; this is as much as to say, that all people naturally desire that which is against nature; and by a wonderful excess of extravagance and folly to assert contrary propositions, that on both sides are equally absurd and false. For as we have already proved that no government is imposed upon men by God or nature, ’tis no less evident, that man being a rational creature, nothing can be universally natural to him, that is not rational. But this liberty without restraint being inconsistent with any government, and the good which man naturally desires for himself, children and friends, we find no place in the world where the inhabitants do not enter into some kind of society or government to restrain it: and to say that all men desire liberty without restraint, and yet that all do restrain it, is ridiculous. The truth is, man is hereunto led by reason which is his nature. Everyone sees they cannot well live asunder, nor many together, without some rule to which all must submit. This submission is a restraint of liberty, but could be of no effect as to the good intended, unless it were general; nor general, unless it were natural. When all are born to the same freedom, some will not resign that which is their own, unless others do the like: This general consent of all to resign such a part of their liberty as seems to be for the good of all, is the voice of nature, and the act of men (according to natural reason) seeking their own good: And if all go not in the same way, according to the same form, ’tis an evident testimony that no one is directed by nature; but as a few or many may join together, and frame smaller or greater societies, so those societies may institute such an order or form of government as best pleases themselves; and if the ends of government are obtained, they all equally follow the voice of nature in constituting them.
Again, if man were by nature so tenacious of his liberty without restraint, he must be rationally so. The creation of absolute monarchies, which entirely extinguishes it, must necessarily be most contrary to it, tho the people were willing; for they thereby abjure their own nature. The usurpation of them can be no less than the most abominable and outrageous violation of the laws of nature that can be imagined: The laws of God must be in the like measure broken; and of all governments, democracy, in which every man’s liberty is least restrained, because every man hath an equal part, would certainly prove to be the most just, rational and natural; whereas our author represents it as a perpetual spring of disorder, confusion and vice. This consequence would be unavoidable, if he said true; but it being my fate often to differ from him, I hope to be excused if I do so in this also, and affirm, that nothing but the plain and certain dictates of reason can be generally applicable to all men as the law of their nature; and they who, according to the best of their understanding, provide for the good of themselves and their posterity, do all equally observe it. He that enquires more exactly into the matter may find, that reason enjoins every man not to arrogate to himself more than he allows to others, nor to retain that liberty which will prove hurtful to him; or to expect that others will suffer themselves to be restrain’d, whilst he, to their prejudice, remains in the exercise of that freedom which nature allows. He who would be exempted from this common rule, must shew for what reason he should be raised above his brethren; and if he do it not, he is an enemy to them. This is not popularity, but tyranny; and tyrants are said exuisse hominem, 2 to throw off the nature of men, because they do unjustly and unreasonably assume to themselves that which agrees not with the frailty of human nature, and set up an interest in themselves contrary to that of their equals, which they ought to defend as their own. Such as favour them are like to them; and we know of no tyranny that was not set up by the worst, nor of any that have been destroy’d, unless by the best of men. The several tyrannies of Syracuse were introduced by Agathocles, Dionysius, Hieronymus, Hippocrates, Epicides, and others, by the help of lewd, dissolute mercenary villains; and overthrown by Timoleon, Dion, Theodorus and others, whose virtues will be remembered in all ages. These, and others like to them, never sought liberty without restraint, but such as was restrained by laws tending to the publick good; that all might concur in promoting it, and the unruly desires of those who affected power and honours which they did not deserve might be repressed.
The like was seen in Rome: When Brutus, Valerius, and other virtuous citizens had thrown out the lewd Tarquins, they trusted to their own innocence and reputation; and thinking them safe under the protection of the law, contented themselves with such honours as their countrymen thought they deserved. This would not satisfy the dissolute crew that us’d to be companions to the Tarquins. Sodales adolescentium Tarquiniorum assueti more regio vivere, eam tum aequato jure omnium licentiam quaerentes libertatem aliorum in suam vertisse servitutem conquerebantur. Regem hominem esse, à quo impetres ubi jus, ubi injuria opus sit. Esse gratiae locum, beneficio: irasci ignoscere posse. Leges rem surdam esse inexorabilem, salubriorem inopi quam potenti: nihil laxamenti nec veniae habere, si modum excesseris: periculosum esse in tot humanis erroribus sola innocentia vivere. 3 I cannot say that either of these sought a liberty without restraint; for the virtuous were willing to be restrained by the law, and the vicious to submit to the will of a man, to gain impunity in offending. But if our author say true, the licentious fury of these lewd young men, who endeavour’d to subvert the constitution of their country, to procure the impunity of their own crimes would have been more natural, that is more reasonable than the orderly proceedings of the most virtuous, who desir’d that the law might be the rule of their actions, which is most absurd.
The like vicious wretches have in all times endeavour’d to put the power into the hands of one man, who might protect them in their villainies, and advance them to exorbitant riches or undeserved honours; whilst the best men trusting in their innocence, and desiring no other riches or preferments, than what they were by their equals thought to deserve, were contented with a due liberty, under the protection of a just law: and I must transcribe the histories of the world, or at least so much of them as concerns the tyrannies that have been set up or cast down, if I should here insert all the proofs that might be given of it. But I shall come nearer to the point, which is not to compare democracy with monarchy, but a regular mixed government with such an absolute monarchy, as leaves all to the will of that man, woman, or child, who happens to be born in the reigning family, how ill soever they may be qualified. I desire those who are lovers of truth to consider, whether the wisest, best, and bravest of men, are not naturally led to be pleased with a government that protects them from receiving wrong, when they have not the least inclination to do any? Whether they who desire no unjust advantage above their brethren, will not always desire that a people or senate constituted as that of Rome, from the expulsion of Tarquin to the setting up of Caesar, should rather judge of their merit, than Tarquin, Caesar, or his successors? Or whether the lewd or corrupted Praetorian bands, with Macro, Sejanus, Tigellinus, and the like, commanding them, will not ever, like Brutus his sons, abhor the inexorable power of the laws, with the necessity of living only by their innocence, and favour the interest of princes like to those that advanced them? If this be not sufficient, they may be pleased a little to reflect upon the affairs of our own country, and seriously consider whether H-de, Cl-f-d, F-lm-th, Arl-ng-n and D-nby, 4 could have pretended to the chief places, if the disposal of them had been in a free and well-regulated parliament? Whether they did most resemble Brutus, Publicola, and the rest of the Valerii, the Fabii, Quintii, Cornelii, c. or Narcissus, Pallas, Icetus, Laco, Vinius, and the like? Whether all men, good and bad, do not favour that state of things, which favours them and such as they are?
Whether Cl-v-l-d, P-rtsm-th, 5 and others of the same trade, have attained to the riches and honours they enjoy by services done to the commonwealth? And what places Chiffinch, F-x and Jenkins, 6 could probably have attained, if our affairs had been regulated as good men desire? Whether the old arts of begging, stealing and bawding, or the new ones of informing and trepanning, thrive best under one man who may be weak or vicious, and is always subject to be circumvented by flatterers, or under the severe scrutinies of a senate or people? In a word, whether they who live by such arts, and know no other, do not always endeavour to advance the government under which they enjoy, or may hope to obtain the highest honours, and abhor that, in which they are exposed to all manner of scorn and punishment? Which being determined, it will easily appear why the worst men have ever been for absolute monarchy, and the best against it; and which of the two in so doing can be said to desire an unrestrained liberty of doing that which is evil.
Being no way concerned in the defence of democracy; and having proved that Xenophon, Thucydides, and others of the ancients, in speaking against the over great power of the common people, intended to add reputation to the aristocratical party to which they were addicted, and not to set up absolute monarchy, which never fell under discourse among them, but as an object of scorn and hatred, evil in itself, and only to be endured by base and barbarous people, I may leave our knight, like Don Quixote, fighting against the phantasms of his own brain, and saying what he pleases against such governments as never were, unless in such a place as San Marino near Sinigaglia in Italy, where a hundred clowns govern a barbarous rock that no man invades, and relates nothing to our question. If his doctrine be true, the monarchy he extols is not only to be preferred before unruly democracy, and mixed governments, but is the only one that, without a gross violation of the laws of God and nature, can be established over any nation. But having, as I hope, sufficiently proved, that God did neither institute, nor appoint any such to be instituted, nor approve those that were; that nature does not incline us to it, and that the best as well as the wisest men have always abhorr’d it; that it has been agreeable only to the most stupid and base nations; and if others have submitted to it, they have done so only as to the greatest of evils brought upon them by violence, corruption or fraud; I may now proceed to shew that the progress of it has been in all respects suitable to its beginning.
To this end ’twill not be amiss to examine our author’s words: Thus, says he, do they paint to the life this beast with many heads: Let me give the cypher of their form of government: as it is begot by sedition, so it is nourish’d by crimes: It can never stand without wars, either with an enemy abroad, or with friends at home; 1 And in order to this I will not criticize upon the terms, tho the cypher of a form, and war with friends, may be justly called nonsense; but coming to his assertions, that popular or mixed governments have their birth in sedition, and are ever afterwards vexed with civil or foreign wars, I take liberty to say, that whereas there is no form appointed by God or nature, those governments only can be called just, which are established by the consent of nations. These nations may at the first set up popular or mixed governments, and without the guilt of sedition introduce them afterwards, if that which was first established prove unprofitable or hurtful to them; and those that have done so, have enjoy’d more justice in times of peace, and managed wars, when occasion requir’d, with more virtue and better success, than any absolute monarchies have done. And whereas he says, that in popular governments each man hath a care of his particular, and thinks basely of the common good; They look upon approaching mischiefs as they do upon thunder, only every man wisheth it may not touch his own person: 2 I say that men can no otherwise be engaged to take care of the publick, than by having such a part in it, as absolute monarchy does not allow; for they can neither obtain the good for themselves, posterity and friends, that they desire, nor prevent the mischiefs they fear, which are the principal arguments that persuade men to expose themselves to labours or dangers. ’Tis a folly to say, that the vigilance and wisdom of the monarch supplies the defect of care in others; for we know that no men under the sun were ever more void of both, and all manner of virtue requir’d to such a work, than very many monarchs have been: And, which is yet worse, the strength and happiness of the people being frequently dangerous to them, they have not so much as the will to promote it; nay, sometimes set themselves to destroy it. Ancient monarchies afford us frequent examples of this kind; and if we consider those of France and Turkey, which seem most to flourish in our age, the people will appear to be so miserable under both, that they cannot fear any change of governor or government; and all, except a few ministers, are kept so far from the knowledge of, or power in the management of affairs, that if any of them should fancy a possibility of something that might befall them worse than what they suffer, or hope for that which might alleviate their misery, they could do nothing towards the advancement of the one, or prevention of the other. Tacitus observes, that in his time no man was able to write what passed, inscitia reipublicae ut alienae. 3 They neglected the publick affairs in which they had no part. In the same age it was said, that the people, who whilst they fought for their own interests, had been invincible, being enslaved, were grown sordid, idle, base, running after stage-plays and shows; so as the whole strength of the Roman armies consisted of strangers. When their spirits were depressed by servitude, they had neither courage to defend themselves, nor will to fight for their wicked masters; and least of all to increase their power, which was destructive to themselves: The same thing is found in all places. Tho the Turk commands many vast provinces, that naturally produce as good soldiers as any, yet his greatest strength is in children that do not know their fathers; who not being very many in number, may perish in one battle, and the empire by that means be lost, the miserable nations that groan under that tyranny having neither courage, power, nor will to defend it. This was the fate of the Mamelukes. They had for the space of almost two hundred years domineer’d in Egypt, and a great part of Asia; but the people under them being weak and disaffected, they could never recover the defeat they received from Selim near Tripoli, who pursuing his victory, in a few months utterly abolished their kingdom.
Notwithstanding the present pride of France, the numbers and warlike inclinations of that people, the bravery of the nobility, extent of dominion, convenience of situation, and the vast revenues of their king, his greatest advantages have been gained by the mistaken counsels of England, the valour of our soldiers unhappily sent to serve him, and the strangers of whom the strength of his armies consists; which is so unsteady a support, that many who are well versed in affairs of this nature, incline to think he subsists rather by little arts, and corrupting ministers in foreign courts, than by the power of his own armies; and that some reformation in the counsels of his neighbours might prove sufficient to overthrow that greatness which is grown formidable to Europe; the same misery to which he has reduced his people, rendering them as unable to defend him, upon any change of fortune, as to defend their own rights against him.
This proceeds not from any particular defect in the French government, but that which is common to all absolute monarchies. And no state can be said to stand upon a steady foundation, except those whose strength is in their own soldiery, and the body of their own people. Such as serve for wages, often betray their masters in distress, and always want the courage and industry which is found in those who fight for their own interests, and are to have a part in the victory. The business of mercenaries is so to perform their duty, as to keep their employments, and to draw profit from them; but that is not enough to support the spirits of men in extreme dangers. The shepherd who is a hireling, flies when the thief comes; and this adventitious help failing, all that a prince can reasonably expect from a disaffected and oppressed people is, that they should bear the yoke patiently in the time of his prosperity; but upon the change of his fortune, they leave him to shift for himself, or join with his enemies to avenge the injuries they had received. Thus did Alfonso and Ferdinand kings of Naples, and Lodovico Sforza duke of Milan fall, in the times of Charles the Eighth and Louis the Twelfth kings of France. The two first had been false, violent, and cruel; nothing within their kingdom could oppose their fury: but when they were invaded by a foreign power, they lost all, as Guicciardini says, without breaking one lance; and Sforza was by his own mercenary soldiers delivered into the hands of his enemies. 4
I think it may be hard to find examples of such as proceeding in the same way have had better success: But if it should so fall out, that a people living under an absolute monarchy, should through custom, or fear of something worse (if that can be) not only suffer patiently, but desire to uphold the government; neither the nobility, nor commonalty can do anything towards it. They are strangers to all publick concernments: All things are govern’d by one or a few men, and others know nothing either of action or counsel. Filmer will tell us ’tis no matter; the profound wisdom of the prince provides for all. But what if this prince be a child, a fool, a superannuated dotard, or a madman? Or if he does not fall under any of these extremities, and possesses such a proportion of wit, industry, and courage as is ordinarily seen in men, how shall he supply the office that indeed requires profound wisdom, and an equal measure of experience and valour? ’Tis to no purpose to say a good council may supply his defects; for it does not appear how he should come by this council, nor who should oblige him to follow their advice: If he be left to his own will to do what he pleases, tho good advice be given to him; yet his judgment being perverted, he will always incline to the worst: If a necessity be imposed upon him of acting according to the advice of his council, he is not that absolute monarch of whom we speak, nor the government monarchical, but aristocratical. These are imperfect fig-leaf coverings of nakedness. It was in vain to give good counsel to Sardanapalus; and none could defend the Assyrian empire, when he lay wallowing amongst his whores without any other thought than of his lusts. None could preserve Rome, when Domitian’s chief business was to kill flies, and that of Honorius to take care of his hens. The monarchy of France must have perished under the base kings they call les roys faineants, 5 if the scepter had not been wrested out of their unworthy hands. The world is full of examples in this kind: and when it pleases God to bestow a just, wise, and valiant king as a blessing upon a nation, ’tis only a momentary help, his virtues end with him; and there being neither any divine promise nor human reason moving us to believe that they shall always be renewed and continued in his successors, men cannot rely upon it; and to allege a possibility of such a thing is nothing to the purpose.
On the other side, in a popular or mixed government every man is concerned: Every one has a part according to his quality or merit; all changes are prejudicial to all: whatsoever any man conceives to be for the publick good, he may propose it in the magistracy, or to the magistrate: the body of the people is the publick defence, and every man is arm’d and disciplin’d: The advantages of good success are communicated to all, and everyone bears a part in the losses. This makes men generous and industrious; and fills their hearts with love to their country: This, and the desire of that praise which is the reward of virtue, 6 raised the Romans above the rest of mankind; and wheresoever the same ways are taken, they will in a great measure have the same effects. By this means they had as many soldiers to fight for their country as there were freemen in it. Whilst they had to deal with the free nations of Italy, Greece, Africa, or Spain, they never conquer’d a country, till the inhabitants were exhausted: But when they came to fight against kings, the success of a battle was enough to bring a kingdom under their power. Antiochus upon a ruffle received from Acilius at Thermopylae, left all that he possessed in Greece; and being defeated by Scipio Nasica, he quitted all the kingdoms and territories of Asia on this side Taurus. Aemilius Paulus became master of Macedon by one prosperous fight against Perseus. Syphax, Gentius, Tigranes, Ptolemy, and others were more easily subdued. The mercenary armies on which they relied being broken, the cities and countries not caring for their masters, submitted to those who had more virtue and better fortune. If the Roman power had not been built upon a more sure foundation, they could not have subsisted. Notwithstanding their valour, they were often beaten; but their losses were immediately repair’d by the excellence of their discipline. When Hannibal had gained the battles of Trebia, Ticinum, Trasimene, and Cannae; defeated the Romans in many other encounters, and slain above two hundred thousand of their men, with Aemilius Paulus, C. Servilius, Sempronius Gracchus, Quintius, Marcellus, and many other excellent commanders: When about the same time the two brave Scipio’s had been cut off with their armies in Spain, and many great losses had been sustain’d in Sicily and by sea, one would have thought it impossible for the city to have resisted: But their virtue, love to their country, and good government was a strength that increased under all their calamities, and in the end overcame all. The nearer Hannibal came to the walls, the more obstinate was their resistance. Tho he had kill’d more great captains than any kingdom ever had, others daily stepp’d up in their place, who excell’d them in all manner of virtue. I know not, if at any time that conquering city could glory in a greater number of men fit for the highest enterprises, than at the end of that cruel war, which had consumed so many of them; but I think that the finishing victories by them obtained, are but ill proofs of our author’s assertion, that they thought basely of the common good, and sought only to save themselves. 7 We know of none except Caecilius Metellus, who after the battle of Cannae had so base a thought as to design the withdrawing himself from the publick ruin; but Scipio (afterwards surnamed Africanus) threatening death to those who would not swear never to abandon their country, forced him to leave it. This may in general be imputed to good government and discipline, with which all were so seasoned from their infancy, that no affection was so rooted in them, as an ardent love to their country, and a resolution to die for it, or with it; but the means by which they accomplished their great ends, so as after their defeats to have such men as carried on their noblest designs with more glory than ever, was their annual elections of magistrates, many being thereby advanc’d to the supreme commands, and every one by the honours they enjoy’d, fill’d with a desire of rendering himself worthy of them.
I should not much insist upon these things, if they had been seen only in Rome: but tho their discipline seems to have been more perfect, better observed, and to have produc’d a virtue that surpassed all others; the like has been found, tho perhaps not in the same degree, in all nations that have enjoyed their liberty, and were admitted to such a part of the government, as might give them a love to it. This was evident in all the nations of Italy. The Sabines, Volsci, Aequi, Tuscans, Samnites and others were never conquer’d, till they had no men left. The Samnites alone inhabiting a small and barren province, suffer’d more defeats before they were subdued, than all the kingdoms of Numidia, Egypt, Macedon, and Asia; and, as ’tis exprest in their embassy to Hannibal, never yielded, till they who had brought vast numbers of men into the field, and by them defeated some of the Roman armies, were reduced to such weakness, that they could not resist one legion. We hear of few Spartans who did not willingly expose their lives for the service of their country; and the women themselves were so far inflamed with the same affection, that they refused to mourn for their children and husbands who died in the defence of it. When the brave Brasidas was slain, some eminent men went to comfort his mother upon the news of his death; and telling her he was the most valiant man in the city, she answer’d, that he was indeed a valiant man, and died as he ought to do, but that through the goodness of the gods, many others were left as valiant as he. 8
When Xerxes invaded Greece, there was not a citizen of Athens able to bear arms, who did not leave his wife and children to shift for themselves in the neighbouring cities, and their houses to be burnt when they embarked with Themistocles; and never thought of either till they had defeated the barbarians at Salamis by sea, and at Plataea by land. When men are thus spirited, some will ever prove excellent; and as none did ever surpass those who were bred under this discipline in all moral, military and civil virtues; those very countries where they flourished most, have not produced any eminent men since they lost that liberty which was the mother and nurse of them.
Tho I should fill a volume with examples of this kind (as I might easily do) such as our author will say, that in popular governments men look upon mischiefs as thunder, and only wish it may not touch themselves: 9 But leaving them to the scorn and hatred they deserve by their impudence and folly, I conclude this point with the answer, that Trajano Boccalini puts into the mouth of Apollo, to the princes who complained that their subjects had not that love to their countries, as had been, and was daily seen in those who lived under commonwealths; which did amount to no more than to tell them, that their ill government was the cause of that defect, and that the prejudices incurr’d by rapine, violence, and fraud were to be repaired only by liberality, justice, and such a care of their subjects, that they might live happily under them. 10
If I have hitherto spoken in general of popular or mixed governments, as if they were all founded on the same principle, it was only because our author without distinction has generally blamed them all, and generally imputed to every one those faults, which perhaps never were in any; but most certainly are directly opposite to the temper and constitution of many among them. Malice and ignorance reign so equally in him, that ’tis not easy to determine from which of the two this false representation proceeds. But lest any man should thereby be imposed upon, ’tis time to observe, that the constitutions of commonwealths have been so various, according to the different temper of nations and times, that if some of them seem to have been principally constituted for war, others have as much delighted in peace; and many having taken the middle, and (as some think) the best way, have so moderated their love to peace, as not to suffer the spirits of the people to fall, but kept them in a perpetual readiness to make war when there was occasion: and every one of those having followed several ways and ends, deserve our particular consideration.
The cities of Rome, Sparta, Thebes, and all the associations of the Aetolians, Achaeans, Sabines, Latins, Samnites, and many others that anciently flourish’d in Greece and Italy, seem to have intended nothing but the just preservation of liberty at home, and making war abroad. All the nations of Spain, Germany, and Gaul sought the same things. Their principal work was to render their people valiant, obedient to their commanders, lovers of their country, and always ready to fight for it: And for this reason when the senators of Rome had kill’d Romulus, they persuaded Julius Proculus to affirm, that he had seen him in a most glorious form ascending to heaven, and promising great things to the city, proinde rem militarem colant. 1 The Athenians were not less inclined to war, but applied themselves to trade, as subservient to that end, by increasing the number of the people, and furnishing them with the means of carrying it on with more vigour and power. The Phoenician cities, of which Carthage was the most eminent, followed the same method; but knowing that riches do not defend themselves, or scorning slothfully to enjoy what was gained by commerce, they so far applied themselves to war, that they grew to a power, which Rome only was able to overthrow. Venice, Florence, Genoa, Lucca, and some other cities of Italy seem chiefly to have aimed at trade; and placing the hopes of their safety in the protection of more powerful states, unwillingly enter’d into wars, especially by land; and when they did, they made them by mercenary soldiers.
Again, some of those that intended war desir’d to enlarge their territories by conquest; others only to preserve their own, and to live with freedom and safety upon them. Rome was of the first sort; and knowing that such ends cannot be accomplished without great numbers of men, they freely admitted strangers into the city, senate, and magistracy. Numa was a Sabine: Tarquinius Priscus was the son of a Grecian: One hundred of those Sabines who came with Tatius were admitted into the senate: Appius Claudius of the same people came to Rome, was made a member of the senate, and created consul. They demolished several cities, and brought the inhabitants to their own; gave the right of citizens to many others (sometimes to whole cities and provinces) and cared not how many they received, so as they could engraft them upon the same interest with the old stock, and season them with the same principles, discipline, and manners. On the other side the Spartans desiring only to continue free, virtuous, and safe in the enjoyment of their own territory; and thinking themselves strong enough to defend it, framed a most severe discipline, to which few strangers would submit. They banished all those curious arts, that are useful to trade; prohibited the importation of gold and silver; appointed the Helots to cultivate their lands, and to exercise such trades as are necessary to life; admitted few strangers to live amongst them; made none of them free of their city, and educated their youth in such exercises only as prepared them for war. I will not take upon me to judge whether this proceeded from such a moderation of spirit, as placed felicity rather in the fullness and stability of liberty, integrity, virtue, and the enjoyment of their own, than in riches, power, and dominion over others; nor which of these two different methods deserves most to be commended: But certain it is that both succeeded according to the intention of the founders.
Rome conquer’d the best part of the world, and never wanted men to defend what was gained: Sparta lived in such happiness and reputation, that till it was invaded by Epaminondas, an enemy’s trumpet had not been heard by those within the town for the space of eight hundred years, and never suffer’d any great disaster, till receding from their own institutions, they were brought by prosperity to affect the principality of Greece, and to undertake such wars as could not be carried on without money, and greater numbers of men than a small city was able to furnish; by which means they were obliged to beg assistance from the barbarians, whom they scorned and hated, as appears by the stories of Callicratidas, Lysander, and Agesilaus, and fell into such straits as were never recovered.
The like variety has been observed in the constitutions of those northern nations that invaded the Roman empire; for tho all of them intended war, and looked upon those only to be members of their commonwealths, who used arms to defend them, yet some did immediately incorporate themselves with those of the conquer’d countries. Of this number were the Franks, who presently became one nation with the Gauls; others kept themselves in a distinct body, as the Saxons did from the Britains: And the Goths for more than three hundred years that they reigned in Spain, never contracted marriages, or otherwise mixed with the Spaniards, till their kingdom was overthrown by the Moors.
These things, and others of the like nature, being weighed, many have doubted whether it were better to constitute a commonwealth for war or for trade; and of such as intend war, whether those are most to be praised who prepare for defence only, or those who design by conquest to enlarge their dominions. Or, if they admit of trade, whether they should propose the acquisition of riches for their ultimate end, and depend upon foreign or mercenary forces to defend them; or to be as helps to enable their own people to carry on those wars, in which they may be frequently engaged.
These questions might perhaps be easily decided, if mankind were of a temper to suffer those to live in peace, who offer no injury to any; or that men who have money to hire soldiers when they stand in need of them, could find such as would valiantly and faithfully defend them, whilst they apply themselves to their trades. But experience teaching us that those only can be safe who are strong; and that no people was ever well defended, but those who fought for themselves; the best judges of these matters have always given the preference to those constitutions that principally intend war, and make use of trade as assisting to that end: and think it better to aim at conquest, rather than simply to stand upon their own defence; since he that loses all if he be overcome, fights upon very unequal terms; and if he obtain the victory, gains no other advantage, than for the present to repel the danger that threatened him.
These opinions are confirmed by the examples of the Romans, who prosper’d much more than the Spartans: And the Carthaginians, who made use of trade as a help to war, raised their city to be one of the most potent that ever was in the world: Whereas the Venetians having relied on trade and mercenary soldiers, are always forced too much to depend upon foreign potentates; very often to buy peace with ignominious and prejudicial conditions; and sometimes to fear the infidelity of their own commanders, no less than the violence of their enemies. But that which ought to be valued above all in point of wisdom as well as justice, is, the government given by God to the Hebrews, which chiefly fitted them for war, and to make conquests. Moses divided them under several captains, into thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens: This was a perpetual ordinance amongst them: In numbering them, those only were counted, who were able to bear arms: Every man was obliged to go out to war, except such as had married a wife, or upon other special occasions were for a time excused; and the whole series of the sacred history shews that there were always as many soldiers to fight for their country as there were men able to fight. And if this be taken for a picture of a many-headed beast delighting in blood, begotten by sedition, and nourished by crimes, 2 God himself was the drawer of it.
In this variety of constitutions and effects proceeding from them, I can see nothing more justly and generally to be attributed to them all, than that love to their country, which our author impudently affirms to be wanting in all. In other matters their proceedings are not only different, but contrary to each other: yet it cannot be said that any nations have enjoyed so much peace as some republicks. The Venetians’ too great inclination to peace is accounted to be a mortal error in their constitution, and they have not been less free from domestick seditions than foreign wars; the conspiracies of the Falerii and Tiepoli were extinguished by their punishment, and that of La Cueva crushed before it was ripe. Genoa has not been altogether so happy: the factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines that spread themselves over all Italy, infected that city; and the malice of the Spaniards and French raised others under the Fregosi and Adorni; but they being composed, they have for more than a hundred and fifty years rested in quiet.
There is another sort of commonwealth composed of many cities associated together, and living aequo jure; 3 every one retaining and exercising a sovereign power within itself, except in some cases expressed in the act of union, or league made between them. These I confess are more hardly preserved in peace. Disputes may arise among them concerning limits, jurisdiction, and the like. They cannot always be equally concerned in the same things. The injuries offer’d to one do not equally affect all. Their neighbours will sow divisions among them; and not having a mother city to decide their controversies by her authority, they may be apt to fall into quarrels, especially if they profess Christianity; which having been split into variety of opinions ever since it was preached, and the papists by their cruelty to such as dissent from them, shewing to all, that there is no other way of defending themselves against them, than by using the same, almost every man is come to think he ought (as far as in him lies) to impose his belief on others, and that he can give no better testimony of his zeal, than the excess of his violence on that account. Nevertheless the cantons of the Switzers, tho accompanied with all the most dangerous circumstances that can be imagined, being thirteen in number, independent on each other, governed in a high degree popularly, professing Christianity differing in most important points; eight of them much influenced by the Jesuits, and perpetually excited to war against their brethren by the powerful crowns of Spain and France, have ever since they cast off the insupportable yoke of the earls of Hapsburg, enjoy’d more peace than any other state of Europe, and from the most inconsiderable people, are grown to such a power, that the greatest monarchs do most solicitously seek their friendship; and none have dared to invade them, since Charles duke of Burgundy did it to his ruin: and he who for a long time had been a terror to the great, dangerous, and subtle king of France, gave by the loss of three armies and his own life a lasting testimony of his temerity in assaulting a free and valiant, tho a poor people, fighting in their own quarrel. Comines well relates that war; but a vast heap of bones remaining to this day at Muret with this inscription, Caroli fortissimi Burgundiorum ducis exercitus Muretum obsidens ab Helvetiis caesus, hoc sui monumentum reliquit, 4 best shews the success of it. Since that time their greatest wars have been for the defence of Milan; or such as they have undertaken for pay under the ensigns of France or Spain, that by the use of arms they may keep up that courage, reputation, and experience which is requir’d for the defence of their own country. No government was ever more free from popular seditions; the revolts of their subjects have been few, weak, and easily suppressed; the dissension raised by the Jesuits between the cantons of Zurich and Lucerne was as soon composed as the rebellion of the county of Vaux against the canton of Bern; and those few of the like nature that have happened among them have had the like success: So that Thuanus in the history of his time, 5 comprehending about fifty years, and relating the horrid domestick and foreign wars, that distracted Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Flanders, England, Scotland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Transylvania, Muscovy, Turkey, Africa, and other places, has no more to say of them than to shew what arts had been in vain used to disturb their so much envied quiet. But if the modest temper of the people, together with the wisdom, justice, and strength of their government, could not be discomposed by the measures of Spain and France, by the industry of their ambassadors, or the malicious craft of the Jesuits, we may safely conclude that their state is as well settled as anything among men can be, and can hardly comprehend what is like to interrupt it. As much might be said of the cities of the Hanseatick Society, if they had an entire sovereignty in themselves: But the cities of the united provinces in the Low Countries being every one of them sovereign within themselves, and many in number, still continuing in their union in spite of all the endeavours that have been used to divide them, give us an example of such steadiness in practice and principle, as is hardly to be parellel’d in the world, and that undeniably prove a temper in their constitutions directly opposite to that which our author imputes to all popular governments: and if the death of Barneveldt and De Witt, or the preferment of some most unlike to them be taken for a testimony that the best men thrive worst, and the worst best, I hope it may be consider’d that those violences proceeded from that which is most contrary to popularity, tho I am not very willing to explain it.
If these matters are not clear in themselves, I desire they may be compared with what has happen’d between any princes that from the beginning of the world have been joined in league to each other, whether they were of the same or of different nations. Let an example be brought of six, thirteen, or more princes or kings who enter’d into a league; and for the space of one or more ages, did neither break it, nor quarrel upon the explication of it. Let the states of the Switzers, Grisons, or Hollanders, be compared with that of France, when it was sometimes divided between two, three, or four brothers of Meroveus’ or Pepin’s races; with the heptarchy of England; the kingdoms of Leon, Aragon, Navarre, Castile and Portugal, under which the Christians in Spain were divided; or those of Cordoba, Seville, Malaga, Granada, and others under the power of the Moors; and if it be not evident, that the popular states have been remarkable for peace among themselves, constancy to their union and fidelity to the leagues made with their associates; whereas all the abovementioned kingdoms, and such others as are known among men to have been joined in the like leagues, were ever infested with domestick rebellions and quarrels arising from the ambition of princes, so as no confederacy could be so cautiously made, but they would find ways to elude it, or so solemn and sacred, but they would in far less time break through it: I will confess, that kingdoms have sometimes been as free from civil disturbances; and that leagues made between several princes, have been as constantly and religiously observed, as by commonwealths. But if no such thing do appear in the world, and no man who is not impudent or ignorant dare pretend it, I may justly conclude, that tho every commonwealth hath its action suitable to its constitution, and that many associated together are not so free from disturbances, as those that wholly depend upon the authority of a mother city; yet we know of none that have not been, and are more regular and quiet than any principalities; and as to foreign wars, they seek or avoid them according to their various constitutions.
Our author having huddled up all popular and mixed governments into one, has in some measure forced me to explain the various constitutions and principles upon which they are grounded: but as the wisdom of a father is seen, not only in providing bread for his family, or increasing his patrimonial estate, but in making all possible provision for the security of it; so that government is evidently the best, which, not relying upon what it does at first enjoy, seeks to increase the number, strength, and riches of the people; and by the best discipline to bring the power so improved into such order as may be of most use to the publick. This comprehends all things conducing to the administration of justice, the preservation of domestick peace, and the increase of commerce, that the people being pleased with their present condition, may be filled with love to their country, encouraged to fight boldly for the publick cause, which is their own; and as men do willingly join with that which prospers, that strangers may be invited to fix their habitations in such a city, and to espouse the principles that reign in it. This is necessary for several reasons; but I shall principally insist upon one, which is, that all things in their beginning are weak: The whelp of a lion newly born has neither strength nor fierceness. He that builds a city, and does not intend it should increase, commits as great an absurdity, as if he should desire his child might ever continue under the same weakness in which he is born. If it do not grow, it must pine and perish; for in this world nothing is permanent; that which does not grow better will grow worse. This increase also is useless, or perhaps hurtful, if it be not in strength, as well as in riches or number: for everyone is apt to seize upon ill guarded treasures; and the terror that the city of London was possessed with, when a few Dutch ships came to Chatham, shews that no numbers of men, tho naturally valiant, are able to defend themselves, unless they be well arm’d, disciplin’d and conducted. Their multitude brings confusion: their wealth, when ’tis like to be made a prey, increases the fears of the owners; and they, who if they were brought into good order, might conquer a great part of the world, being destitute of it, durst not think of defending themselves.
If it be said that the wise father mention’d by me endeavours to secure his patrimony by law, not by force; I answer, that all defence terminates in force; and if a private man does not prepare to defend his estate with his own force, ’tis because he lives under the protection of the law, and expects the force of the magistrate should be a security to him: but kingdoms and commonwealths acknowledging no superior, except God alone, can reasonably hope to be protected by him only; and by him, if with industry and courage they make use of the means he has given them for their own defence. God helps those who help themselves; and men are by several reasons (suppose to prevent the increase of a suspected power) induced to succour an industrious and brave people: But such as neglect the means of their own preservation, are ever left to perish with shame. Men cannot rely upon any league: The state that is defended by one potentate against another becomes a slave to their protector: Mercenary soldiers always want fidelity or courage, and most commonly both. If they are not corrupted or beaten by the invader, they make a prey of their masters. These are the followers of camps who have neither faith nor piety, but prefer gain before right. 1 They who expose their blood to sale, look where they can make the best bargain, and never fail of pretences for following their interests.
Moreover, private families may by several arts increase their wealth, as they increase in number; but when a people multiplies (as they will always do in a good climate under a good government) such an enlargement of territory as is necessary for their subsistence can be acquired only by war. This was known to the northern nations that invaded the Roman empire; but for want of such constitutions as might best improve their strength and valour, the numbers they sent out when they were overburden’d, provided well for themselves, but were of no use to the countries they left; and whilst those Goths, Vandals, Franks, and Normans enjoyed the most opulent and delicious provinces of the world, their fathers languished obscurely in their frozen climates. For the like reasons, or through the same defect, the Switzers are obliged to serve other princes; and often to employ that valour in advancing the power of their neighbours, which might be used to increase their own. Genoa, Lucca, Geneva, and other small commonwealths, having no wars, are not able to nourish the men they breed; but sending many of their children to seek their fortunes abroad, scarce a third part of those that are born among them die in those cities; and if they did not take this course, they would have no better than the nations inhabiting near the River Niger, who sell their children as the increase of their flocks.
This does not less concern monarchies than commonwealths; nor the absolute less than the mixed: All of them have been prosperous or miserable, glorious or contemptible, as they were better or worse arm’d, disciplin’d, or conducted. The Assyrian valour was irresistible under Nebuchadnezzar, but was brought to nothing under his base and luxurious grandson Belshazzar: The Persians who under Cyrus conquer’d Asia, were like swine exposed to slaughter when their discipline failed, and they were commanded by his proud, cruel, and cowardly successors. The Macedonian army overthrown by Aemilius Paulus was not less in number than that with which Alexander gained the empire of the East; and perhaps had not been inferior in valour, if it had been as well commanded. Many poor and almost unknown nations have been carried to such a height of glory by the bravery of their princes, that I might incline to think their government as fit as any other for disciplining a people to war, if their virtues continued in their families, or could be transmitted to their successors. The impossibility of this is a breach never to be repaired; and no account is to be made of the good that is always uncertain, and seldom enjoy’d. This disease is not only in absolute monarchies, but in those also where any regard is had to succession of blood, tho under the strictest limitations. The fruit of all the victories gained by Edward the first and third, or Henry the fifth of England, perished by the baseness of their successors: the glory of our arms was turned into shame; and we, by the loss of treasure, blood, and territory, suffer’d the punishment of their vices. The effects of these changes are not always equally violent; but they are frequent, and must fall out as often as occasion is presented. It was not possible for Lewis the 13th of France to pursue the great designs of Henry the Fourth: Christina of Sweden could not supply the place of her brave father; nor the present king in his infancy accomplish what the great Charles Gustavus had nobly undertaken: and no remedy can be found for this mortal infirmity, unless the power be put into the hands of those who are able to execute it, and not left to the blindness of fortune. When the regal power is committed to an annual or otherwise chosen magistracy, the virtues of excellent men are of use, but all does not depend upon their persons: One man finishes what another had begun; and when many are by practice rendered able to perform the same things, the loss of one is easily supplied by the election of another. When good principles are planted, they do not die with the person that introduced them; and good constitutions remain, tho the authors of them perish. Rome did not fall back into slavery when Brutus was killed, who had led them to recover their liberty: Others like to him pursued the same ends; and notwithstanding the loss of so many great commanders consumed in their almost continual wars, they never wanted such as were fit to execute whatever they could design. A well-governed state is as fruitful to all good purposes, as the seven-headed serpent is said to have been in evil; when one head is cut off, many rise up in the place of it. Good order being once established, makes good men; and as long as it lasts, such as are fit for the greatest employments will never be wanting. By this means the Romans could not be surprised: No king or captain ever invaded them, who did not find many excellent commanders to oppose him; whereas they themselves found it easy to overthrow kingdoms, tho they had been established by the bravest princes, through the baseness of their successors.
But if our author say true, ’tis of no advantage to a popular state to have excellent men; and therefore he imposes a necessity upon every people to chuse the worst men for being the worst, and most like to themselves; lest that if virtuous and good men should come into power, they should be excluded for being vicious and wicked, c. Wise men would seize upon the state, and take it from the people. 2 For the understanding of these words, ’tis good to consider whether they are to be taken simply, as usually applied to the Devil and some of his instruments, or relatively, as to the thing in question: If simply, it must be concluded that Valerius, Brutus, Cincinnatus, Capitolinus, Mamercus, Aemilius Paulus, Nasica, and others like to them, were not only the worst men of the city; but that they were so often advanced to the supreme magistracies, because they were so: if in the other sense relating to magistracy and the command of armies, the worst are the most ignorant, unfaithful, slothful, or cowardly; and our author to make good his proposition, must prove, that when the people of Rome, Carthage, Athens, and other states had the power of chusing whom they pleased, they did chuse Camillus, Corvinus, Torquatus, Fabius, Rullus, Scipio, Hamilcar, Hannibal, Hasdrubal, Pelopidas, Epaminondas, Pericles, Aristides, Themistocles, Phocion, Alcibiades, and others like to them, for their ignorance, infidelity, sloth, and cowardice; and on account of those vices, most like to those who chose them. But if these were the worst, I desire to know what wit or eloquence can describe or comprehend the excellency of the best; or of the discipline that brings whole nations to such perfection, that worse than these could not be found among them? And if they were not so, but such as all succeeding ages have justly admir’d for their wisdom, virtue, industry, and valour, the impudence of so wicked and false an assertion ought to be rejected with scorn and hatred.
But if all governments whether monarchical or popular, absolute or limited, deserve praise or blame as they are well or ill constituted for making war; and that the attainment of this end do entirely depend upon the qualifications of the commanders, and the strength, courage, number, affection, and temper of the people out of which the armies are drawn; those governments must necessarily be the best which take the best care that those armies may be well commanded; and so provide for the good of the people, that they may daily increase in number, courage, and strength, and be so satisfied with the present state of things, as to fear a change, and fight for the preservation or advancement of the publick interest as of their own. We have already found that in hereditary monarchies no care at all is taken of the commander: He is not chosen, but comes by chance; and does not only frequently prove defective, but for the most part utterly incapable of performing any part of his duty; whereas in popular governments excellent men are generally chosen; and there are so many of them, that if one or more perish, others are ready to supply their places. And this discourse having (if I mistake not) in the whole series, shewn, that the advantages of popular governments, in relation to the increase of courage, number, and strength in a people, out of which armies are to be formed, and bringing them to such a temper as prepares them bravely to perform their duty, are as much above those of monarchies, as the prudence of choice surpasses the accidents of birth, it cannot be denied that in both respects the part which relates to war is much better perform’d in popular governments than in monarchies.
That which we are by reason led to believe, is confirmed to us by experience. We everywhere see the difference between the courage of men fighting for themselves and their posterity, and those that serve a master who by good success is often render’d insupportable. This is of such efficacy, that no king could ever boast to have overthrown any considerable commonwealth, unless it were divided within itself, or weakened by wars made with such as were also free; which was the case of the Grecian commonwealths when the Macedonians fell in upon them. Whereas the greatest kingdoms have been easily destroy’d by commonwealths; and these also have lost all strength, valour, and spirit after the change of their government. The power and virtue of the Italians grew up, decayed and perished with their liberty. When they were divided into many commonwealths, every one of them was able to send out great armies, and to suffer many defeats before they were subdued; so that their cities were delivered up by the old men, women, and children, when all those who were able to bear arms had been slain: And when they were all brought under the Romans, either as associates or subjects, they made the greatest strength that ever was in the world.
Alexander of Epirus was in valour thought equal, and in power little inferior to Alexander of Macedon: but having the fortune to attack those who had been brought up in liberty, taught to hazard or suffer all things for it, and to think that God has given to men hands and swords only to defend it, he perished in his attempt; whilst the other encountering slavish nations, under the conduct of proud, cruel, and for the most part unwarlike tyrants, became master of Asia.
Pyrrhus seems to have been equal to either of them; but the victories he obtain’d by an admirable valour and conduct, cost him so dear, that he desir’d peace with those enemies who might be defeated, not subdued.
Hannibal wanting the prudence of Pyrrhus, lost the fruits of all his victories; and being torn out of Italy, where he had nested himself, fell under the sword of those whose fathers he had defeated or slain; and died a banish’d man from his ruin’d country.
The Gauls did once bring Rome, when it was small, to the brink of destruction; but they left their carcasses to pay for the mischiefs they had done; and in succeeding times their invasions were mention’d as tumults rather than wars.
The Germans did perhaps surpass them in numbers and strength, and were equal to them in fortune as long as Rome was free. They often enter’d Italy, but they continued not long there, unless under the weight of their chains. Whereas the same nations, and others like to them, assaulting that country, or other provinces under the emperors, found no other difficulty than what did arise upon contests among themselves who should be master of them. No manly virtue or discipline remain’d among the Italians: Those who govern’d them, relied upon tricks and shifts; they who could not defend themselves, hired some of those nations to undertake their quarrels against others. These trinklings could not last: The Goths scorning to depend upon those who in valour and strength were much inferior to themselves, seized upon the city that had commanded the world, whilst Honorius was so busy in providing for his hens, that he could not think of defending it. Arcadius had the luck not to lose his principal city; but passing his time among fiddlers, players, eunuchs, cooks, dancers, and buffoons, the provinces were securely plunder’d and ransack’d by nations, that are known only from their victories against him.
’Tis in vain to say that this proceeded from the fatal corruption of that age; for that corruption proceeded from the government, and the ensuing desolation was the effect of it. And as the like disorder in government has been ever since in Greece and the greatest part of Italy, those countries which for extent, riches, convenience of situation, and numbers of men, are equal to the best in the world, and for the wit, courage, and industry of the natives, perhaps justly preferable to any, have since that time been always exposed as a prey to the first invader. Charles the Eighth of France is by Guicciardini, and other writers, represented as a prince equally weak in body, mind, money, and forces; but as an ill hare is said to make a good dog, he conquer’d the best part of Italy without breaking a lance. 3 Ferdinand and Alfonso of Aragon, kings of Naples, had governed by trepanners, false witnesses, corrupt judges, mercenary soldiers, and other ministers of iniquity; but these could afford no help against an invader; and neither the oppressed nobility, nor people, concerning themselves in the quarrel, they who had been proud, fierce, and cruel against their poor subjects, never durst look an enemy in the face; and the father dying with anguish and fear, the son shamefully fled from his ill governed kingdom.
The same things are no less evident in Spain. No people ever defended themselves with more obstinacy and valour than the Spaniards did against the Carthaginians and Romans, who surpassed them in wealth and skill. Livy calls them gentem ad bella gerenda reparanda natam, 4 and who generally kill’d themselves when they were master’d and disarm’d, nullam sine armis vitam esse rati. 5 But tho the mixture of Roman blood could not impair their race, and the conjunction of the Goths had improved their force; yet no more was requir’d for the overthrow of them all, than the weakness and baseness of the two lewd tyrants Witiza and Rodrigo, who disdained all laws, and resolved to govern according to their lust. They who for more than two hundred years had resisted the Romans, were entirely subdued by the vile, half naked Moors, in one slight skirmish; and do not to this day know what became of the king who brought the destruction upon them. That kingdom after many revolutions is with many others come to the house of Austria, and enjoys all the wealth of the Indies; whereupon they are thought to have affected an universal monarchy. Sed ut sunt levia aulicorum ingenia, 6 this was grounded upon nothing except their own vanity: They had money and craft; but wanting that solid virtue and strength which makes and preserves conquests, their kings have nothing but Milan that did not come to them by marriage: And tho they have not received any extraordinary disasters in war, yet they languish and consume through the defects of their own government, and are forced to beg assistance from their mortal and formerly despis’d enemies. These are the best hopes of defence that they have from abroad; and the only enemy an invader ought to fear in their desolate territories is that want and famine which testifies the good order, strength and stability of our author’s divine monarchy; the profound wisdom of their kings in subtly finding out so sure a way of defending the country; their paternal care in providing for the good of their subjects; and that whatsoever is defective in the prince, is assuredly supplied by the sedulity of a good council.
We have already said enough to obviate the objections that may be drawn from the prosperity of the French monarchy. The beauty of it is false and painted. There is a rich and haughty king, who is bless’d with such neighbours as are not likely to disturb him, and has nothing to fear from his miserable subjects; but the whole body of that state is full of boils, and wounds, and putrid sores: There is no real strength in it. The people is so unwilling to serve him, that he is said to have put to death above fourscore thousand of his own soldiers within the space of fifteen years, for flying from their colours; and if he were vigorously attack’d, little help could be expected from a discontented nobility, or a starving and despairing people. If to diminish the force of these arguments and examples, it be said that in two or three thousand years all things are changed; the ancient virtue of mankind is extinguished; and the love that everyone had to his country is turned into a care of his private interests: I answer, that time changes nothing, and the changes produced in this time proceed only from the change of governments. The nations which have been governed arbitrarily, have always suffer’d the same plagues, and been infected with the same vices; which is as natural, as for animals ever to generate according to their kinds, and fruits to be of the same nature with the roots and seeds from which they come. The same order that made men valiant and industrious in the service of their country during the first ages, would have the same effect, if it were now in being: Men would have the same love to the publick as the Spartans and Romans had, if there was the same reason for it. We need no other proof of this than what we have seen in our own country, where in a few years good discipline, and a just encouragement given to those who did well, produced more examples of pure, compleat, incorruptible, and invincible virtue than Rome or Greece could ever boast; or if more be wanting, they may easily be found among the Switzers, Hollanders and others: but ’tis not necessary to light a candle to the sun.
’Tis in vain to seek a government in all points free from a possibility of civil wars, tumults, and seditions: that is a blessing denied to this life, and reserved to compleat the felicity of the next. But if these are to be accounted the greatest evils that can fall upon a people, the rectitude or defects of governments will best appear if we examine which species is more or less exposed to, or exempted from them.
This may be done two ways.
To the first: Seditions, tumults, and wars do arise from mistake, or from malice; from just occasions, or unjust: from mistake, when a people thinks an evil to be done or intended, which is not done nor intended, or takes that to be evil which is done, tho in truth it be not so. Well regulated cities may fall into these errors. The Romans being jealous of their newly recover’d liberty, thought that Valerius Publicola designed to make himself king, when he built a house in a place that seemed too strong and eminent for a private man. The Spartans were not less suspicious of Lycurgus; and a lewd young fellow in a sedition put out one of his eyes: but no people ever continued in a more constant affection to their best deserving citizens, than both the Romans and Spartans afterwards manifested to those virtuous and wrongfully suspected men.
Sometimes the fact is true, but otherwise understood than was intended. When the Tarquins were expelled from Rome, the patricians retained to themselves the principal magistracies; but never thought of bringing back kings, or of setting up a corrupt oligarchy among themselves, as the plebeians imagin’d: And this mistake being discover’d, the fury they had conceived, vanished; and they who seemed to intend nothing less than the extirpation of all the patrician families, grew quiet. Menenius Agrippa appeased one of the most violent seditions that ever happened amongst them (till civil interests were pursued by armed troops) with a fable of the several parts of the body that murmur’d against the belly: and the most dangerous of all was composed by creating tribunes to protect them. Some of the patrician young men had favour’d the decemviri, and others being unwilling to appear against them, the people believed they had all conspired with those new tyrants: but Valerius and Horatius putting themselves at the head of those who sought their destruction, they perceived their error, and looked upon the patricians as the best defenders of their liberties: Et inde, says Livy, auram libertatis captare, unde servitutem timuissent. 1 Democratical governments are most liable to these mistakes: In aristocracies they are seldom seen, and we hear of none in Sparta after the establishment of the laws by Lycurgus; but absolute monarchies seem to be totally exempted from them. The mischiefs design’d are often dissembled or denied, till they are past all possibility of being cured by any other way than force: and such as are by necessity driven to use that remedy, know they must perfect their work or perish. He that draws his sword against the prince, say the French, ought to throw away the scabbard; for tho the design be never so just, yet the authors are sure to be ruin’d if it miscarry. Peace is seldom made, and never kept, unless the subject retain such a power in his hands, as may oblige the prince to stand to what is agreed; and in time some trick is found to deprive them of that benefit.
Seditions proceeding from malice, are seldom or never seen in popular governments; for they are hurtful to the people, and none have ever willingly and knowingly hurt themselves. There may be, and often is malice in those who excite them; but the people is ever deceiv’d, and whatsoever is thereupon done, ought to be imputed to error, as I said before. If this be discovered in time, it usually turns to the destruction of the contriver; as in the cases of Manlius Capitolinus, Spurius Maelius, and Sp. Cassius: if not, for the most part it produces a tyranny, as in those of Agathocles, Dionysius, Pisistratus, and Caesar. But in absolute monarchies, almost all the troubles that arise, proceed from malice; they cannot be reformed, the extinction of them is exceeding difficult, if they have continued long enough to corrupt the people; and those who appear against them, seek only to set up themselves, or their friends. Thus we see that in the civil wars of the East, the question was, whether Artaxerxes or Cyrus, Phraates or Bardanes, should reign over the Persians and Parthians: The people suffer’d equally from both whilst the contests lasted; and the decision left them under the power of a proud and cruel master. The like is seen in all places. After the death of Brutus and Cassius, no war was ever undertaken in the Roman empire upon a better account than one man’s private concernments: The provinces suffer’d under all; and he, whom they had assisted to overthrow one wicked tyrant, very often proved worse than his predecessor. And the only ground of all the dissensions with which France was vexed under the princes of Meroveus’s and Pepin’s races, were, which of them should reign, the people remaining miserable under them all.
The case is not much different in mixed monarchies: Some wars may be undertaken upon a just and publick account, but the pretences are commonly false: a lasting reformation is hardly introduced, an entire change often disliked. And tho such kingdoms are frequently and terribly distracted, as appears by the beforemention’d examples of England, Spain, c. the quarrels are for the most part begun upon personal titles, as between Henry the First and Robert; Stephen and Maude; or the houses of Lancaster and York: and the people who get nothing by the victory which way soever it fall, and might therefore prudently leave the competitors to decide their own quarrels, like Theorestes and Polynices, 2 with their own swords, become cruelly engaged in them.
It may seem strange to some that I mention seditions, tumults, and wars, upon just occasions; but I can find no reason to retract the term. God intending that men should live justly with one another, does certainly intend that he or they who do no wrong, should suffer none; and the law that forbids injuries, were of no use, if no penalty might be inflicted on those that will not obey it. If injustice therefore be evil, and injuries forbidden, they are also to be punished; and the law instituted for their prevention, must necessarily intend the avenging of such as cannot be prevented. The work of the magistracy is to execute this law; the sword of justice is put into their hands to restrain the fury of those within the society who will not be a law to themselves, and the sword of war to protect the people against the violence of foreigners. This is without exception, and would be in vain if it were not. But the magistrate who is to protect the people from injury, may, and is often known not to have done it: he sometimes renders his office useless by neglecting to do justice; sometimes mischievous by overthrowing it. This strikes at the root of God’s general ordinance, that there should be laws; and the particular ordinances of all societies that appoint such as seem best to them. The magistrate therefore is comprehended under both, and subject to both, as well as private men.
The ways of preventing or punishing injuries, are judicial or extrajudicial. Judicial proceedings are of force against those who submit or may be brought to trial, but are of no effect against those who resist, and are of such power that they cannot be constrained. It were absurd to cite a man to appear before a tribunal who can awe the judges, or has armies to defend him; and impious to think that he who has added treachery to his other crimes, and usurped a power above the law, should be protected by the enormity of his wickedness. Legal proceedings therefore are to be used when the delinquent submits to the law; and all are just, when he will not be kept in order by the legal.
The word sedition is generally applied to all numerous assemblies, without or against the authority of the magistrate, or of those who assume that power. Athaliah and Jezebel 3 were more ready to cry out treason than David; and examples of that sort are so frequent, that I need not allege them.
Tumult is from the disorderly manner of those assemblies, where things can seldom be done regularly; and war is that decertatio per vim, or trial by force, to which men come when other ways are ineffectual.
If the laws of God and men are therefore of no effect, when the magistracy is left at liberty to break them; and if the lusts of those who are too strong for the tribunals of justice, cannot be otherwise restrained than by sedition, tumults and war, those seditions, tumults, and wars, are justified by the laws of God and man.
I will not take upon me to enumerate all the cases in which this may be done, but content myself with three, which have most frequently given occasion for proceedings of this kind.
The first is, when one or more men take upon them the power and name of a magistracy, to which they are not justly called.
The second, when one or more being justly called, continue in their magistracy longer than the laws by which they are called do prescribe.
And the third, when he or they who are rightly called, do assume a power, tho within the time prescribed, that the law does not give; or turn that which the law does give, to an end different and contrary to that which is intended by it.
For the first; Filmer forbids us to examine titles: he tells us, we must submit to the power, whether acquired by usurpation or otherwise, not observing the mischievous absurdity of rewarding the most detestable villainies with the highest honours, and rendering the veneration due to the supreme magistrate as father of the people, to one who has no other advantage above his brethren, than what he has gained by injuriously dispossessing or murdering him that was so. Hobbes fearing the advantages that may be taken from such desperate nonsense, or not thinking it necessary to his end to carry the matter so far, has no regard at all to him who comes in without title or consent; and denying him to be either king or tyrant, gives him no other name than hostis latro, 4 and allows all things to be lawful against him, that may be done to a publick enemy or pirate: which is as much as to say, any man may destroy him how he can. Whatever he may be guilty of in other respects, he does in this follow the voice of mankind, and the dictates of common sense: for no man can make himself a magistrate for himself, and no man can have the right of a magistrate, who is not a magistrate. 5 If he be justly accounted an enemy to all, who injures all; he above all must be the publick enemy of a nation, who by usurping a power over them, does the greatest and most publick injury that a people can suffer: For which reason, by an established law among the most virtuous nations, every man might kill a tyrant; and no names are recorded in history with more honour, than of those who did it.
These are by other authors called tyranni sine titulo, 6 and that name is given to all those who obtain the supreme power by illegal and unjust means. The laws which they overthrow can give them no protection; and every man is a soldier against him who is a publick enemy.
The same rule holds tho they are more in number, as the magi who usurped the dominion of Persia after the death of Cambyses; the thirty tyrants at Athens overthrown by Thrasybulus; those of Thebes slain by Pelopidas; the decemviri of Rome, and others: for tho the multitude of offenders may sometimes procure impunity, yet that act which is wicked in one, must be so in ten or twenty; and whatsoever is lawful against one usurper, is so against them all.
2. If those who were rightly created, continue beyond the time limited by the law, ’tis the same thing. That which is expir’d, is as if it had never been. He that was created consul for a year, or dictator for six months, was after that a private man; and if he had continued in the exercise of his magistracy, had been subject to the same punishment as if he had usurped it at the first. This was known to Epaminondas, who finding that his enterprize against Sparta could not be accomplished within the time for which he was made boeotarch, rather chose to trust his countrymen with his life than to desist, and was saved merely through an admiration of his virtue, assurance of his good intentions, and the glory of the action.
The Roman decemviri, tho duly elected, were proceeded against as private men usurping the magistracy, when they continued beyond their time. Other magistrates had ceased; there was none that could regularly call the senate or people to an assembly: but when their ambition was manifest, and the people exasperated by the death of Virginia, they laid aside all ceremonies. The senate and people met, and exercising their authority in the same manner as if they had been regularly called by the magistrate appointed to that end, they abrogated the power of the decemviri, proceeded against them as enemies and tyrants, and by that means preserved themselves from utter ruin.
3. The same course is justly used against a legal magistrate, who takes upon him (tho within the time prescribed by the law) to exercise a power which the law does not give; for in that respect he is a private man, Quia, as Grotius says, eatenus non habet imperium; 7 and may be restrain’d as well as any other, because he is not set up to do what he lists, but what the law appoints for the good of the people; and as he has no other power than what the law allows, so the same law limits and directs the exercise of that which he has. This right naturally belonging to nations, is no way impair’d by the name of supreme given to their magistrates; for it signifies no more, than that they do act sovereignly in the matters committed to their charge. Thus are the parliaments of France called cours souveraines; for they judge of life and death, determine controversies concerning estates; and there is no appeal from their decrees: but no man ever thought, that it was therefore lawful for them to do what they pleased; or that they might not be opposed, if they should attempt to do that which they ought not. And tho the Roman dictators and consuls were supreme magistrates, they were subject to the people, and might be punished as well as others if they transgressed the law. Thuanus carries the word so far, that when Barlotta, Giustiniano, and others who were but colonels, were sent as commanders in chief of three or four thousand men upon an enterprize, he always says, summum imperium ei delatum. 8 Grotius explains this point, by distinguishing those who have the summum imperium summo modo, from those who have it modo non summo. 9 I know not where to find an example of this sovereign power, enjoy’d without restriction, under a better title than occupation; which relates not to our purpose, who seek only that which is legal and just. Therefore laying aside that point for the present, we may follow Grotius in examining the right of those who are certainly limited: Ubi partem imperii habet rex, partem senatus sive populus; in which case he says, regi in partem non suam involanti, vis justa opponi potest, in as much as they who have a part, cannot but have a right of defending that part. Quia data facultate, datur jus facultatem tuendi, without which it could be of no effect. 10
The particular limits of the rights belonging to each, can only be judged by the precise letter, or general intention of the law. The dukes of Venice have certainly a part in the government, and could not be called magistrates if they had not. They are said to be supreme; all laws and publick acts bear their names. The ambassador of that state speaking to Pope Paul the 5th, denied that he acknowledged any other superior than God. 11 But they are so well known to be under the power of the law, that divers of them have been put to death for transgressing it; and a marble gallows is seen at the foot of the stairs in St. Mark’s palace, upon which some of them, and no others, have been executed. But if they may be duly opposed, when they commit undue acts, no man of judgment will deny, that if one of them by an outrageous violence should endeavour to overthrow the law, he might by violence be suppressed and chastised.
Again, some magistrates are entrusted with a power of providing ships, arms, ammunition, and victuals for war; raising and disciplining soldiers, appointing officers to command in forts and garrisons, and making leagues with foreign princes and states. But if one of these should embezzle, sell, or give to an enemy those ships, arms, ammunition or provisions; betray the forts; employ only or principally, such men as will serve him in those wicked actions; and, contrary to the trust reposed in him, make such leagues with foreigners, as tend to the advancement of his personal interests, and to the detriment of the publick, he abrogates his own magistracy; and the right he had, perishes (as the lawyers say) frustratione finis. 12 He cannot be protected by the law which he has overthrown, nor obtain impunity for his crimes from the authority that was conferred upon him, only that he might do good with it. He was singulis major on account of the excellence of his office; but universis minor, 13 from the nature and end of his institution. The surest way of extinguishing his prerogative, was by turning it to the hurt of those who gave it. When matters are brought to this posture, the author of the mischief, or the nation must perish. A flock cannot subsist under a shepherd that seeks its ruin, nor a people under an unfaithful magistrate. Honour and riches are justly heaped upon the heads of those who rightly perform their duty, because the difficulty as well as the excellency of the work is great. It requires courage, experience, industry, fidelity and wisdom. The good shepherd, says our Saviour, lays down his life for his sheep: The hireling who flies in time of danger, is represented under an ill character; but he that sets himself to destroy his flock, is a wolf. His authority is incompatible with their subsistence; and whoever disapproves tumults, seditions or war, by which he may be removed from it, if gentler means are ineffectual, subverts the foundation of all law, exalts the fury of one man to the destruction of a nation; and giving an irresistible power to the most abominable iniquity, exposes all that are good to be destroy’d, and virtue to be utterly extinguished.
Few will allow such a preeminence to the dukes of Venice or Genoa the avoyers of Switzerland, or the burgomasters of Amsterdam. Many will say these are rascals if they prove false, and ought rather to be hang’d, than suffer’d to accomplish the villainies they design. But if this be confess’d in relation to the highest magistrates that are among those nations, why should not the same be in all others, by what name soever they are called? When did God confer upon those nations the extraordinary privilege of providing better for their own safety than others? Or was the gift universal, tho the benefit accrue only to those who have banished great titles from among them? If this be so, ’tis not their felicity, but their wisdom that we ought to admire and imitate. But why should any think their ancestors had not the same care? Have not they, who retain’d in themselves a power over a magistrate of one name, the like over another? Is there a charm in words, or any name of such efficacy, that he who receives it should immediately become master of those that created him, whereas all others do remain forever subject to them? Would the Venetian government change its nature, if they should give the name of king to their prince? Are the Polanders less free since the title of king is conferr’d upon their dukes; or are the Muscovites less slaves, because their chief magistrate has no other than that of duke? If we examine things but a little, ’twill appear that magistrates have enjoy’d large powers, who never had the name of kings; and none were ever more restrained by laws than those of Sparta, Aragon, the Goths in Spain, Hungary, Bohemia, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and others, who had that title. There is therefore no such thing as a right universally belonging to a name; but everyone enjoys that which the laws, by which he is, confer upon him. The law that gives the power, regulates it; and they who give no more than what they please, cannot be obliged to suffer him to whom they give it, to take more than they thought fit to give, or to go unpunished if he do. The agreements made are always confirmed by oath, and the treachery of violating them is consequently aggravated by perjury. They are good philosophers and able divines, who think this can create a right to those who had none; or that the laws can be a protection to such as overthrow them, and give opportunity of doing the mischiefs they design. If it do not, then he that was a magistrate, by such actions returns into the condition of a private man; and whatever is lawful against a thief who submits to no law, is lawful against him.
Men who delight in cavils may ask, who shall be the judge of these occasions? and whether I intend to give to the people the decision of their own cause? To which I answer, that when the contest is between the magistrate and the people, the party to which the determination is referred, must be the judge of his own case; and the question is only, whether the magistrate should depend upon the judgment of the people, or the people on that of the magistrate; and which is most to be suspected of injustice: That is, whether the people of Rome should judge Tarquin, or Tarquin judge the people. He that knew all good men abhorred him for the murder of his wife, brother, father-in-law, and the best of the senate, would certainly strike off the heads of the most eminent remaining poppies; and having incurr’d the general hatred of the people by the wickedness of his government, he feared revenge; and endeavouring to destroy those he feared (that is the city) he might easily have accomplish’d his work, if the judgment had been referred to him. If the people judge Tarquin, ’tis hard to imagine how they should be brought to give an unjust sentence: They loved their former kings, and hated him only for his villainies: They did not fancy, but know his cruelty. When the best were slain, no man that any way resembled them could think himself secure. Brutus did not pretend to be a fool, till by the murder of his brother he found how dangerous a thing it was to be thought wise. If the people, as our author says, be always lewd, foolish, mad, wicked, and desirous to put the power into the hands of such as are most like to themselves, he and his sons were such men as they sought, and he was sure to find favourable judges: If virtuous and good, no injustice was to be feared from them, and he could have no other reason to decline their judgment, than what was suggested by his own wickedness. Caligula, Nero, Domitian, and the like, had probably the same considerations: But no man of common sense ever thought that the senate and people of Rome did not better deserve to judge, whether such monsters should reign over the best part of mankind to their destruction, than they to determine whether their crimes should be punished or not.
If I mention some of these known cases, every man’s experience will suggest others of the like nature; and whosoever condemns all seditions, tumults and wars raised against such princes, must say, that none are wicked, or seek the ruin of their people, which is absurd; for Caligula wish’d the people had but one neck, that he might cut it off at a blow: Nero set the city on fire, and we have known such as have been worse than either of them: They must either be suffer’d to continue in the free exercise of their rage, that is, to do all the mischief they design; or must be restrain’d by a legal, judicial, or extrajudicial way; and they who disallow the extrajudicial, do as little like the judicial. They will not hear of bringing a supreme magistrate before a tribunal, when it may be done. They will, says our author, depose their kings. 14 Why should they not be deposed, if they become enemies to their people, and set up an interest in their own persons inconsistent with the publick good, for the promoting of which they were erected? If they were created by the publick consent, for the publick good, shall they not be removed when they prove to be of publick damage? If they set up themselves, may they not be thrown down? Shall it be lawful for them to usurp a power over the liberty of others, and shall it not be lawful for an injur’d people to resume their own? If injustice exalt itself, must it be forever established? Shall great persons be rendered sacred by rapine, perjury and murder? Shall the crimes for which private men do justly suffer the most grievous punishments, exempt them from all, who commit them in the highest excess, with most power, and most to the prejudice of mankind? Shall the laws that solely aim at the prevention of crimes be made to patronize them, and become snares to the innocent whom they ought to protect? Has every man given up into the common store his right of avenging the injuries he may receive, that the publick power which ought to protect or avenge him, should be turned to the destruction of himself, his posterity, and the society into which they enter, without any possibility of redress? Shall the ordinance of God be rendered of no effect; or the powers he hath appointed to be set up for the distribution of justice, be made subservient to the lusts of one or a few men, and by impunity encourage them to commit all manner of crimes? Is the corruption of man’s nature so little known, that such as have common sense should expect justice from those, who fear no punishment if they do injustice; or that the modesty, integrity, and innocence, which is seldom found in one man, tho never so cautiously chosen, should be constantly found in all those who by any means attain to greatness, and continue forever in their successors; or that there can be any security under their government, if they have them not? Surely if this were the condition of men living under government, forests would be more safe than cities; and ’twere better for every man to stand in his own defence, than to enter into societies. He that lives alone might encounter such as should assault him upon equal terms, and stand or fall according to the measure of his courage and strength; but no valour can defend him, if the malice of his enemy be upheld by a publick power. There must therefore be a right of proceeding judicially or extrajudicially against all persons who transgress the laws; or else those laws, and the societies that should subsist by them, cannot stand; and the ends for which governments are constituted, together with the governments themselves, must be overthrown. Extrajudicial proceedings by sedition, tumult, or war, must take place, when the persons concern’d are of such power, that they cannot be brought under the judicial. They who deny this, deny all help against an usurping tyrant, or the perfidiousness of a lawfully created magistrate, who adds the crimes of ingratitude and treachery to usurpation. These of all men are the most dangerous enemies to supreme magistrates: for as no man desires indemnity for such crimes as are never committed, he that would exempt all from punishment, supposes they will be guilty of the worst; and by concluding that the people will depose them if they have the power, acknowledge that they pursue an interest annexed to their persons, contrary to that of their people, which they would not bear if they could deliver themselves from it. This shewing all those governments to be tyrannical, lays such a burden upon those who administer them, as must necessarily weigh them down to destruction.
If it be said that the word sedition implies that which is evil; I answer, that it ought not then to be applied to those who seek nothing but that which is just; and tho the ways of delivering an oppressed people from the violence of a wicked magistrate, who having armed a crew of lewd villains, and fatted them with the blood and confiscations of such as were most ready to oppose him, be extraordinary, the inward righteousness of the act doth fully justify the authors. He that has virtue and power to save a people, can never want a right of doing it. Valerius Asiaticus had no hand in the death of Caligula; but when the furious guards began tumultuously to enquire who had kill’d him, he appeased them with wishing he had been the man. 15 No wise man ever asked by what authority Thrasybulus, Harmodius, Aristogiton, Pelopidas, Epaminondas, Dion, Timoleon, Lucius Brutus, Publicola, Horatius, Valerius, Marcus Brutus, C. Cassius, and the like, delivered their countries from tyrants. Their actions carried in themselves their own justification, and their virtues will never be forgotten whilst the names of Greece and Rome are remembered in the world.
If this be not enough to declare the justice inherent in, and the glory that ought to accompany these works, the examples of Moses, Aaron, Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Samuel, Jephthah, David, Jehu, Jehoiada, the Maccabees, and other holy men raised up by God for the deliverance of his people from their oppressors, decide the question. They are perpetually renowned for having led the people by extraordinary ways (which such as our author express under the names of sedition, tumult, and war) to recover their liberties, and avenge the injuries received from foreign or domestick tyrants. The work of the apostles was not in their time to set up or pull down any civil state; but they so behaved themselves in relation to all the powers of the earth, that they gained the name of pestilent, seditious fellows, disturbers of the people; and left it as an inheritance to those, who in succeeding ages by following their steps should deserve to be called their successors; whereby they were exposed to the hatred of corrupt magistrates, and brought under the necessity of perishing by them, or defending themselves against them: and he that denies them that right, does at once condemn the most glorious actions of the wisest, best, and holiest men that have been in the world, together with the laws of God and man, upon which they were founded.
Nevertheless, there is a sort of sedition, tumult, and war proceeding from malice, which is always detestable, aiming only at the satisfaction of private lust, without regard to the publick good. This cannot happen in a popular government, unless it be amongst the rabble; or when the body of the people is so corrupted, that it cannot stand; but is most frequent in, and natural to absolute monarchies. When Abimelech desir’d to make himself king, he raised a tumult among the basest of the people: He hired light and vain persons, some translations call them lewd vagabonds, kill’d his brethren, but perished in his design; the corrupt party that favour’d him not having strength enough to subdue the other, who were more sincere. 16 Sp. Maelius, Sp. Cassius, and Manlius attempted the like in Rome: they acted maliciously, their pretences to procure the publick good were false. ’Tis probable that some in the city were as bad as they, and knew that mischief was intended; but the body of the people not being corrupted, they were suppressed. It appear’d, says Livy, nihil esse minus populare quam regnum: they who had favour’d Manlius, condemned him to death when it was proved, that egregias alioqui virtutes foeda regni cupidine maculasset. 17 But when the people is generally corrupted, such designs seldom miscarry, and the success is always the erection of a tyranny. Nothing else can please vain and profligate persons, and no tyranny was ever set up by such as were better qualified. The ways of attaining it have always been by corrupting the manners of the people, bribing soldiers, entertaining mercenary strangers, opening prisons, giving liberty to slaves, alluring indigent persons with hopes of abolishing debts, coming to a new division of lands, and the like. Seditions raised by such men always tend to the ruin of popular governments; but when they happen under absolute monarchies, the hurt intended is only to the person, who being removed the promoters of them set up another; and he that is set up, subsisting only by the strength of those who made him, is obliged to foment the vices that drew them to serve him; tho another may perhaps make use of the same against him.
The consequence of this is, that those who uphold popular governments, look upon vice and indigence as mischiefs that naturally increase each other, and equally tend to the ruin of the state. When men are by vice brought into want, they are ready for mischief: there is no villainy that men of profligate lives, lost reputation, and desperate fortunes will not undertake. Popular equality is an enemy to these; and they who would preserve it must preserve integrity of manners, sobriety, and an honest contentedness with what the law allows. On the other side, the absolute monarch who will have no other law than his own will, desires to increase the number of those who through lewdness and beggary may incline to depend upon him; tho the same temper of mind, and condition of fortune prepare them also for such seditions as may bring him into danger; and the same corruption which led them to set him up, may invite them to sell him to another that will give them better wages.
I do not by this conclude that all monarchs are vicious men; but that whoever will set up an absolute power, must do it by these means; and that if such a power be already established, and should fall into the hands of a person, who by his virtue and the gentleness of his nature should endeavour to render the yoke so easy, that a better disciplin’d people might be contented to bear it; yet this method could last no longer than his life, and probably would be a means to shorten it; that which was at first established by evil arts always returning to the same: That which was vicious in the principle, can never be long upheld by virtue; and we see that the worst of the Roman emperors were not in greater danger from such good men as remained undestroy’d, than the best from the corrupt party that would not be corrected, and sought such a master as would lay no restriction upon their vices. Those few who escaped the rage of these villains, only gave a little breathing time to the afflicted world, which by their children or successors was again plunged into that extremity of misery, from which they intended to deliver it. An extraordinary virtue was required to keep a prince in a way contrary to the principles of his own government; which being rarely found, and never continuing long in a family or succession of men, the endeavours of the best became ineffectual, and either they themselves perished in them, or after their death all things returned into the old polluted channel.
Tho the power of the Hebrew kings was not unlimited, yet it exceeded the rules set by God, and was sufficient to increase the number of the worst of men, and to give them opportunities of raising perpetual disturbances. On the king’s side there were flatterers and instruments of mischief: On the other side there were indebted and discontented persons. Notwithstanding the justice of David’s cause, the wisdom, valour, and piety of his person, none would follow him, except a few of his own kindred (who knew what God had promised to him) and such as were uneasy in their worldly circumstances. After the death of Saul there was a long and bloody war between Ishbosheth and David. The former being killed, the slightest matters were sufficient to put the whole nation into blood. Absalom with a few fair words was able to raise all Israel against his father: Sheba the son of Bichri with as much ease raised a more dangerous tumult: David by wisdom, valour, and the blessing of God surmounted these difficulties, and prepared a peaceable reign for Solomon; but after his death they broke out into a flame that was never quenched till the nation was so dispersed that no man knew where to find his enemies. Solomon by his magnificence had reduced Israel to such poverty, as inclined them to revolt upon the first offer of an opportunity by Jeroboam. From that time forward Israel was perpetually vexed with civil seditions and conspiracies, or wars with their brethren of Judah. Nine kings with their families were destroyed by the first, and the latter brought such slaughters upon the miserable people as were never suffer’d by any who were not agitated by the like fury; and the course of these mischiefs was never interrupted, till they had brought the nation into captivity, and the country to desolation. Tho God according to his promise did preserve a light in the house of David, yet the tribe of Judah was not the more happy. Joash was slain by a private conspiracy, and Amaziah (as is most probable) by publick authority, for having foolishly brought a terrible slaughter upon Judah. Athaliah destroyed the king’s race, and was killed herself by Jehoiada, who not having learnt from our author to regard the power only, and not the ways by which it was obtained, caused her to be dragg’d out of the Temple, and put to a well-deserved death. The whole story is a tragedy: and if it be pretended that this proceeded rather from the wrath of God against his people for their idolatry, than from such causes as are applicable to other nations; I answer, that this idolatry was the production of the government they had set up, and most suitable to it; and chusing rather to subject themselves to the will of a man, than to the law of God, they deservedly suffer’d the evils that naturally follow the worst counsels. We know of none who, taking the like course, have not suffer’d the like miseries. Notwithstanding the admirable virtue and success of Alexander, his reign was full of conspiracies, and his knowledge of them prompted him to destroy Parmenio, Philotas, Clitus, Callisthenes, Hermolaus, and many more of his best friends. If he escaped the sword, he fell by poison. The murder of his wives, mother, and children, by the rage of his own soldiers; the fury of his captains employed in mutual slaughters, till they were consumed; his paternal kingdom after many revolutions transferred to Cassander his most mortal enemy; the utter extinction of his conquering army, and particularly the famous Argyraspides, who being grown faithless and seditious, after the death of Eumenes were sent to perish in unknown parts of the East, abundantly testify the admirable stability, good order, peace, and quiet that is enjoy’d under absolute monarchy. 18 The next government of the like nature that appeared upon the stage of the world was that of Rome, introduced by wars that consumed two thirds of the people; confirmed by proscriptions, in which all that were eminent for nobility, riches, or virtue, perished. The peace they had under Augustus was like that which the Devil allow’d to the child in the Gospel, whom he rent sorely, and left as dead. 19 The miserable city was only cast into a swoon: after long and violent vexations by seditions, tumults, and wars, it lay as dead; and finding no helper like to him who cured the child, it was delivered to new devils to be tormented, till it was utterly destroy’d. Tiberius was appointed as a fit instrument for such a purpose. It was thought that those who should feel the effects of his pride, cruelty, and lust, would look upon the death of Augustus as a loss. He performed the work for which he was chosen; his reign was an uninterrupted series of murders, subornations, perjuries, and poisonings, intermixed with the most detestable impurities, the revolts of provinces, and mutinies of armies. The matter was not mended by his successors: Caligula was kill’d by his own guards: Claudius poison’d by his wife: Spain, Gaul, Germany, Pannonia, Moesia, Syria, and Egypt, revolted at once from Nero; the people and senate followed the example of the provinces. This I think was, in our author’s sense, sedition with a witness. Nero being dead by the hand of a slave, or his own to prevent that of the hangman, Galba enter’d the city with blood and slaughter; but when his own soldiers found he would not give the money for which they intended to sell the empire, they killed him: and to shew the stability of absolute monarchy, it may be observed, that this was not done by the advice of the senate, or by a conspiracy of great men; Suscepêre duo manipulares populi Romani imperium transferendum, transtulerunt. 20 Two rascals gave the empire to Otho, and the whole senate was like to be butcher’d for not being so ready to follow their venerable authority as they ought to have been, and hardly escaped the fury of their mad and drunken companions. As a farther testimony that these monarchies are not subject to seditions and tumults, he had at once only two competitors against whom he was to defend the well-acquired empire: His army was defeated at Brescia, he kill’d himself; and his successor Vitellius was soon after thrown into the common shore. The same method still continued: Rome was fill’d with blood and ashes; and to recite all the publick mischiefs would be to transcribe the history: For as Pyrrhus being asked who should succeed him, answered, he who has the sharpest sword; 21 that was the only law that governed in the following ages. Whoever could corrupt two or three legions, thought he had a good title to the empire; and unless he happen’d to be kill’d by treachery, or another tumult of his own soldiers, he seldom receded from it without a battle, wherein he that was most successful, had no other security than what the present temper of the soldiers afforded him; and the miserable provinces having neither virtue nor force, were obliged slavishly to follow the fury or fortune of those villains. In this state did Rome dedicate to Constantine the triumphal arch that had been prepared for Maxentius; and those provinces which had set up Albinus and Niger submitted to Septimius Severus. In the vast variety of accidents that in those ages disturbed the world, no emperor had a better title than what he purchased by money or violence; and enjoyed it no longer than those helps continued, which of all things were the most uncertain. By this means most of the princes perished by the sword, Italy was made desolate, and Rome was several times sacked and burnt. The mistress of the world being made a slave, the provinces which had been acquir’d by the blood of her ancient virtuous citizens, became part of an usurper’s patrimony, who without any regard to the publick good, distributed them to his children according to their number, or his passion. These either destroy’d one another, or fell under the sword of a third who had the fortune of their father, the greatest part most commonly falling to the share of the worst. If at any time the contrary happened, the government of the best was but a lucid interval. Well-wishing men grew more extremely to abhor the darkness that follow’d when they were gone. The best of them could do no more than suspend mischief for a while, but could not correct the corrupt principle of their government; and some of them were destroyed as soon as they were thought to intend it: And others who finished their days in peace, left the empire to such persons of their relations as were most unlike to them. Domitian came in as brother to Titus. Commodus and Heliogabalus were recommended by the memory of those virtues that had been found in Antoninus and Aurelius. Honorius and Arcadius, who by their baseness brought utter ruin upon the Western and Eastern empires, were the sons of the brave Theodosius. They who could keep their hands free from blood, and their hearts from malice, covetousness, and pride, could not transmit their virtues to their successors, nor correct the perverseness that lay at the root and foundation of their government. The whole mass of blood was vitiated: the body was but one vast sore, which no hand but that of the Almighty could heal; and he who from an abhorrence of iniquity had declared he would not hear the cries of his own people, when they had chosen the thing that was not good, would not shew mercy to strangers who had done the same thing.
I have insisted upon the Hebrew, Macedonian and Roman histories, because they are the most eminent and best known to us: We are in the dark concerning the Babylonian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Bactrian, and Egyptian monarchies: We know little more of them than the Scripture occasionally relates concerning their barbarous cruelty, bestial pride, and extravagant folly. Others have been like to them, and I know not where to find a peaceable monarchy unless it be in Peru, where the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega says, that a man and a woman, children of the sun and the moon, appearing amongst a barbarous people living without any religion or law, established a government amongst them, which continued in much peace and justice for twelve generations: 22 But this seeming to be as fabulous as their birth, we may pass it over, and fix upon those that are better known; of which there is not one that has not suffer’d more dangerous and mischievous seditions, than all the popular governments that have been in the world: And the condition of those kingdoms which are not absolute, and yet give a preference to birth, without consideration of merit or virtue, is not much better.
This is proved by the reasons of those seditions and tumults, as well as from the fact itself.
The reasons do arise from the violence of the passions that incite men to them, and the intricacy of the questions concerning succession.
Every man has passions; few know how to moderate, and no one can wholly extinguish them. As they are various in their nature, so they are governed by various objects; and men usually follow that which is predominant in them, whether it proceed from anger or desire, and whether it terminate in ambition, covetousness, lust, or any other more or less blamable appetite. Every manner of life furnishes something, that in some measure may foment these; but a crown comprehends all that can be grateful to the most violent and vicious. He who is covetous, has vast revenues, besides what he may get by fraud and rapine, to satisfy his appetite. If he be given to sensuality, the variety of pleasures, and the facility of accomplishing whatever he desires, tends farther to inflame that passion. Such as are ambitious, are incited by the greatness of their power to attempt great matters; and the most sottish or lazy may discharge themselves of cares, and hope that others will be easily hired to take the burden of business upon them whilst they lie at ease. They who naturally incline to pride and cruelty, are more violently tempted to usurp dominion; and the wicked advices of flatterers, always concurring with their passions, incite them to exercise the power they have gotten with the utmost rigor, to satiate their own rage, and to secure themselves against the effects of the publick hatred, which they know they have deserved. If there be, as our author says, no other rule than force and success, and that he must be taken for the father of a people who is in possession of a power over them; whoever has the one, may put the other to a trial. Nay, even those who have regard to justice, will seldom want reasons to persuade them that it is on their side. Something may be amiss in the state; injuries may be done to themselves and their friends. Such honours may be denied as they think they deserve; or others of less merit, as they suppose, may be preferred before them. Men do so rarely make a right estimate of their own merits, that those who mean well may be often deceived: and if nothing but success be requir’d to make a monarch, they may think it just to attempt whatever they can hope to accomplish. This was the case of Julius Caesar; he thought all things lawful, when the consulate, which he supposed he had deserved, was denied.
These enterprizes seem to belong to men of great spirits; but there are none so base not to be capable of undertaking, and (as things may stand) of bringing them to perfection. History represents no man under a more contemptible character of sottish laziness, cowardice, and drunkenness, than Vitellius; no one more impure and sordid than Galba: Otho was advanced for being in his manners like to Nero: Vespasian was scorned for his avarice; till the power fell into such hands as made the world believe none could be unworthy of the empire; and in the following ages the worst men by the worst means most frequently obtained it.
These wounds are not cured by saying, that the law of God and nature prevents this mischief, by annexing the succession of crowns to proximity of blood; for mankind had not been continually afflicted with them if there had been such a law, or that they could have been prevented by it: and tho there were such a law, yet more questions would arise about that proximity, than any wise man would dare to determine. The law can be of no effect, unless there be a power to decide the contests arising upon it: But the fundamental maxim of the great monarchies is, that there can be no interregnum: The heir of the crown is in possession, as soon as he who did enjoy it is dead. Le mort, as the French say, saisit le vif: 24 There can be therefore no such law, or it serves for nothing. If there be judges to interpret the law, no man is a king till judgment be given in his favour; and he is not king by his own title, but by the sentence given by them. If there be none, the law is merely imaginary, and every man may in his own case make it what he pleases. He who has a crown in his view, and arms in his hand, wants nothing but success to make him a king; and if he prosper, all men are obliged to obey him.
’Tis a folly to say the matter is clear, and needs no decision; for every man knows that no law concerning private inheritances can be so exactly drawn, but many controversies will arise upon it, that must be decided by a power to which both parties are subject: and the disputes concerning kingdoms are so much the more difficult, because this law is nowhere to be found; and the more dangerous, because the competitors are for the most part more powerful.
Again, this law must either be general to all mankind, or particular to each nation. If particular, a matter of such importance requires good proof, when, where, how, and by whom it was given to everyone. But the Scriptures testifying to the contrary, that God gave laws to the Jews only, and that no such thing as hereditary monarchy, according to proximity of blood, was prescribed by them, we may safely say, that God did never give any such law to every particular, nor to any nation. If he did not give it to any one, he did not give it to all, for every one is comprehended in all; and if no one has it, ’tis impossible that all can have it; or that it should be obligatory to all, when no man knows or can tell, when, where, and by what hand it was given, nor what is the sense of it: all which is evident by the various laws and customs of nations in the disposal of hereditary successions: And no one of them, that we know, has to this day been able to shew that the method follow’d by them, is more according to nature than that of others.
If our author pretend to be God’s interpreter, and to give the solution of these doubts, I may ask which of the five following ways are appointed by God, and then we may examine cases resulting from them.
1. In France, Turkey, and other places, the succession comes to the next male, in the straight eldest line, according to which the son is preferr’d before the brother of him who last enjoy’d the crown (as the present king of France before his uncle the duke of Orleans), and the son of the eldest before the brothers of the eldest; as in the case of Richard the second of England, who was advanced preferably to all the brothers of the Black Prince his father.
2. Others keep to the males of the reigning family, yet have more regard to the eldest man than to the eldest line: and representation taking no place among them, the eldest man is thought to be nearest to the first king; and a second son of the person that last reigned, to be nearer to him than his grandchild by the eldest son: according to which rule, any one of the sons of Edward the third remaining after his death, should have been preferr’d before Richard the second who was his grandchild.
3. In the two cases beforementioned, no manner of regard is had to females, who being thought naturally incapable of commanding men, or performing the functions of a magistrate, are, together with their descendants, utterly excluded from the supreme as well as from the inferior magistracies; and in Turkey, France, and other great kingdoms, have no pretence to any title: But in some places, and particularly in England, the advantages of proximity belong to them as well as to males; by which means our crown has been transported to several families and nations.
4. As in some places they are utterly rejected, and in others received simply without any condition; so those are not wanting, where that of not marrying out of the country, or without the consent of the estates, is imposed, of which Sweden is an example.
5. In some places proximity of blood is only regarded, whether the issue be legitimate or illegitimate; in others bastards are wholly excluded.
By this variety of judgments made by several nations upon this point, it may appear, that tho it were agreed by all that the next in blood ought to succeed, yet such contests would arise upon the interpretation and application of the general rule, as must necessarily be a perpetual spring of irreconcilable and mortal quarrels.
If any man say, the rule observed in England is that which God gave to mankind; I leave him first to dispute that point with the kings of France, and many others, who can have no right to the crowns they wear, if it be admitted; and in the next place to prove that our ancestors had a more immediate communication with God, and a more certain knowledge of his will than others, who for anything we know, may be of authority equal to them: but in the meantime we may rationally conclude, that if there be such a rule, we have had no king in England for the space of almost a thousand years, having not had one who did not come to the crown by a most manifest violation of it; as appears by the forecited examples of William the first and second; Henry the first, Henry the second and his children; John, Edward the third, Henry the fourth, Edward the fourth and his children; Henry the seventh, and all that claim under any of them. And if possession or success can give a right, it will I think follow, that Jack Straw, Wat Tyler, Perkin Warbeck, 25 or any other rascal, might have had it if he had been as happy as bold in his enterprize. This is no less than to expose crowns to the first that can seize them, to destroy all law and rule, and to render right a slave to fortune. If this be so, a late earl of Pembroke, whose understanding was not thought great, judged rightly when he said his grandfather was a wise man tho he could neither write nor read, in as much as he resolved to follow the crown, tho it were upon a coalstaff. But if this be sufficient to make a wise man, ’tis pity the secret was no sooner discovered, since many, who for want of it liv’d and died in all the infamy that justly accompanies knavery, cowardice and folly, might have gained the reputation of the most excellent men in their several ages. The bloody factions with which all nations subject to this sort of monarchy have been perpetually vexed, might have been prevented by throwing up cross or pile, or by battle between the competitors body to body, as was done by Corbis and Orsua, Cleorestes and Polynices, Ironside and Canute; it being most unreasonable, or rather impiously absurd for any to venture their lives and fortunes, when their consciences are not concern’d in the contest, and that they are to gain nothing by the victory.
If reason teaches, that till this expeditious way of ending controversies be received, the ambition of men will be apt to embroil nations in their quarrels, and others judging variously of those matters, which can be reduced to no certain rule, will think themselves in conscience obliged to follow the party that seems to them to be most just; experience manifests the same, and that ambition has produced more violent mischiefs than all the other desires and passions that have ever possessed the hearts of men. That this may appear, it will not be amiss to divide them into such as proceed from him who is in possession of the power, through jealousy of state, as they call it, to prevent the enterprizes of those who would dispossess him, and such as arise between competitors contending for it.
Tarquin’s counsel concerning the poppies, and Periander’s heads of corn, is of the first sort. 26 The most eminent are always most feared as the readiest to undertake, and most able to accomplish great designs. This eminence proceeds from birth, riches, virtue, or reputation, and is sometimes wrought up to the greatest height by a conjunction of all these. But I know not where to find an example of such a man, who could long subsist under absolute monarchy. If he be of high birth, he must, like Brutus, conceal his virtue, and gain no reputation, or resolve to perish, if he do not prevent his own death by that of the tyrant: All other ways are ineffectual; the suspicions, fears, and hatred thereupon arising, are not to be removed: Personal respects are forgotten, and such services as cannot be sufficiently valued, must be blotted out by the death of those who did them. Various ways may be taken, and pretences used according to the temper of times and nations; but the thing must be done; and whether it be colour’d by a trick of law, or performed by a mute with a bowstring, imports little. Henry the fourth was made king by the Earl of Northumberland, and his brave son Hotspur; Edward the fourth by the valiant Earl of Warwick; Henry the seventh by Stanley: but neither of them could think himself safe, till his benefactor was dead. No continued fidelity, no testimonies of modesty and humility can prevent this. The modesty of Germanicus in rejecting the honours that were offer’d to him, and his industry in quieting the mutinied legions, accelerated his ruin: When ’twas evident he might be emperor if he pleased, he must be so, or die: There was no middle station between the throne and the grave. ’Tis probable that Caligula, Nero, and other beasts like to them, might hate virtue for the good which is in it; but I cannot think that either they, their predecessors or successors, would have put themselves upon the desperate design of extirpating it, if they had not found it to be inconsistent with their government; and that being once concluded, they spared none of their nearest relations. Artaxerxes killed his son Darius: Herod murder’d the best of his wives, and all his sons except the worst. Tiberius destroy’d Agrippa Posthumus, and Germanicus with his wife and two sons. How highly soever Constantine the Great be commended, he was polluted with the blood of his father-in-law, wife, and son. Philip the second of Spain did in the like manner deliver himself from his fears of Don Carlos; and ’tis not doubted that Philip the fourth, for the same reasons, dispatched his brother Don Carlos, and his son Balthasar. The like cases were so common in England, that all the Plantagenets, and the noble families allied to them being extinguish’d, our ancestors were sent to seek a king in one of the meanest in Wales. 27
This method being known, those who are unwilling to die so tamely, endeavour to find out ways of defending themselves; and there being no other than the death of the person who is in the throne, they usually seek to compass it by secret conspiracy, or open violence; and the number of princes that have been destroy’d, and countries disturb’d by those who through fear have been driven to extremities, is not much less than of those who have suffer’d the like from men following the impulse of their own ambition.
The disorders arising from contests between several competitors, before any one could be settled in the possession of kingdoms, have been no less frequent and bloody than those above-mention’d, and the miseries suffer’d by them, together with the ruin brought upon the empires of Macedon and Rome, may be sufficient to prove it; however to make the matter more clear, I shall allege others. But because it may be presumption in me to think I know all the histories of the world, or tedious to relate all those I know, I shall content myself with some of the most eminent and remarkable: And if it appear that they have all suffer’d the same mischiefs, we may believe they proceed not from accidents, but from the power of a permanent cause that always produces the same or the like effects.
To begin with France. The succession not being well settled in the time of Meroveus, who dispossess’d the grandchildren of Pharamond, he was no sooner dead than Gillon set up himself, and with much slaughter drove Chilperic his son out of the kingdom; and he after a little time returning with like fury, is said to have seen a vision, first of lions and leopards, then of bears and wolves, and lastly of dogs and cats, all tearing one another to pieces. This has been always accounted by the French to be a representation of the nature and fortune of the three races that were to command them, and has been too much verified by experience. 28 Clovis their first Christian and most renowned king, having by good means or evil exceedingly enlarged his territories, but chiefly by the murders of Alaric and Ragnacaire, with his children, and suborning Sigismond of Metz to kill his father Sigebert, left his kingdom to be torn in pieces by the rage of his four sons, each of them endeavouring to make himself master of the whole; and when, according to the usual fate of such contests, success had crown’d Clothaire, who was the worst of them all, by the slaughter of his brothers and nephews, with all the flower of the French and Gaulish nobility, the advantages of his fortune only resulted to his own person. 29 For after his death the miserable nations suffer’d as much from the madness of his sons, as they had done by himself and his brothers. They had learnt from their predecessors not to be slow in doing mischief, but were farther incited by the rage of two infamous strumpets, Fredegonde and Brunehaud, which is a sort of vermin that, I am inclin’d to think, has not usually govern’d senates or popular assemblies. Chilperic the second, who by the slaughter of many persons of the royal blood, with infinite numbers of the nobility and people, came to be master of so much of the country, as procured him the name of king of France, killed his eldest son on suspicion that he was excited against him by Brunehaud, and his second, lest he should revenge the death of his brother: he married Fredegonde, and was soon after kill’d by her adulterer Landry. The kingdom continued in the same misery through the rage of the surviving princes, and found no relief, tho most of them fell by the sword; and that Brunehaud who had been a principal cause of those tragedies, was tied to the tails of four wild horses, and suffer’d a death as foul as her life. These were lions and leopards. They involved the kingdom in desperate troubles; but being men of valour and industry, they kept up in some measure the reputation and power of the nation, and he who attain’d to the crown defended it. But they being fallen by the hands of each other, the poisonous root put forth another plague more mortal than their fury. The vigour was spent, and the succession becoming more settled, ten base and slothful kings, by the French called les roys faineants, succeeded. Some may say, They who do nothing, do no hurt; but the rule is false in relation to kings. He that takes upon him the government of a people, can do no greater evil than by doing nothing, nor be guilty of a more unpardonable crime, than by negligence, cowardice, voluptuousness, and sloth, to desert his charge. Virtue and manhood perish under him; good discipline is forgotten; justice slighted; the laws perverted or rendered useless; the people corrupted; the publick treasures exhausted; and the power of the government always falling into the hands of flatterers, whores, favorites, bawds, and such base wretches as render it contemptible, a way is laid open for all manner of disorders. The greatest cruelty that has been known in the world, if accompanied with wit and courage, never did so much hurt as this slothful bestiality; or rather these slothful beasts have ever been most cruel. The reigns of Septimius Severus, Mahomet the second, or Selim the second, were cruel and bloody; but their fury was turned against foreigners, and some of their near relations, or against such as fell under the suspicion of making attempts against them: The condition of the people was tolerable; those who would be quiet might be safe; the laws kept their right course; the reputation of the empire was maintained, the limits defended, and the publick peace preserved. But when the sword passed into the hands of lewd, slothful, foolish, and cowardly princes, it was of no power against foreign enemies, or the disturbers of domestic peace, tho always sharp against the best of their own subjects. No man knew how to secure himself against them, unless by raising civil wars; which will always be frequent, when a crown defended by a weak hand is proposed as a prize to any that dare invade it. This is a perpetual spring of disorders; and no nation was ever quiet, when the most eminent men found less danger in the most violent attempts, than in submitting patiently to the will of a prince, that suffers his power to be managed by vile persons, who get credit by flattering him in his vices. But this is not all; such princes naturally hate and fear those who excel them in virtue and reputation, as much as they are inferior to them in fortune; and think their persons cannot be secured, nor their authority enlarged, except by their destruction. ’Tis ordinary for them, inter scorta ganeas principibus viris perniciem machinare, 30 and to make cruelty a cover to ignorance and cowardice. Besides the mischiefs brought upon the publick by the loss of eminent men, who are the pillars of every state, such reigns are always accompanied with tumults and civil wars, the great men striving with no less violence who shall get the weak prince into his power, when such regard is had to succession, that they think it not fit to divest him of the title, than when with less respect they contend for the sovereignty itself. And whilst this sort of princes reigned, France was not less afflicted with the contests between Grimbauld, Ebroin, Grimoald, and others, for the mayoralty of the palace, than they had been before by the rage of those princes who had contested for the crown. The issue also was the same: After many revolutions, Charles Martel gained the power of the kingdom, which he had so bravely defended against the Saracens; and having transmitted it to his son Pepin, the general assembly of estates, with the approbation of mankind, conferred the title also upon him. This gave the nation ease for the present; but the deep-rooted evil could not be so cured; and the kingdom, that by the wisdom, valour, and reputation of Pepin, had been preserved from civil troubles during his life, fell as deeply as ever into them so soon as he was dead. His sons, Carloman and Charles, divided the dominions, but in a little time each of them would have all. Carloman fill’d the kingdom with tumult; raised the Lombards, and marched with a great army against his brother, till his course was interrupted by death, caused, as is supposed, by such helps as princes liberally afford to their aspiring relations. Charles 31 deprived his two sons of their inheritance, put them in prison, and we hear no more of them. His third brother Griffon was not more quiet, nor more successful; and there could be no peace in Gascony, Italy or Germany, till he was kill’d. But all the advantages which Charles, by an extraordinary virtue and fortune, had purchased for his country, ended with his life. He left his son Lewis the Gentle in possession of the empire, and kingdom of France, and his grandson Bernard king of Italy: But these two could not agree, and Bernard falling into the hands of Lewis, was deprived of his eyes, and some time after kill’d. This was not enough to preserve the peace: Lothair, Lewis and Pepin, all three sons to Lewis, rebelled against him; called a council at Lyons, deposed him, and divided the empire amongst themselves. After five years he escaped from the monastery where he had been kept, renew’d the war, and was again taken prisoner by Lothair. When he was dead, the war broke out more fiercely than ever between his children: Lothair the emperor assaulted Lewis king of Bavaria and Charles king of Rhaetia; was defeated by them, and confined to a monastery, where he died. New quarrels arose between the two brothers, upon the division of the countries taken from him, and Lorraine only was left to his son. Lewis died soon after, and Charles getting possession of the empire and kingdom, ended an inglorious reign in an unprosperous attempt to deprive Hermingrade, daughter to his brother Lewis, of the kingdom of Arles, and other places left to her by her father. Lewis his son, call’d the Stutterer, reigned two years in much trouble; and his only legitimate son, Charles the Simple, came not to the crown till after the death of his two bastards Lewis and Carloman, Charles le Gros, and Eudes duke of Anjou. Charles le Gros was deposed from the empire and kingdom, stripp’d of his goods, and left to perish through poverty in an obscure village. Charles the Simple, and the nations under him, thrived no better: Robert duke of Anjou raised war against him, and was crown’d at Rheims; but was himself slain soon after in a bloody battle near Soissons. His son-in-law, Hebert earl of Vermandois, gathered up the remains of his scatter’d party, got Charles into his power, and called a general assembly of estates, who deposed him, and gave the crown to Raoul duke of Burgundy; tho he was no otherwise related to the royal blood than by his mother, which in France is nothing at all. He being dead, Lewis son to the deposed Charles was made king; but his reign was as inglorious to him, as miserable to his subjects. This is the peace which the French enjoy’d for the space of five or six ages under their monarchy; and ’tis hard to determine whether they suffer’d most by the violence of those who possessed, or the ambition of others who aspired to the crown; and whether the fury of active, or the baseness of slothful princes was most pernicious to them: But upon the whole matter, through the defects of those of the latter sort, they lost all that they had gained by sweat and blood under the conduct of the former. Henry and Otto of Saxony, by a virtue like that of Charlemagne, deprived them of the empire, and settled it in Germany, leaving France only to Lewis surnamed Outremer, and his son Lothair. These seemed to be equally composed of treachery, cruelty, ambition, and baseness: They were always mutinous, and always beaten: Their frantick passions put them always upon unjust designs, and were such plagues to their subjects and neighbours, that they became equally detested and despised. These things extinguished the veneration due to the memory of Pepin and Charles; and obliged the whole nation rather to seek relief from a stranger, than to be ruin’d by their worthless descendants. They had tried all ways that were in their power, deposed four crowned kings within the space of a hundred and fifty years; crowned five who had no other title than the people conferred upon them, and restored the descendants of those they had rejected, but all was in vain: Their vices were incorrigible, the mischiefs produc’d by them intolerable; they never ceased from murdering one another in battle, or by treachery, and bringing the nation into civil wars upon their wicked or foolish quarrels, till the whole race was rejected, and the crown placed upon the head of Hugh Capet. These mischiefs raged not in the same extremity under him and his descendants, but the abatement proceeded from a cause no way advantageous to absolute monarchy. The French were by their calamities taught more strictly to limit the regal power; and by turning the dukedoms and earldoms into patrimonies, which had been offices, gave an authority to the chief of the nobility, by which that of kings was curbed; and tho by this means the commonalty was exposed to some pressures, yet they were small in comparison of what they had suffer’d in former times. When many great men had estates of their own that did not depend upon the will of kings, they grew to love their country; and tho they cheerfully served the crown in all cases of publick concernment, they were not easily engaged in the personal quarrels of those who possessed it, or had a mind to gain it. To preserve themselves in this condition, they were obliged to use their vassals gently; and this continuing in some measure till within the last fifty years, the monarchy was less tumultuous, than when the king’s will had been less restrained. Nevertheless they had not much reason to boast; there was a root still remaining, that from time to time produced poisonous fruit: Civil wars were frequent among them, tho not carried on with such desperate madness as formerly; and many of them upon the account of disputes between competitors for the crown. All the wars with England, since Edward II married Isabella daughter, and, as he pretended, heir of Philip Le Bel, were of this nature. The defeats of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, with the slaughters and devastations suffer’d from Edward III the Black Prince, and Henry V were merely upon contests for the crown, and for want of an interpreter of the law of succession, who might determine the question between the heir male, and the heir general. The factions of Orleans and Burgundy, Orleans and Armagnac, proceeded from the same spring; and the murders that seem to have been the immediate causes of those quarrels, were only the effects of the hatred growing from their competition. The more odious, tho less bloody contests between Lewis the 11th, and his father Charles the 7th, with the jealousy of the former against his son Charles the 8th, arose from the same principle. Charles of Bourbon prepared to fill France with fire and blood upon the like quarrel, when his designs were overthrown by his death in the assault of Rome. If the dukes of Guise had been more fortunate, they had soon turned the cause of religion into a claim to the crown, and repair’d the injury done, as they pretended, to Pepin’s race, by destroying that of Capet: And Henry the third thinking to prevent this by the slaughter of Henry le Balafré, and his brother the cardinal de Guise, brought ruin upon himself, and cast the kingdom into a most horrid confusion. Our own age furnishes us with more than one attempt of the same kind attended with the like success. The duke of Orleans was several times in arms against Lewis the 13th his brother; the Queen-Mother drew the Spaniards to favour him; Montmorency perished in his quarrel; Fontrailles reviv’d it by a treaty with Spain, which struck at the king’s head as well as the cardinal’s, and was suppress’d by the death of Cinq Mars and de Thou. Those who understand the affairs of that kingdom, make no doubt that the count de Soissons would have set up for himself, and been follow’d by the best part of France, if he had not been kill’d in the pursuit of his victory at the battle of Sedan. Since that time the kingdom has suffer’d such disturbances as show, that more was intended than the removal of Mazarin: And the marechal de Turenne was often told, that the check he gave to the prince of Condé at Gien, after he had defeated Hocquincourt, had preserved the crown upon the king’s head. And to testify the stability, good order, and domestick peace that accompanies absolute monarchy, we have in our own days seen the house of Bourbon often divided within itself; the duke of Orleans, the count de Soissons, the princes of Condé and Conti in war against the king; the dukes of Angoulême, Vendôme, Longueville, the count de Moret, and other bastards of the royal family following their example; the houses of Guise, D’Elbeuf, Bouillon, Nemours, Rochefoucault, and almost all the most eminent in France, with the parliaments of Paris, Bourdeaux, and some others, joining with them. I might allege many more examples, to shew that this monarchy, as well as all others, has from the first establishment been full of blood and slaughter, through the violence of those who possessed the crown, and the ambition of such as aspired to it; and that the end of one civil war has been the beginning of another: but I presume upon the whole these will be thought sufficient to prove, that it never enjoyed any permanent domestick quiet.
The kingdoms of Spain have been no less disturbed by the same means; but especially that of Castile, where the kings had more power than in other places. To cite all the examples, were to transcribe their histories; but whoever has leisure to examine them will find, that after many troubles, Alfonso the II, notwithstanding his glorious surname of Wise, was deposed by means of his ambitious son: Don Alfonso, surnamed El Desheredado, supplanted by his uncle Don Sancho el bravo: Peter the Cruel cast from the throne, and killed by his bastard brother the conde de Trastamara. From the time of the above-named Alfonso to that of Ferdinand and Isabella, containing about two hundred years, so few of them passed without civil wars, that I hardly remember two together that were free from them: And whosoever pretends that of late years that monarchy has been more quiet, must, if he be ingenuous, confess their peace is rather to be imputed to the dexterity of removing such persons as have been most likely to raise disturbances (of which number were Don John of Austria, Don Carlos son to Philip the second, another of the same name son to Philip the third, and Don Balthazar son to Philip the fourth) than to the rectitude of their constitutions.
He that is not convinced of these truths by what has been said, may come nearer home, and see what mischiefs were brought upon Scotland by the contests between Baliol and Bruce, with their consequences, till the crown came to the Stuart family; the quiet reigns and happy deaths of the five Jameses, together with the admirable stability and peace of the government under Queen Mary, and the perfect union in which she lived with her husband, son and people, as well as the happiness of the nation whilst it lasted. 32
But the miseries of England, upon the like occasions, surpass all. William the Norman was no sooner dead, but the nation was rent in pieces by his son Robert, contesting with his sons William and Henry for the crown. They being all dead and their sons, the like happen’d between Stephen and Maud: Henry the second was made king to terminate all disputes, but it proved a fruitless expedient. Such as were more scandalous, and not less dangerous, did soon arise between him and his sons; who besides the evils brought upon the nation, vexed him to death by their rebellion. The reigns of John and Henry the third were yet more tempestuous. Edward the second’s lewd, foolish, infamous and detestable government ended in his deposition and death, to which he was brought by his wife and son. Edward the third employ’d his own and his subjects’ valour against the French and Scots; but whilst the foundations were out of order, the nation could never receive any advantage by their victories: All was calculated for the glory, and turned to the advantage of one man. He being dead, all that the English held in Scotland and in France was lost through the baseness of his successor, with more blood than it had been gained; and the civil wars raised by his wickedness and madness, ended as those of Edward the second had done. The peace of Henry the fourth’s reign was interrupted by dangerous civil wars, and the victory obtained at Shrewsbury had not perhaps secured him in the throne, if his death had not prevented new troubles. Henry the fifth acquired such reputation by his virtue and victories, that none dared to invade the crown during his life; but immediately after his death the storms prepared against his family, broke out with the utmost violence. His son’s weakness encouraged Richard duke of York to set up a new title, which produced such mischiefs as hardly any people has suffer’d, unless upon the like occasion: For besides the slaughter of many thousands of the people, and especially of those who had been accustom’d to arms, the devastation of the best parts of the kingdom, and the loss of all that our kings had inherited in France, or gained by the blood of their subjects, fourscore princes of the blood, as Philippe de Comines calls them, died in battle, or under the hand of the hangman. 33 Many of the most noble families were extinguished; others lost their most eminent men. Three kings and two presumptive heirs of the crown were murder’d, and the nation brought to that shameful exigence, to set up a young man to reign over them, who had no better cover for his sordid extraction than a Welsh pedigree, that might shew how a tailor was descended from Prince Arthur, Cadwallader and Brutus. 34 But the wounds of the nation were not to be healed with such a plaster. He could not rely upon a title made up of such stuff, and patch’d with a marriage to a princess of a very questionable birth. His own meanness inclin’d him to hate the nobility; and thinking it to be as easy for them to take the crown from him, as to give it to him, he industriously applied himself to glean up the remainders of the house of York, from whence a competitor might arise, and by all means to crush those who were most able to oppose him. This exceedingly weakened the nobility, who held the balance between him and the commons, and was the first step towards the dissolution of our ancient government: but he was so far from settling the kingdom in peace, that such rascals as Perkin Warbeck and Simnel were able to disturb it. The reign of Henry the eighth was turbulent and bloody; that of Mary furious, and such as had brought us into subjection to the most powerful, proud and cruel nation at that time in the world, if God had not wonderfully protected us. Nay, Edward the sixth, and Queen Elizabeth, notwithstanding the natural excellency of their dispositions, and their knowledge of the truth in matters of religion, were forced by that which men call jealousy of state, to foul their hands so often with illustrious blood, that if their reigns deserve to be accounted amongst the most gentle of monarchies, they were more heavy than the government of any commonwealth in time of peace; and yet their lives were never secure against such as conspired against them upon the account of title.
Having in some measure shew’d what miseries have been usually, if not perpetually brought upon nations subject to monarchies by the violence of some princes, and the baseness, folly, and cowardice of others, together with what they have suffer’d in contests for the several crowns, whilst men divided into divers factions, strive with as much vehemency to advance the person they favour, as if they or their country were interested in the quarrel, and fight as fiercely for a master as they might reasonably do to have none, I am not able to determine which of the two evils is the most mortal. ’Tis evident the vices of princes result to the damage of the people; but whether pride and cruelty, or stupidity and sloth be the worst, I cannot tell. All monarchies are subject to be afflicted with civil wars; but whether the most frequent and bloody do arise from the quarrels of divers competitors for crowns before any one gain the possession of them, or afterwards through the fears of him that would keep what he has gained, or the rage of those who would wrest it from him, is not so easily decided. But commonwealths are less troubled with those distempers. Women, children, or such as are notoriously foolish or mad, are never advanced to the supreme power. Whilst the laws, and that discipline which nourishes virtue is in force, men of wisdom and valor are never wanting; and every man desires to give testimony of his virtue, when he knows ’twill be rewarded with honour and power. If unworthy persons creep into magistracies, or are by mistake any way preferr’d, their vices for the most part turn to their own hurt; and the state cannot easily receive any great damage by the incapacity of one who is not to continue in office above a year; and is usually encompassed with those who having born, or are aspiring to the same, are by their virtue able to supply his defects; cannot hope for a reward from one unable to corrupt them, and are sure of the favour of the senate and people to support them in the defence of the publick interest. As long as this good order continues, private quarrels are suppress’d by the authority of the magistrate, or prove to be of little effect. Such as arise between the nobles and commons frequently produce good laws for the maintenance of liberty, as they did in Rome for above three hundred years after the expulsion of Tarquin; and almost ever terminated with little or no blood. Sometimes the errors of one or both parties are discovered by the discourse of a wise and good man; and those who have most violently opposed one another become the best friends, everyone joining to remove the evil that causes the division. When the senate and people of Rome seemed to be most furiously incensed against each other, the creation of tribunes, communications of honours and marriages between the patrician and plebeian families, or the mitigation of usury composed all; and these were not only harmless things, but such as gave opportunities of correcting the defects that had been in the first constitution of the government, without which they could never have attained to the greatness, glory, and happiness they afterwards enjoy’d. Such as had seen that people meeting in tumult, running through the city, crying out against the kings, consuls, senate, or decemviri, might have thought they would have filled all with blood and slaughter; but no such thing happened. They desired no more than to take away the kingdom which Tarquin had wickedly usurped; and never went about so much as to punish one minister of the mischiefs he had done, or to take away his goods, till upon pretence of treating his ambassadors by a new treachery had cast the city into greater danger than ever. Tho the decemviri had by the like villainies equally provoked the people, they were used with the like gentleness: Appius Claudius and Oppius having by voluntary death substracted themselves from publick punishment, their colleagues were only banished, and the magistracies of the city reduced to the former order without the effusion of more blood. 35 They who contended for their just rights, were satisfied with the recovery of them; whereas such as follow the impulse of an unruly ambition never think themselves safe, till they have destroyed all that seem able to disturb them, and satiated their rage with the blood of their adversaries. This makes, as well as shews the difference between the tumults of Rome, or the secession of the common people to Mount Aventine, and the battles of Towton, Tewkesbury, Eveshal, Lewes, Hexham, Barnet, St. Albans, and Bosworth. 36 ’Tis in vain to say these ought rather to be compared to those of Pharsalia, Actium, or Philippi; for when the laws of a commonwealth are abolish’d, the name also ceases. Whatever is done by force or fraud to set up the interests and lusts of one man in opposition to the laws of his country, is purely and absolutely monarchical. Whatsoever passed between Marius, Sulla, Cinna, Catiline, Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Augustus, Antonius, and Lepidus, is to be imputed to the contests that arise between competitors for monarchy, as well as those that in the next age happened between Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian: Or, which is worse, whereas those in commonwealths fight for themselves when there is occasion, and if they succeed, enjoy the fruits of their victory, so as even those who remain of the vanquished party, partake of the liberty thereby established, or the good laws thereupon made; such as follow’d the ensigns of these men who sought to set up themselves, did, rather like beasts than men, hazard and suffer many unspeakable evils to purchase misery to themselves and their posterity, and to make him their master, who increasing in pride, avarice, and cruelty, was to be thrown down again with as much blood as he had been set up.
These things, if I mistake not, being in the last degree evident, I may leave to our author all the advantages he can gain by his rhetorical description of the tumults of Rome, when blood was in the marketplace sucked up with sponges, and the jakes stuffed with carcasses; 37 to which he may add the crimes of Sulla’s life, and the miseries of his death: but withal I desire to know what number of sponges were sufficient to suck up the blood of five hundred thousand men slain in one day, when the houses of David and Jeroboam contended for the crown of Israel, or of four hundred thousand who fell in one battle between Joash and Amaziah on the same occasion; what jakes were capacious enough to contain the carcasses of those that perished in the quarrels between the successors of Alexander, the several competitors for the Roman empire; or those which have happened in France, Spain, England, and other places upon the like occasions. If Sulla for some time acted as an absolute monarch, ’tis no wonder that he died like one, or that God punished him as Herod, Philip the second of Spain, and some others, because the hand of his fellow-citizens had unjustly spar’d him. If when he was become detestable to God and man, he became also miserable, his example ought to deter others from the crimes that are avenged by a power which none can escape, and to encourage those who defend, or endeavour to recover their violated liberties, to act vigorously in a cause that God does evidently patronize.
Tho court-flatterers impute many evils to popular governments they no way deserve, I could not think any so impudent as to lay corruption and venality to their charge, till I found it in our author. They might in my opinion have taken those faults upon themselves, since they certainly abound most where bawds, whores, buffoons, players, slaves and other base people who are naturally mercenary, are most prevalent. And whosoever would know whether this does more frequently befall commonwealths than monarchies, especially if they are absolute, need only to inquire whether the Cornelii, Junii, Fabii, Valerii, Quintii, Curii, Fabricii, and others who most prevailed in Rome after the expulsion of the kings, or Sejanus, Macro, Narcissus, Pallas, Icetus, Tigellinus, Vinius, Laco, Agrippina, Messalina, Lollia, Poppaea, and the like, were most subject to those base vices: Whether it were more easy to corrupt one or two of those villains and strumpets, or the senates and people of Rome, Carthage, Athens, and Sparta; and whether that sort of rabble had more power over the princes they served, than such as most resembled them had whilst the popular government continued. ’Tis in vain to say those princes were wicked and vile, for many others are so likewise; and when the power is in the hands of one man, there can be no assurance he will not be like them. Nay, when the power is so placed, ill men will always find opportunities of compassing their desires: Bonus, cautus, optimus imperator venditur, said Diocletian; 1 and tho he was no unwise man, yet that which principally induced him to renounce the empire, was the impossibility he found of defending himself against those that were in credit with him, who daily betray’d and sold him. They see with the eyes of other men, and cannot resist the frauds that are perpetually put upon them. Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius seem to have been the best and wisest of all the Roman emperors; but the two Faustinas had such an ascendent over them, as was most shameful to their persons, and mischievous to the empire and the best men in it. Such as these may gain too much upon the affections of one man in the best regulated government; but that could be of no great danger to the publick, when many others equal or not much inferior to him in authority, are ready to oppose whatever he should endeavour to promote by their impulse: but there is no remedy when all depends upon the will of a single person who is governed by them. There was more of acuteness and jest, than of truth in that saying of Themistocles, that his little boy had more power than any man in Greece; for he governed his mother, she him, he Athens, and Athens Greece. 2 For he himself was found to have little power, when for private passions and concernments he departed from the interest of the publick; and the like has been found in all places that have been governed in the like manner.
Again, corruption will always reign most where those who have the power do most favour it, where the rewards of such crimes are greatest, easiest, and most valued, and where the punishment of them is least feared.
1. For the first, we have already proved that liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted, nor absolute monarchy introduced where they are sincere; which is sufficient to shew that those who manage free governments ought always to the utmost of their power to oppose corruption, because otherwise both they and their government must inevitably perish; and that on the other hand, the absolute monarch must endeavour to introduce it, because he cannot subsist without it. ’Tis also so natural for all such monarchs to place men in power who pretend to love their persons, and will depend upon their pleasure, that possibly ’twould be hard to find one in the world who has not made it the rule of his government: And this is not only the way to corruption, but the most dangerous of all. For tho a good man may love a good monarch, he will obey him only when he commands that which is just; and no one can engage himself blindly to do whatever he is commanded, without renouncing all virtue and religion; because he knows not whether that which shall be commanded is consistent with either, or directly contrary to the laws of God and man. But if such a monarch be evil, and his actions such as they are too often found to be, whoever bears an affection to him, and seconds his designs, declares himself an enemy to all that is good; and the advancement of such men to power does not only introduce, foment, and increase corruption, but fortifies it in such a manner, that without an entire renovation of that state it cannot be removed. Ill men may possibly creep into any government; but when the worst are plac’d nearest to the throne, and raised to honors for being so, they will with that force endeavour to draw all men to a conformity of spirit with themselves, that it can no otherwise be prevented, than by destroying them and the principle in which they live.
2. To the second; man naturally follows that which is good, or seems to him to be so. Hence it is that in well-govern’d states, where a value is put upon virtue, and no one honoured unless for such qualities as are beneficial to the publick, men are from the tenderest years brought up in a belief, that nothing in this world deserves to be sought after, but such honors as are acquired by virtuous actions: By this means virtue itself becomes popular, as in Sparta, Rome, and other places, where riches (which with the vanity that follows them, and the honors men give to them, are the root of all evil) were either totally banished, or little regarded. When no other advantage attended the greatest riches than the opportunity of living more sumptuously or deliciously, men of great spirits slighted them. When Aristippus told Cleanthes, that if he would go to court and flatter the tyrant, he need not seek his supper under a hedge; the philosopher answer’d, that he who could content himself with such a supper, need not go to court, or flatter the tyrant. 3 Epaminondas, Aristides, Phocion, and even the Lacedaemonian kings, found no inconvenience in poverty, whilst their virtue was honour’d, and the richest princes in the world feared their valour and power. It was not difficult for Curius, Fabricius, Quintius Cincinnatus, or Aemilius Paulus, to content themselves with the narrowest fortune, when it was no obstacle to them in the pursuit of those honours which their virtues deserved. ’Twas in vain to think of bribing a man who supped upon the coleworts of his own garden. He could not be gained by gold, who did not think it necessary. He that could rise from the plow to the triumphal chariot, and contentedly return thither again, could not be corrupted; and he that left the sense of his poverty to his executors, who found not wherewith to bury him, might leave Macedon and Greece to the pillage of his soldiers, without taking to himself any part of the booty. But when luxury was brought into fashion, and they came to be honor’d who liv’d magnificently, tho they had in themselves no qualities to distinguish them from the basest of slaves, the most virtuous men were exposed to scorn if they were poor: and that poverty which had been the mother and nurse of their virtue, grew insupportable. The poet well understood what effect this change had upon the world, who said,
When riches grew to be necessary, the desire of them which is the spring of all mischief, follow’d. They who could not obtain honours by the noblest actions, were oblig’d to get wealth to purchase them from whores and villains, who exposed them to sale: and when they were once entered into this track, they soon learnt the vices of those from whom they had received their preferment, and to delight in the ways that had brought them to it. When they were come to this, nothing could stop them: All thought and remembrance of good was extinguish’d. They who had bought the commands of armies or provinces, from Icetus or Narcissus, sought only how to draw money from them, to enable them to purchase higher dignities, or gain a more assured protection from those patrons. This brought the government of the world under a most infamous traffick, and the treasures arising from it were, for the most part, dissipated by worse vices than the rapine, violence and fraud with which they had been gotten. The authors of those crimes had nothing left but their crimes, and the necessity of committing more, through the indigence into which they were plung’d by the extravagance of their expences. These things are inseparable from the life of a courtier; for as servile natures are guided rather by sense than reason, such as addict themselves to the service of courts, find no other consolation in their misery, than what they receive from sensual pleasures, or such vanities as they put a value upon; and have no other care, than to get money for their supply by begging, stealing, bribing, and other infamous practices. Their offices are more or less esteemed according to the opportunities they afford for the exercise of these virtues; and no man seeks them for any other end than for gain, nor takes any other way than that which conduces to it. The usual means of attaining them are, by observing the prince’s humour, flattering his vices, serving him in his pleasures, fomenting his passions, and by advancing his worst designs, to create an opinion in him that they love his person, and are entirely addicted to his will. When valour, industry and wisdom advanced men to offices, it was no easy matter for a man to persuade the senate he had such qualities as were requir’d, if he had them not: But when princes seek only such as love them, and will do what they command, ’tis easy to impose upon them; and because none that are good will obey them when they command that which is not so, they are always encompassed by the worst. Those who follow them only for reward, are most liberal in professing affection to them, and by that means rise to places of authority and power. The fountain being thus corrupted, nothing that is pure can come from it. These mercenary wretches having the management of affairs, justice and honours are set at a price, and the most lucrative traffick in the world is thereby established. Eutropius when he was a slave, used to pick pockets and locks; but being made a minister, he sold cities, armies and provinces: 5 and some have undertaken to give probable reasons to believe, that Pallas, one of Claudius his manumised slaves, by these means brought together more wealth in six years, than all the Roman dictators and consuls had done from the expulsion of the kings to their passage into Asia. The rest walked in the same way, used the same arts, and many of them succeeded in the same manner. Their riches consisted not of spoils taken from enemies, but were the base product of their own corruption. They valued nothing but money, and those who could bribe them, were sure to be advanc’d to the highest offices; and whatever they did, feared no punishment. Like effects will ever proceed from the like causes. When vanity, luxury and prodigality are in fashion, the desire of riches must necessarily increase in proportion to them: And when the power is in the hands of base mercenary persons, they will always (to use the courtiers’ phrase) make as much profit of their places as they can. Not only matters of favour, but of justice too, will be exposed to sale; and no way will be open to honours or magistracies, but by paying largely for them. He that gets an office by these means, will not execute it gratis: he thinks he may sell what he has bought; and would not have entered by corrupt ways, if he had not intended to deal corruptly. Nay, if a well-meaning man should suffer himself to be so far carried away by the stream of a prevailing custom, as to purchase honours of such villains, he would be obliged to continue in the same course, that he might gain riches to procure the continuance of his benefactors’ protection, or to obtain the favour of such as happen to succeed them: And the corruption thus beginning in the head, must necessarily diffuse itself into all the members of the commonwealth. Or, if anyone (which is not to be expected) after having been guilty of one villainy, should resolve to commit no more, it could have no other effect than to bring him to ruin; and he being taken away, all things would return to their former channel.
Besides this, whosoever desires to advance himself, must use such means as are suitable to the time in which he lives, and the humour of the persons with whom he is to deal. It had been as absurd for any man void of merit to set himself up against Junius Brutus, Cincinnatus, Papirius Cursor, Camillus, Fabius Maximus, or Scipio; and by bribing the senate and people of Rome, think to be chosen captain against the Tarquins, Tuscans, Latins, Samnites, Gauls or Carthaginians, as for the most virtuous men by the most certain proofs of their wisdom, experience, integrity and valour, to expect advancement from Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, or the lewd wretches that govern’d them. They hated and feared all those that excelled in virtue, and setting themselves to destroy the best for being the best, they placed the strength of the government in the hands of the worst, which produced the effects beforementioned. This seems to have been so well known, that no man pretended to be great at court, but those who had cast off all thoughts of honour and common honesty: Revertar cum leno, meretrix, scurra, cinaedus ero, 6 said one who saw what manners prevailed there; and wheresoever they do prevail, such as will rise, must render themselves conformable in all corruption and venality. And it may be observed, that a noble person now living amongst us, who is a great enemy to bribery, was turned out from a considerable office, as a scandal to the court; for, said the principal minister, he will make no profit of his place, and by that means casts a scandal upon those that do.
If any man say, this is not generally the fate of all courts, I confess it; and that if the prince be just, virtuous, wise, of great spirit, and not pretending to be absolute, he may chuse such men as are not mercenary, or take such a course as may render it hard for them to deserve bribes, or to preserve themselves from punishment, if they should deflect from his intention. And a prince of this age speaking familiarly with some great men about him, said, he had heard much of vast gains made by those who were near to princes, and asked if they made the like? One of them answer’d, that they were as willing as others to get something, but that no man would give them a farthing; for everyone finding a free admittance to his majesty, no man needed a solicitor: And it was no less known that he did of himself grant those things that were just, than that none of them had so much credit as to promote such as were not so. I will not say such a king is a phoenix; perhaps more than one may be found in an age; but they are certainly rare, and all that is good in their government proceeding from the excellency of their personal virtues, it must fail when that virtue fails, which was the root of it. Experience shews how little we can rely upon such a help; for where crowns are hereditary, children seldom prove like to their fathers; and such as are elective have also their defects. Many seem to be modest and innocent in private fortunes, who prove corrupt and vicious when they are raised to power. The violence, pride and malice of Saul, was never discover’d till the people had placed him in the throne. But where the government is absolute, or the prince endeavours to make it so, this integrity can never be found: He will always seek such as are content to depend upon his will, which being always unruly, good men will never comply; ill men will be paid for it, and that opens a gap to all manner of corruption. Something like to this may befall regular monarchies, or popular governments. They who are placed in the principal offices of trust may be treacherous; and when they are so, they will always by these means seek to gain partizans and dependents upon themselves. Their designs being corrupt, they must be carried on by corruption; but such as would support monarchy in its regularity, or popular governments, must oppose it, or be destroy’d by it. And nothing can better manifest how far absolute monarchies are more subject to this venality and corruption than the regular and popular governments, than that they are rooted in the principle of the one, which cannot subsist without them; and are so contrary to the others, that they must certainly perish unless they defend themselves from them.