PART III. THE MODEL OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF OCEANA (continued 5)

Upon these three last orders the Archon seemed to be haranguing at the head of his army in this manner:

“MY DEAR LORDS AND EXCELLENT PATRIOTS:

“A government of this make is a commonwealth for increase. Of those for preservation, the inconveniences and frailties have been shown: their roots are narrow, such as do not run, have no fibres; their tops weak and dangerously exposed to the weather, except you chance to find one, as Venice, planted in a flower-pot, and if she grows, she grows topheavy, and falls, too. But you cannot plant an oak in a flowerpot; she must have earth for her root, and heaven for her branches.

“‘Imperium Oceano, famam quoe terminet astris.’

“Rome was said to be broken by her own weight, but poetically; for that weight by which she was pretended to be ruined was supported in her emperors by a far slighter foundation. And in the common experience of good architecture, there is nothing more known than that buildings stand the firmer and the longer for their own weight, nor ever swerve through any other internal cause than that their materials are corruptible; but the people never die, nor, as a political body, are subject to any other corruption than that which derives from their government. Unless a man will deny the chain of causes, in which he denies God, he must also acknowledge the chain of effects; wherefore there can be no effect in nature that is not from the first cause, and those successive links of the chain without which it could not have been. Now except a man can show the contrary in a commonwealth, if there be no cause of corruption in the first make of it, there can never be any such effect. Let no man’s superstition impose profaneness upon this assertion; for as man is sinful, but yet the universe is perfect, so may the citizen be sinful, and yet the commonwealth be perfect. And as man, seeing the world is perfect, can never commit any such sin as shall render it imperfect, or bring it to a natural dissolution, so the citizen, where the commonwealth is perfect, can never commit any such crime as will render it imperfect, or bring it to a natural dissolution.

“To come to experience: Venice, notwithstanding we have found some flaws in it, is the only commonwealth in the make whereof no man can find a cause of dissolution; for which reason we behold her (though she consists of men that are not without sin) at this day with 1,000 years upon her back, yet for any internal cause, as young, as fresh, and free from decay, or any appearance of it, as she was born; but whatever in nature is not sensible of decay by the course of 1,000 years, is capable of the whole age of nature; by which calculation, for any check that I am able to give myself, a commonwealth, rightly ordered, may for any internal causes be as immortal or long-lived as the world. But if this be true, those commonwealths that are naturally fallen, must have derived their ruin from the rise of them. Israel and Athens died, not natural, but violent deaths, in which manner the world itself is to die. We are speaking of those causes of dissolution which are natural to government; and they are but two, either contradiction or inequality. If a commonwealth be a contradiction, she must needs destroy herself; and if she be unequal, it tends to strife, and strife to ruin. By the former of these fell Lacedaemon, by the latter Rome. Lacedaemon being made altogether for war, and yet not for increase, her natural progress became her natural dissolution, and the building of her own victorious hand too heavy for her foundation, so that she fell, indeed, by her own weight. But Rome perished through her native inequality, which how it inveterated the bosoms of the Senate and the people each against other, and even to death, has been shown at large.

“Look well to it, my lords, for if there be a contradiction or inequality in your commonwealth, it must fall; but if it has neither of these, it has no principle of mortality. Do not think me impudent; if this be truth, I shall commit a gross indiscretion in concealing it. Sure I am that Machiavel is for the immortality of a commonwealth upon far weaker principles. ‘If a commonwealth,’ says he, ‘were so happy as to be provided often with men, that, when she is swerving from her principles, should reduce her to her institution, she would be immortal.’ But a commonwealth, as we have demonstrated, swerves not from her principles, but by and through her institution; if she brought no bias into the world with her, her course for any internal cause must be straightforward, as we see is that of Venice. She cannot turn to the right hand nor to the left, but by some rub, which is not an internal, but external, cause: against such she can be no way fortified but through her situation, as is Venice, or through her militia, as was Rome, by which examples a commonwealth may be secure of those also. Think me not vain, for I cannot conceal my opinion here; a commonwealth that is rightly instituted can never swerve, nor one that is not rightly instituted be secured from swerving by reduction to her first principles; wherefore it is no less apparent in this place that Machiavel understood not a commonwealth as to the whole piece, than where having told you that a tribune, or any other citizen of Rome, might propose a law to the people, and debate it with them, he adds, ‘this order was good while the people were good; but when the people became evil, it became most pernicious.’ As if this order (through which, with the like, the people most apparently became evil) could ever have been good, or that the people or the commonwealth could ever have become good, by being reduced to such principles as were the original of their evil.

“The disease of Rome was, as has been shown, from the native inequality of her balance, and no otherwise from the empire of the world, than as, this falling into one scale, that of the nobility (an evil in such a fabric inevitable) kicked out the people. Wherefore a man that could have made her to throw away the empire of the world, might in that have reduced her to her principles, and yet have been so far from rendering her immortal that, going no further, he should never have cured her. But your commonwealth is founded upon an equal agrarian; and if the earth be given to the sons of men, this balance is the balance of justice, such a one as in having due regard to the different industry of different men, yet faithfully judges the poor’ And the king that faithfully judges the poor, his throne shall be established forever;, much more the commonwealth, seeing that equality, which is the necessary dissolution of monarchy, is the generation, the very life and soul, of a commonwealth. And now, if ever, I may be excusable, seeing my assertion, that the throne of a commonwealth may be established forever, is consonant to the holy Scriptures.

“The balance of a commonwealth that is equal is of such a nature that whatever falls into her empire must fall equally; and if the whole earth falls into your scales, it must fall equally, and so you may be a greater people and yet not swerve from your principles one hair. Nay, you will be so far from that that you must bring the world in such a case to your balance, even to the balance of justice. But hearken, my lords; are we on earth, do we see the sun, or are we visiting those shady places which are feigned by the poets?

“‘Continuo auditoe voces, vagitus et ingens.’

“These Gothic empires that are yet in the world, were at the first, though they had legs of their own, but a heavy and unwieldy burden; but their foundations being now broken, the iron of them enters even into the souls of the oppressed; and hear the voice of their comforters: ‘My father hath chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.’ Hearken, I say, if thy brother cries to thee in affliction, wilt thou not hear him? This is a commonwealth of the fabric that has an open ear and a public concern; she is not made for herself only, but given as a magistrate of God to mankind, for the vindication of common right and the law of nature. Wherefore says Cicero of the like, that of the Romans, ‘We have rather undertaken the patronage than the empire of the world.’ If you, not regarding this example, like some other nations that are upon the point to smart for it, shall, having attained to your own liberty, bear the sword of your common magistracy in vain, sit still and fold your arms, or, which is worse, let out the blood of your people to tyrants, to be shed in the defence of their yokes like water, and so not only turn the grace of God into wantonness, but his justice into wormwood: I say if you do thus, you are not now making a commonwealth, but heaping coals of fire upon your own heads. A commonwealth of this make is a minister of God upon earth, to the end that the world may be governed with righteousness. For which cause (that I may come at length to our present business) the orders last rehearsed are buds of empire, such as with the blessing of God may spread the arms of your commonwealth, like a holy asylum, to the distressed world, and give the earth her sabbath of years, or rest from her labors, under the shadow of your wings. It is upon this point where the writings of Machiavel, having for the rest excelled all other authors, come as far to excel themselves.

“Commonwealths, says he, have had three ways of propagating themselves: One after the manner of monarchies, by imposing the yoke, which was the way of Athens, and, toward the latter times, of Lacedaemon; another by equal leagues, which is the way of Switzerland (I shall add of Holland, though since his time); a third by unequal leagues, which, to the shame of the world, was never practised, nay, nor so much as seen or minded, by any other commonwealth but that only of Rome. They will each of them, either for caution or imitation, be worthy to be well weighed, which is the proper work of this place. Athens and Lacedaemon have been the occasion of great scandal to the world, in two, or at least one of two regards: the first, their emulation, which involved Greece in perpetual wars; the second, their way of propagation, which by imposing yokes upon others, was plainly contradictory to their own principles.

“For the first: governments, be they of what kind soever, if they be planted too close, are like trees, that impatient in their growth to have it hindered, eat out one another. It was not unknown to these in speculation, or, if you read the story of Agesilaus, in action, that either of them with 30,000 men might have mastered the East; and certainly, if the one had not stood in the other’s light, Alexander had come too late to that end, which was the means (and would be if they were to live again) of ruin, at least to one of them; wherefore with any man that understands the nature of government this is excusable. So it was between Oceana and Marpesia; so it is between France and Spain, though less excusable; and so it ever will be in the like cases. But to come to the second occasion of scandal by them given, which was in the way of their propagation, it is not excusable; for they brought their confederates under bondage, by which means Athens gave occasion of the Peloponnesian War, the wound of which she died stinking, when Lacedaemon, taking the same infection from her carcass, soon followed.

“Wherefore, my lords, let these be warnings to you not to make that liberty which God has given you a snare to others in practising this kind of enlargement to yourselves.

“The second way of propagation or enlargement used by commonwealths is that of Switzerland and Holland, equal leagues; this, though it be not otherwise mischievous, is useless to the world, and dangerous to themselves: useless to the world, for as the former governments were storks, these are blocks, have no sense of honor, or concern in the sufferings of others. But as the AEtolians, a state of the like fabric, were reproached by Philip of Macedon to prostitute themselves; by letting out their arms to the lusts of others, while they leave their own liberty barren and without legitimate issue; so I do not defame these people; the Switzer for valor has no superior, the Hollander for industry no equal; but themselves in the meantime shall so much the less excuse their governments, seeing that to the Switz it is well enough known that the ensigns of his commonwealth have no other motto than in te converte manus; and that of the Hollander, though he sweats more gold than the Spaniard digs, lets him languish in debt; for she herself lives upon charity. These are dangerous to themselves, precarious governments, such as do not command, but beg their bread from province to province, in coats that being patched up of all colors are in effect of none. That their cantons and provinces are so many arrows, is good; but they are so many bows too, which is naught.

“Like to these was the commonwealth of the ancient Tuscans, hung together like bobbins, without a hand to weave with them; therefore easily overcome by the Romans, though at that time, for number, a far less considerable people. If your liberty be not a root that grows, it will be a branch that withers, which consideration brings me to the paragon, the Commonwealth of Rome.

“The ways and means whereby the Romans acquired the patronage, and in that the empire, of the world were different, according to the different condition of their commonwealth in her rise and in her growth: in her rise she proceeded rather by colonies, in her growth by unequal leagues. Colonies without the bounds of Italy she planted none (such dispersion of the Roman citizen as to plant him in foreign parts, till the contrary interest of the emperors brought in that practice, was unlawful), nor did she ever demolish any city within that compass, or divest it of liberty; but whereas the most of them were commonwealths, stirred ‘up by emulation of her great felicity to war against her, if she overcame any, she confiscated some part of their lands that were the greatest incendiaries, or causes of the trouble, upon which she planted colonies of her own people, preserving the rest of their lands and liberties for the natives or inhabitants. By this way of proceeding, that I may be as brief as possible, she did many and great things. For in confirming of liberty, she propagated her empire; in holding the inhabitants from rebellion, she put a curb upon the incursion of enemies; in exonerating herself of the poorer sort, she multiplied her citizens; in rewarding her veterans, she rendered the rest less seditious; and in acquiring to herself the reverence of a common parent, she from time to time became the mother of new-born cities.

“In her further growth the way of her propagation went more upon leagues, which for the first division were of two kinds, social and provincial.

“Again, social leagues, or leagues of society, were of two kinds:

“The first called Latinity or Latin, the second Italian right.” The league between the Romans and the Latins, or Latin right, approached nearest to jus quiritium, or the right of a native Roman. The man or the city that was honored with this right, was civitate donatus cum suffragio, adopted a citizen of Rome, with the right of giving suffrage with the people in some cases, as those of conformation of law, or determination in judicature, if both the Consuls were agreed, not otherwise; wherefore that coming to little, the greatest and most peculiar part of this privilege was, that who had borne magistracy (at least that of oedile or quoestor) in any Latin city, was by consequence of the same a citizen of Rome at all points.

“Italian right was also a donation of the city, but without suffrage: they who were in either of these leagues, were governed by their own laws and magistrates, having all the rights, as to liberty, of citizens of Rome, yielding and praying to the commonwealth as head of the league, and having in the conduct of all affairs appertaining to the common cause, such aid of men and money as was particularly agreed to upon the merit of the cause, and specified in their respective leagues, whence such leagues came to be called equal or unequal accordingly.

“Provincial leagues were of different extension, according to the merit and capacity of a conquered people; but they were all of one kind, for every province was governed by Roman magistrates, as a praetor or a proconsul, according to the dignity of the province, for the civil administration and conduct of the provincial army, and a quaestor for the gathering of the public revenue, from which magistrates a province might appeal to Rome.

“For the better understanding of these particulars, I shall exemplify in as many of them as is needful, and first in Macedon:

“The Macedonians were thrice conquered by the Romans, first under the conduct of Titus Quintus Flaminius; secondly, under that of Lucius AEmilius Paulus; and, thirdly under that of Quintus Caecilius Metellus, thence called Macedonicus.

“For the first time Philip of Macedon, who (possessed of Acrocorinthus) boasted no less than was true, that he had Greece in fetters, being overcome by Flaminius, had his kingdom restored to him, upon condition that he should immediately set all the cities which he held in Greece and in Asia at liberty, and that he should not make war out of Macedon but by leave of the Senate of Rome; which Philip (having no other way to save anything) agreed should be done accordingly.

“The Grecians being at this time assembled at the isthmian games, where the concourse was mighty great, a crier, appointed to the office by Flaminius, was heard among them proclaiming all Greece to be free; to which the people being amazed at so hopeless a thing, gave little credit, till they received such testimony of the truth as put it past all doubt, whereupon they fell immediately on running to the proconsul with flowers and garlands, and such violent expressions of their admiration and joy, as, if Flaminius, a young man, about thirty-three, had not also been very strong, he must have died of no other death than their kindness, while everyone striving to touch his hand, they bore him up and down the field with an unruly throng, full of such ejaculations as these: How is there a people in the world, that at their own charge, at their own peril, will fight for the liberty of another? Did they live at the next door to the fire? Or what kind of men are these, whose business it is to pass the seas, that the world may be governed with righteousness? The cities of Greece and of Asia shake off their iron fetters at the voice of a crier was it madness to imagine such a thing, and is it done? O virtue! O felicity! O fame!

“In this example your lordships have a donation of liberty or of Italian right to a people, by restitution to what they had formerly enjoyed; and some particular men, families or cities, according to their merit of the Romans, if not upon this, yet upon the like occasions, were gratified with Latinity.” But Philip’s share by this means did not please him, wherefore the league was broken by his son Perseus; and the Macedonians thereupon for the second time conquered by AEmilius Paulus, their King taken, and they some time after the victory summoned to the tribunal of the general; where, remembering how little hope they ought to have of pardon, they expected some dreadful sentence: when AEmilius, in the first place, declared the Macedonians to be free, in the full possession of their lands, goods, and laws, with right to elect annual magistrates, yielding and paying to the people of Rome one-half of the tribute which they were accustomed to pay to their own kings. This done he went on, making so skilful a division of the country in order to the methodizing of the people, and casting them into the form of popular government, that the Macedonians, being first surprised with the virtue of the Romans, began now to alter the scene of their admiration, that a stranger should do such things for them in their own country, and with such facility as they had never so much as once imagined to be possible. Nor was this all; for AEmilius, as if not dictating to conquered enemies, but to some well-deserving friends, gave them in the last place laws so suitable, and contrived with such care and prudence, that long use and experience (the only correctness of works of this nature) could never find a fault in them.

“In this example you have a donation of liberty, or of Italian right, to a people that had not tasted of it before, but were now taught how to use it.

“My lords, the royalists should compare what we are doing, and we what hitherto we have done for them, with this example. It is a shame that while we are boasting up ourselves above all others, we should yet be so far from imitating such examples as these, that we do not so much as understand that if government be the parent of manners, where there are no heroic virtues, there is no heroic government.

“But the Macedonians rebelling, at the name of a false Philip, the third time against the Romans, were by them judged incapable of liberty, and reduced by Metellus to a province.

“Now whereas it remains that I explain the nature of a province, I shall rather choose that of Sicily, because, having been the first which the Romans made, the descriptions of the rest relate to it.

“‘We have so received the Sicilian cities into amity,’ says Cicero, ‘that they enjoy their ancient laws; and upon no other condition than of the same obedience to the people of Rome, which they formerly yielded to their own princes or superiors.’ So the Sicilians, whereas they had been parcelled out to divers princes, and into divers states (the cause of perpetual wars, whereby, hewing one another down, they became sacrifices to the ambition of their neighbors, or of some invader), were now received at the old rate into a new protection which could hold them, and in which no enemy durst touch them; nor was it possible, as the case then stood, for the Sicilians to receive, or for the Romans to give more.

“A Roman province is defined by Sigonius as a region having provincial right. Provincial right in general was to be governed by a Roman praetor, or consul, in matters at least of state, and of the militia; and by a quaeStor, whose office it was to receive the public revenue. Provincial right in particular was different, according to the different leagues or agreements between the commonwealth, and the people reduced into a province. ‘Siculi hoc jure sunt, ut quod civis cum cive agat, domi certet suis legibus; quod siculus cum siculo non ejusdem civitatis, ut de eo proetor judices, ex P. Rupilii decreto, sortiatur. Quod privatus a populo petit, aut populus a privato, senatus ex aliqua civitate, qui judicet, datur, cui alternoe civitates rejectoe sunt. Quod vivis Romanus a siculo petit, siculus judex datur quod siculus a cive Romano, civis Romanus datur. Coeterarum rerum selecti judices ex civium Romanorum conventu proponi solent. Inter aratores et decumanos lege frumentaria, quam Hieronicam appellant, judicia fiunt.’ Because the rest would oblige me to a discourse too large for this place, it shall suffice that I have showed you how it was in Sicily.

“My lords, upon the fabric of your provincial orb I shall not hold you; because it is sufficiently described in the order, and I cannot believe that you think it inferior to the way of a praetor and a quaestor. But whereas the provincial way of the Roman Commonwealth was that whereby it held the empire of the world, and your orbs are intended to be capable at least of the like use, there may arise many controversies, as whether such a course be lawful, whether it be feasible; and, seeing that the Romans were ruined upon that point, whether it would not be to the destruction of the commonwealth.

“For the first: if the empire of a commonwealth be an occasion to ask whether it be lawful for a commonwealth to aspire to the empire of the world, it is to ask whether it be lawful for it to do its duty, or to put the world into a better condition than it was before.

“And to ask whether this be feasible, is to ask why the Oceaner, being under the like administration of government, may not do as much with 200 men as the Roman did with 100; for comparing their commonwealths in their rise, the difference is yet greater: now that Rome (seris avaritia luxuriaque), through the natural thirst of her constitution, came at length with the fulness of her provinces to burst herself, this is no otherwise to be understood than as when a man that from his own evil constitution had contracted the dropsy, dies with drinking, it being apparent that in case her agrarian had held, she could never have been thus ruined, and I have already demonstrated that your agrarian being once poised, can never break or swerve.

“Wherefore to draw toward some conclusion of this discourse, let me inculcate the use, by selecting a few considerations out of many. The regard had in this place to the empire of the world appertains to a well-ordered commonwealth, more especially for two reasons:

“1. The facility of this great enterprise, by a government of the model proposed;

“2. The danger that you would run in the omission of such a government.

“The facility of this enterprise, upon the grounds already laid, must needs be great, forasmuch as the empire of the world has been, both in reason and experience, the necessary consequence of a commonwealth of this nature only; for though it has been given to all kinds to drive at it, since that of Athens or Lacedaemon, if the one had not hung in the other’s light, might have gained it, yet could neither of them have held it; not Athens, through the manner of her propagation, which, being by downright tyranny, could not preserve what she had, nor Lacedaemon, because she was overthrown by the weight of a less conquest. The facility then of this great enterprise being peculiar to popular government, I shall consider it, first, in gaining, and secondly, in holding.

“For the former, volenti non fit injuria. It is said of the people under Eumenes, that they would not have changed them no their subjection for liberty; wherefore the Romans gave disturbance. If a people be contented with their government, it is a certain sign that it is good, and much good do them with it. The sword of your magistracy is for a terror to them that do evil. Eumenes had the fear of God, or of the Romans, before his eyes; concerning such he has given you no commission.

“But till we can say, here are the Romans, where is Eumenes? do not think that the late appearances of God to you have been altogether for yourselves; ‘He has surely seen the affliction of your brethren, and heard their cry by reason of their task masters.’ For to believe otherwise is not only to be mindless of his ways, but altogether deaf. If you have ears to hear, this is the way in which you will certainly be called upon; for if, while there is no stock of liberty no sanctuary of the afflicted, it be a common object to behold a people casting themselves out of the pan of one prince into the fire of another, what can you think, but if the world should see the Roman ‘eagle again, she would renew her age and her flight? Nor did ever she spread her wings with better omen than will be read in your ensigns; which if, called in by an oppressed people they interpose between them and their yoke, the people themselves must either do nothing in the meantime or have no more pains to take for their wished fruit than to gather it, if that be not likewise done for them. Wherefore this must needs be easy, and yet you have a greater facility than is in the arm of flesh; for if the cause of mankind be the cause of God, the Lord of Hosts will be your captain, and you shall be a praise to the whole earth.

“The facility of holding is in the way of your propagation; if you take that of Athens and Lacedemon, you shall rain snares, but either catch or hold nothing. Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord: if setting up for liberty you impose yokes, he will infallibly destroy you. On the other side, to go about a work of this nature by a league without a head, is to abdicate that magistracy wherewith he has not only endued you, but whereof he will require an account of you; for, ‘cursed is he that does the work of the Lord negligently.’ Wherefore you are to take the course of Rome: if you have subdued a nation that is capable of liberty, you shall make them a present of it, as did Flaminius to Greece, and AEmilius to Macedon, reserving to yourselves some part of that revenue which was legally paid to the former government, together with the right of being head of the league, which includes such levies of men and money as shall be necessary for the carrying on of the public work.

“For if a people have by your means attained to freedom, they owe both to the cause and you such aid as may propagate the like fruit to the rest of the world. But whereas every nation is not capable of her liberty to this degree, lest you be put to doing and undoing of things, as the Romans were in Macedon, you shall diligently observe what nation is fit for her liberty to this degree, and what not; which is to be done by two marks, the first if she be willing to ‘help the Lord against the mighty;’ for if she has no care of the liberty of mankind she deserves not her own. But because in this you may be deceived by pretences, which, continuing for a while specious, may afterward vanish; the other is more certain, and that is if she be capable of an equal agrarian; which that it was not observed by excellent AEmilius in his donation of liberty, and introduction of a popular state among the Macedonians, I am more than moved to believe for two reasons; the first, because at the same time the agrarian was odious to the Roman patricians; the second, that the pseudo-Philip could afterward so easily recover Macedon, which could not have happened but by the nobility, and their impatience, having great estates, to be equalled with the people; for that the people should otherwise, at the mere sound of a name, have thrown away their liberty, is incredible. Wherefore be assured that the nation where you cannot establish an equal agrarian, is incapable of its liberty as to this kind of donation. For example, except the aristocracy in Marpesia be dissolved, neither can that people have their liberty there, nor you govern at home; for they continuing still liable to be sold by their lords to foreign princes, there will never (especially in a country of which there is no other profit to be made) be want of such merchants and drovers, while you must be the market where they are to receive their second payment.

“Nor can the aristocracy there be dissolved but by your means, in relation whereto you are provided with your provincial orb; which, being proportioned to the measure of the nation that you have vindicated or conquered, will easily hold it: for there is not a people in the world more difficult to be held than the Marpesians, which, though by themselves it be ascribed to their own nature, is truly to be attributed to that of their country. Nevertheless, you having 9,000 men upon the continual guard of it, that, threatened by any sudden insurrection, have places of retreat, and an army of 40,000 men upon a day’s warning ready to march to their rescue, it is not to be rationally shown which way they can possibly slip out of your hands. And if a man should think that upon a province more remote and divided by the sea, you have not the like hold, he has not so well considered your wings as your talons, your shipping being of such a nature as makes the descent of your armies almost of equal facility in any country, so that what you take you hold, both because your militia, being already populous, will be of great growth in itself, and also through your confederates, by whom in taking and holding you are still more enabled to do both.

“Nor shall you easier hold than the people under your empire or patronage may be held. My lords, I would not go to the door to see whether it be close shut; this is no underhand dealing, nor a game at which he shall have any advantage against you who sees your cards, but, on the contrary the advantage shall be your own: for with 18,000 men (which number I put, because it circulates your orb by the annual change of 6,000) having established your matters in the order shown, you will, be able to hold the greatest province; and 18,000 men, allowing them greater pay than any prince ever gave, will not stand the province in £1,000,000 revenue; in consideration whereof, they shall have their own estates free to themselves, and be governed by their own laws and magistrates; which, if the revenue of the province be in dry-rent (as there may be some that are four times as big as Oceana) £40,000,000, will bring it with that of industry, to speak with the least, to twice the value: so that the people there, who at this day are so oppressed that they have nothing at all whereon to live, shall for £1,000,000 paid to you, receive at least £79,000,000 to their proper use: in which place I appeal to any man, whether the empire described can be other than the patronage of the world.

“Now if you add to the propagation of civil liberty (so natural to this commonwealth that it cannot be omitted) the propagation of the liberty of conscience, this empire, this patronage of the world, is the kingdom of Christ: for as the kingdom of God the Father was a commonwealth, so shall the kingdom of God the Son; ‘the people shall be willing in the day of his power.’

“Having showed you in this and other places some of those inestimable benefits of this kind of government, together with the natural and facile emanation of them from their fountain, I come (lest God who has appeared to you, for he is the God of nature, in the glorious constellation of these subordinate causes, whereof we have hitherto been taking the true elevation, should shake off the dust of his feet against you) to warn you of the dangers which you, not taking the opportunity, will incur by omission.

“Machiavel, speaking of the defect of Venice, through her want of proper arms, cries out, ‘This cut her wings, and spoiled her mount to heaven.’ If you lay your commonwealth upon any other foundation than the people, you frustrate yourself of proper arms, and so lose the empire of the world; nor is this all, but some other nation will have it.

“Columbus offered gold to one of your kings, through whose happy incredulity another prince has drunk the poison, even to the consumption of his people; but I do not offer you a nerve of war that is made of purse-strings, such a one as has drawn the face of the earth into convulsions, but such as is natural to her health and beauty. Look you to it, where there is tumbling and tossing upon the bed of sickness, it must end in death or recovery. Though the people of the world, in the dregs of the Gothic empire, be yet tumbling and tossing upon the bed of sickness, they cannot die; nor is there any means of recovery for them but by ancient prudence, whence of necessity it must come to pass that this drug be better known, if France, Italy, and Spain were not all sick, all corrupted together, there would be none of them so; for the sick would not be able to withstand the sound, nor the sound to preserve their health, without curing of the sick. The first of these nations (which if you stay her leisure, will in my mind be France) that recovers the health of ancient prudence, shall certainly govern the world; for what did Italy when she had it? and as you were in that, so shall you in the like case be reduced to a province; I do not speak at random. Italy, in the consulship of Lucius AEmilius Papus and Caius Attilius Regulus, armed, upon the Gallic tumult that then happened of herself, and without the aid of foreign auxiliaries, 70,000 horse and 700,000 foot; but as Italy is the least of those three countries in extent, so is France now the most populous.

“‘I, decus, I, nostrum, melioribus utere fatis.’

“My dear lords, Oceana is as the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley. As the lily among thorns, such is my love among the daughters. She is comely as the tents of Kedar, and terrible as an army with banners. Her neck is as the tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon there hang 1,000 bucklers and shields of mighty men. Let me hear thy voice in the morning, whom my soul loves. The south has dropped, and the west is breathing upon thy garden of spices. Arise, queen of the earth, arise, holy spouse of Jesus; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time for the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. Arise, I say, come forth, and do not tarry: ah! wherefore should my eyes behold thee by the rivers of Babylon, hanging thy harps upon the willows, thou fairest among women?

“Excellent patriots, if the people be sovereign, here is that which establishes their prerogative; if we be sincere, here is that which disburdens our souls, and makes good all our engagements; if we be charitable, here is that which embraces all parties; if we would be settled, here is that which will stand, and last forever.

“If our religion be anything else but a vain boast, scratching and defacing human nature or reason, which, being the image of God, makes it a kind of murder, here is that empire whence ‘justice shall run down like a river, and judgment like a mighty stream.’ Who is it then that calls us? or, what is in our way? A lion! Is it not the dragon, that old serpent? For what wretched shifts are these? Here is a great deal; might we not have some of this at one time, and some at another?

“My lords, permit me to give you the sum, or brief:

EPITOME OF THE WHOLE COMMONWEALTH

“The centre or fundamental laws are, first, the agrarian, proportioned at £2,000 a year in land, lying and being within the proper territory of Oceana, and stating property in land at such a balance, that the power can never swerve out of the hands of the many.

“Secondly, the ballot conveying this equal sap from the root, by an equal election or rotation, into the branches of magistracy or sovereign power.

“The orbs of this commonwealth being civil, military, or provincial, are, as it were, cast upon this mould or centre by the divisions of the people; first, into citizens and servants; secondly, into youth and elders; thirdly, into such as have £100 a year in lands, goods, or moneys, who are of the horse; and such as have under, who are of the foot; fourthly, they are divided by their usual residence into parishes, hundreds, and tribes.

“The civil orbs consist of the elders, and are thus created: every Monday next ensuing the last of December, the elders in every parish elect the fifth man to be a deputy, which is but half a day’s work; every Monday next ensuing the last of January, the deputies meet at their respective hundred, and elect out of their number one justice of the peace, one juryman, one coroner, and one high constable of the foot, one day’s work.

“Every Monday next ensuing the last of February, the hundreds meet at their respective tribe, and there elect the lords high sheriff, lieutenant, custos rotulorum, the conductor, the two censors out of the horse, the magistrates of the tribe and of the hundreds, with the jurymen constituting the phylarch, and who assist in their respective offices at the assizes, hold the quarter-sessions, etc. The day following the tribe elects the annual galaxy, consisting of two knights and three deputies out of the horse, with four deputies out of the foot, thereby endued with power, as magistrates of the whole nation, for the term of three years. An officer chosen at the hundred may not be elected a magistrate of the tribe; but a magistrate or officer either of the hundred or of the tribe, being elected into the galaxy, may substitute any one of his office in the hundred or in own order to his magistracy or office in the hundred or in the tribe. This of the muster is two days’ work. So the body of the people is annually, at the charge of three days’ work and a half, in their own tribes, for the perpetuation of their power, receiving over and above the magistracies so divided among them.

“Every Monday next ensuing the last of March, the knights, being 100 in all the tribes, take their places in the Senate. The knights, having taken their places in the Senate, make the third region of the same, and the house proceeds to the senatorian elections. Senatorian elections are annual, biennial, or emergent.

“The annual are performed by the tropic.

“The tropic is a schedule consisting of two parts; the first by which the senatorian magistrates are elected; and the second, by which the senatorian councils are perpetuated.

“The first part is of this tenor:

“Annual magistrates and therefore such as may be elected out of any region; the term of every region having at the tropic one year at the least unexpired.

“Triennial magistrates, and therefore such as can be chosen out of the third region only, as that alone which has the term of three years unexpired.

“The strategus and the orator sitting, are consuls, or presidents of the Senate.

“The strategus marching is general of the army, in which case a new strategus is to be elected in his room.

“The strategus sitting with six commissioners, being councillors of the nation, are the signory of the commonwealth.”

The censors are magistrates of the ballot, presidents of the Council for Religion, and chancellors of the universities.

“The second part of the tropic perpetuates the Council of State, by the election of five knights out of the first region of the Senate, to be the first region of that council consisting of fifteen knights, five in every region.

“The like is done by the election of four into the Council of Religion, and four into the Council of Trade, out of the same region in the Senate; each of these councils consisting of twelve knights, four in every region.

“But the Council of War, consisting of nine knights, three in every region, is elected by and out of the Council of State, as the other councils are elected by and out of the Senate. And if the Senate add a juncta of nine knights more, elected out of their own number, for the term of three months, the Council of War, by virtue of that addition, is Dictator of Oceana for the said term.

“The signory jointly or severally has right of session and suffrage in every senatorial council, and to propose either to the Senate, or any of them. And every region in a council electing one weekly provost, any two of those provosts have power also to propose to their respective council, as the proper and peculiar proposers of the same, for which cause they hold an academy, where any man, either by word of mouth or writing, may propose to the proposers.

“Next to the elections of the tropic is the biennial election of one ambassador-in-ordinary, by the ballot of the house, to the residence of France; at which time the resident of France removes to Spain, he of Spain to Venice, he of Venice to Constantinople, and he of Constantinople returns. So the orb of the residents is wheeled about in eight years, by the biennial election of one ambassador-in-ordinary.

“The last kind of election is emergent. Emergent elections are made by the scrutiny. Election by scrutiny is when a competitor, being made by a council, and brought into the Senate, the Senate chooses four more competitors to him, and putting all five to the ballot, he who has most above half the suffrages is the magistrate. The polemarchs or field officers are chosen by the scrutiny of the Council of War; an ambassador-extraordinary by the scrutiny of the Council of State; the judges and sergeants-at-law by the scrutiny of the seal; and the barons and prime officers of the Exchequer, by the scrutiny of the Treasury..

“The opinion or opinions that are legitimately proposed to any council must be debated by the same, and so many as are resolved upon the debate are introduced into the Senate, where they are debated and resolved, or rejected by the whole house; that which is resolved by the Senate is a decree which is good in matters of state, but no law, except it be proposed to and resolved by the prerogative.

“The deputies of the galaxy being three horse and four foot in a tribe, amount in all the tribes to 150 horse and 200 foot; which, having entered the prerogative, and chosen their captains, cornet, and ensign (triennial officers), make the third class, consisting of one troop and one company; and so, joining with the whole prerogative, elect four annual magistrates, called tribunes, whereof two are of the horse and two of the foot. These have the command of the prerogative sessions, and suffrage in the Council of War, and sessions without suffrage in the Senate.

“The Senate having passed a decree which they would propose to the people, cause it to be printed and published, or promulgated for the space of six weeks, which, being ordered, they choose their proposers. The proposers must be magistrates, that is, the commissioners of the seal, those of the Treasury, or the censors. These being chosen, desire the muster of the tribunes, and appoint the day. The people being assembled at the day appointed, and the decree proposed, that which is proposed by authority of the Senate, and commanded by the people, is the law of Oceana, or an act of Parliament.

“So the Parliament of Oceana consists of the Senate proposing, and the people resolving.

“The people or prerogative are also the supreme judicatory of this nation, having power of hearing and determining all causes of appeal from all magistrates, or courts provincial or domestic, as also to question any magistrate, the term of his magistracy being expired, if the case be introduced by the tribunes, or any one of them.

“The military orbs consist of the youth, that is, such as are from eighteen to thirty years of age; and are created in the following manner:

“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of December, the youth of every parish, assembling, elect the fifth of their number to be their deputies; the deputies of the youth are called stratiots, and this is the first essay.

“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of January, the stratiots, assembling at the hundred, elect their captain and their ensign, and fall to their games and sports.

“Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of February the stratiots are received by the lord lieutenant, their commander-in-chief, with the conductors and the censors; and, having been disciplined and entertained with other games, are called to the urns, where they elect the second essay, consisting of 200 horse and 600 foot in a tribe; that is, of 10,000 horse and 30,000 foot in all the tribes, which is the standing army of this nation, to march at any warning. They also elect at the same time a part of the third essay, by the mixture of balls marked with the letter M and the letter P, for Marpesia and Panopea; they of either mark being ten horse and fifty foot in a tribe, that is, 500 horse and 2,500 foot in all the tribes, which are forthwith to march to their respective provinces.

“But the third essay of this nation more properly so called, is when the strategus with the polemarchs (the Senate and the people or the Dictator having decreed a war) receive in return of his warrants the second essay from the hands of the conductors at the rendezvous of Oceana; which army, marching with all accommodations provided by the Council of War, the Senate elects a new strategus, and the lords-lieutenant a new second essay.

“A youth, except he be an only son, refusing any one of his three essays, without sufficient cause shown to the phylarch or the censors, is incapable of magistracy, and is fined a fifth part of his yearly rent, or of his estate, for protection. In case of invasion the elders are obliged to like duty with the youth, and upon their own charge.

“The provincial orb consisting in part of the elders, and in part of the youth, is thus created:

“Four knights out of the first region falling, are elected in the Senate to be the first region of the provincial orb of Marpesia; these, being triennial magistrates, take their places in the provincial council, consisting of twelve knights, four in every region, each region choosing their weekly provosts of the council thus constituted. One knight more, chosen out of the same region in the Senate, being an annual magistrate, is president, with power to propose; and the opinions proposed by the president, or any two of the provosts, are debated by the council, and, if there be occasion of further power or instruction than they yet have, transmitted to the Council of State, with which the provincial is to hold intelligence.

“The president of this council is also strategus or general of the provincial army; wherefore the conductors, upon notice of his election, and appointment of his rendezvous, deliver to him the stratiots of his letter, which he takes with him into his province; and the provincial army having received the new strategus with the third class, the council dismisses the old strategus with the first class. The like is done for Panopea, or any other province.

“But whereas the term of every other magistracy or election in this commonwealth, whether annual or triennial, requires an equal vacation, the term of a provincial councillor or magistrate requires no vacation at all. The quorum of a provincial, as also that of every other council and assembly, requires two-thirds in a time of health, and one-third in a time of sickness.

“I think I have omitted nothing but the props and scaffolds, which are not of use but in building. And how much is here? Show me another commonwealth in this compass? how many things? Show me another entire government consisting but of thirty orders. If you now go to law with anybody, there lie to some of our courts 200 original writs: if you stir your hand, there go more nerves and bones to that motion; if you play, you have more cards in the pack; nay, you could not sit with your ease in that chair, if it consisted not of more parts. Will you not then allow to your legislator, what you can afford your upholsterer, or to the throne, what is necessary to a chair?

“My lords, if you will have fewer orders in a commonwealth, you will have more; for where she is not perfect at first, every day, every hour will produce a new order, the end whereof is to have no order at all, but to grind with the clack of some demagogue. Is he providing already for his golden thumb? Lift up your heads; away with ambition, that fulsome complexion of a statesman, tempered, like Sylla’s, with blood and muck. ‘And the Lord give to his senators wisdom; and make our faces to shine, that we may be a light to them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide their feet in the way of peace.’—In the name of God, what’s the matter?”

Philadelphus, the secretary of the council, having performed his task in reading the several orders as you have seen, upon the receipt of a packet from his correspondent Boccalini, secretary of Parnassus, in reading one of the letters, burst forth into such a violent passion of weeping and downright howling, that the legislators, being startled with the apprehension of some horrid news, one of them had no sooner snatched the letter out of his hand, than the rest crying, “Read, read,” he obeyed in this manner:

“The 3d instant his Phoebean majesty having taken the nature of free states into his royal consideration, and being steadily persuaded that the laws in such governments are incomparably better and more surely directed to the good of mankind than in any other; that the courage of such a people is the aptest tinder to noble fire; that the genius of such a soil is that wherein the roots of good literature are least worm-eaten with pedantism, and where their fruits have ever come to the greatest maturity and highest relish, conceived such a loathing of their ambition and tyranny, who, usurping the liberty of their native countries, become slaves to themselves, inasmuch as (be it never so contrary to their own nature or consciences) they have taken the earnest of sin, and are engaged to persecute all men that are good with the same or greater rigor than is ordained by laws for the wicked, for none ever administered that power by good which he purchased by ill arts—Phoebus, I say, having considered this, assembled all the senators residing in the learned court at the theatre of Melpomene, where he caused Caesar the Dictator to come upon the stage, and his sister Actia, his nephew Augustus, Julia his daughter, with the children which she had by Marcus Agrippa, Lucius and Caius Caesars, Agrippa Posthumus, Julia, and Agrippina, with the numerous progeny which she bore to her renowned husband Germanicus, to enter. A miserable scene in any, but most deplorable in the eyes of Caesar, thus beholding what havoc his prodigious ambition, not satisfied with his own bloody ghost, had made upon his more innocent remains, even to the total extinction of his family. For it is (seeing where there is any humanity, there must be some compassion) not to be spoken without tears, that of the full branches deriving from Octavia the eldest sister, and Julia the daughter of Augustus, there should not be one fruit or blossom that was not cut off or blasted by the sword, famine, or poison.

“Now might the great soul of Caesar have been full; and yet that which poured in as much or more was to behold that execrable race of the Claudii, having hunted and sucked his blood, with the thirst of tigers, to be rewarded with the Roman Empire, and remain in full possession of that famous patrimony: a spectacle to pollute the light of heaven! Nevertheless, as if Caesar had not yet enough, his Phoeban majesty caused to be introduced on the other side of the theatre, the most illustrious and happy prince Andrea Doria, with his dear posterity, embraced by the soft and constant arms of the city of Genoa, into whose bosom, ever fruitful in her gratitude, he had dropped her fair liberty like the dew of heaven, which, when the Roman tyrant beheld, and how much more fresh that laurel was worn with a firm root in the hearts of the people than that which he had torn off, he fell into such a horrid distortion of limbs and countenance, that the senators, who had thought themselves steel and flint at such an object, having hitherto stood in their reverend snow-like thawing Alps, now covered their faces with their large sleeves.”

“My lords,” said the Archon, rising, “witty Philadelphus has given us grave admonition in dreadful tragedy. Discite justitiam moniti, et non temnere divos. Great and glorious Caesar the highest character of flesh, yet could not rule but by that part of man which is the beast; but a commonwealth is a monarchy; to her God is king, inasmuch as reason, his dictate, is her sovereign power.” Which said, he adjourned the Council. And the model was soon after promulgated. Quod bonum, foelix, faustumque sit huic reipublicoe. Agite quirites, censuere patres, jubeat populus. (The sea roared, and the floods clapped their hands.)

The Proclamation of his Highness the Lord Archon of Oceana upon Promulgation of the Model,

“Whereas his Highness and the Council, in the framing of the model promulgated, have not had any private interest or ambition but the fear of God and the good of this people before their eyes; and it remains their desire that this great work may be carried on accordingly. This present greeting is to inform the good people of this land, that as the Council of Prytans sat during the framing of the model, to receive from time to time such propositions as should be offered by any wise-hearted or public-spirited man, toward the institution of a well-ordered commonwealth, so the said Council is to sit as formerly in the great hall of the Pantheon during promulgation (which is to continue for the space of three months) to receive, weigh, and, as there shall be occasion, transmit to the Council of Legislators, all such objections as shall be made against the said model, whether in the whole or in any part. Wherefore that nothing be done rashly or without the consent of the people, such, of what party soever, with whom there may remain any doubts or difficulties, are desired with all convenient speed to address themselves to the said prytans; where, if such objections, doubts, or difficulties receive solution to the satisfaction of the auditory, they shall have public thanks, but if the said objections, doubts, or difficulties receive no solution to the satisfaction of the auditory, then the model promulgated shall be reviewed, and the party that was the occasion of the review, shall receive public thanks, together with the best horse in his Highness’s stable, and be one of the Council of Legislators. And so God have you in his keeping.”

I should now write the same Council of the Prytans, but for two reasons: the one, that having had but a small time for that which is already done, I am over-labored; the other, that there may be new objections. Wherefore, if my reader has any such as to the model, I entreat him to address himself by way of oration, as it were, to the prytans, that when this rough draught comes to be a work, his speech being faithfully inserted in this place, may give or receive correction to amendment; for what is written will be weighed. But conversation, in these days, is a game at which they are best provided that have light gold; it is like the sport of women that make flowers of straws, which must be stuck up but may not be touched. Nor, which is worse, is this the fault of conversation only: but to the examiner I say if to invent method and teach an art be all one, let him show that this method is not truly invented, or this art is faithfully taught.

I cannot conclude a circle (and such is this commonwealth) without turning the end into the beginning. The time of promulgation being expired, the surveyors were sent down, who having in due season made report that their work was perfect, the orators followed, under the administration of which officers and magistrates the commonwealth was ratified and established by the whole body of the people, in their parochial, hundred, and county assemblies. And the orators being, by virtue of their scrolls or lots, members of their respective tribes, were elected each the first knight of the third list, or galaxy; wherefore, having at their return assisted the Archon in putting the Senate and the people or prerogative into motion, they abdicated the magistracy both of orators and legislators.