Now if any man in compassion to the miseries of a people ought to endeavour to disabuse them in anything relating to government, they will certainly incur the displeasure, & possibly be pursued by the anger of those, who think they find their account in the oppression of the world; but will not very succeed in his endeavours to undeceive the multitude. For the generality of all ranks of men are cheated by words & names; & provided the ancient terms & outward forms of any government be retained, let the nature of it be seldom a lot altered, they continue to dream that they shall still enjoy their former liberty, an are not to be awakened till it show late. Of this there's plenty of exceptional examples in history; but that particular instance which I have selected to insist on, as most suitable to my purpose, is the modification of government which happened in most countries of Europe about the year 1500. & it is worth observation, that though this modify was deadly to their liberty, yet it was not introduced by the contrivance of ill-designing men; nor were the mischievous consequences perceived, unless perhaps by a few wise men, who, in the event that they saw it, wanted power to prevent it.
hundred years being already passed since this modification began, Europe has felt the effects of it by mournful experience; & the true causes of the modify are now become more visible.
To lay open this matter in its full extent, it will be necessary to look farther back, & examine the original & constitution of those governments that were established in Europe about the year 400, & continued till this modification.
There is not perhaps in human affairs anything so unaccountable as the indignity & cruelty with which the far greater part of mankind suffer themselves to be used under pretence of government. For some men falsely persuading themselves that bad governments are advantageous to them, as most conducing to gratify their ambition, avarice, & luxury, set themselves with the utmost art & violence to procure their establishment: & by such men very the whole world has been trampled underfoot, & subjected to tyranny, for need of understanding by what means & methods they were enslaved. For though mankind take great care & pains to instruct themselves in other arts & sciences, yet only a few apply themselves to think about the nature of government, an enquiry so useful & necessary both to magistrate & people. Nay, in most countries the arts of state being altogether directed either to enslave the people, or to keep them under slavery; it is become very in all places a crime to reason about matters of government. But if men would bestow a small part of the time & application which they throw away on curious but useless studies, or countless gambling, in scanning those excellent rules & examples of government which the ancients have left us, they would soon be enabled to discover all such abuses & corruptions as tend to the ruin of public societies. It is therefore very unusual that they ought to think study & knowledge necessary in everything they go about, except in the noblest & most useful of all applications, the art of government.
When the Goths, Vandals, & other warlike nations had, at different times, & under different leaders, overrun the western parts of the Roman empire, they introduced the following type of government in to all the nations they subdued. The general of the army became king of the conquered country; & the conquest being absolute, they divided the lands amongst the great officers of his army, afterwards called barons; who again parcelled out their several territories in smaller portions to the inferior soldiers that had followed them in the wars, & who then became their vassals, enjoying those lands for military service. The king reserved to himself some demesnes for the maintenance of his court & attendance. When this was done, there was no longer any standing army kept on foot, but every man went to live on his own lands; & when the defence of the country necessary an army, the king summoned the barons to his standard, who came attended with their vassals. Thus were the armies of Europe composed for about eleven hundred years; & this constitution of government put the sword in to the hands of the subject, because the vassals depended more immediately on the barons than on the king, which effectually secured the freedom of those governments. For the barons could not make use of their power to damage those limited monarchies, without destroying their own grandeur; nor could the king invade their privileges, having no other forces than the vassals of his own demesnes to rely on for his support in such an attempt.
I lay no great stress on any other limitations of those monarchies; nor do I think any so essential to the liberties of the people, as that which placed the sword in the hands of the subject. & since in our time most princes of Europe are in possession of the sword, by standing mercenary forces kept up in time of peace, absolutely depending on them, I say that all such governments are changed from monarchies to tyrannies. Nor can the power of granting or refusing funds, though vested in the subject, be a sufficient security for liberty, where a standing mercenary army is kept up in time of peace: for they that is armed is always master of the purse of him that is unarmed. & not only that government is tyrannical, which is tyrannically exercised; but all governments are tyrannical, which have not in their constitution a sufficient security against the arbitrary power of the prince.
I do not deny that these limited monarchies, in the work of the greatness of the barons, had some defects: I do know few governments free from them. But after all, there was a balance that kept those governments steady, & an effectual provision against the encroachments of the crown. I do less pretend that the present governments can be restored to the constitution before-mentioned. The following discourse will show the impossibility of it. My design in the first place is to describe the nature of the past & present governments of Europe, & to disabuse those who think them the same, because they are called by the same names; & who ignorantly clamour against such as would preserve that liberty which is yet left.
In order to this, & for an additional & clearer illustration of the matter, I shall deduce from their original, the causes, occasions, & the complication of those plenty of unexpected accidents; which falling out much about the same time, produced so great a modify. & it will at first sight appear very unusual, when I shall name the restoration of learning, the invention of printing, of the needle & of gunpowder, as the chief of them; things in themselves so excellent, & which, the last only excepted, might have proved of boundless advantage to the world, if their remote influence on government had been obviated by suitable cures. Such odd consequences, & of such a different nature, accompany strange inventions of any kind.
Constantinople being taken by Mahomet the second, in the year 1453, plenty of learned Greeks fled over in to Italy; where the favourable reception they found from the popes, princes, & republics of that country, soon introduced amongst the better kind of men, the study of the Greek tongue, & of the ancient authors in that language. About the same time likewise some learned men began to restore the purity of the Latin tongue. But that which most contributed to the advancement of all kind of learning, & the study of the ancients, was the art of printing; which was brought to a great degree of perfection a few years after. By this means their books became common, & their arts usually understood & admired. But as mankind from a natural propension to pleasure, is always prepared to select out of everything what may most gratify that vicious appetite; so the arts which the Italians first applied themselves to improve were mainly those that had been subservient to the luxury of the ancients in the most corrupt ages, of which they had plenty of monuments still remaining. Spain was presently filled with architects, painters, & sculptors; & a prodigious expense was made in buildings, pics, & statues. Thus the Italians began to come off from their frugal & military way of life, & addicted themselves to the pursuit of refined & pricey pleasures, as much as the wars of those times would permit. This infection spread itself by degrees in to the neighbouring nations. But these things alone had not been sufficient to work so great a modify in government, if a earlier invention, brought in to common use about that time, had not produced more new & strange effects than any had ever done before; which probably may have plenty of consequences yet unexpected, & a farther influence on the manners of men, as long as the world lasts; I mean, the invention of the needle, by the help of which navigation was greatly improved, a passage opened by sea to the East Indies, & a brand spanking new world discovered. By this means the luxury of Asia & The united states was added to that of the ancients; & all ages, & all countries concurred, to sink Europe in to an abyss of pleasures; which were rendered the more pricey by a perpetual modify of the fashions in clothes, equipage, & furniture of houses.
These things brought a total modification in the lifestyle, on which all government depends. It is true, knowledge being mightily increased, & a great curiosity & nicety in everything introduced, men imagined themselves to be gainers in all points, by changing from their frugal & military way of life, which I must confess had some mixture of rudeness & ignorance in it, though not inseparable from it. But simultaneously they did not think about the unspeakable evils that are altogether inseparable from an pricey way of life.
To touch on all these, though slightly, would carryover me far from my subject: I shall therefore content myself to apply what has been said, to the immediate design of this discourse.
The far greater share of all those expenses fell on the barons; for they were the persons most able to make them, & their dignity appeared to challenge whatever might distinguish them from other men. This plunged them on a sudden in to so great debts, that in the event that they did not sell, or otherwise alienate their lands, they found themselves at least obliged to turn the military service their vassals owed them in to money; partly by way of rent, & partly by way of lease, or fine, for payment of their creditors. & by this means the vassal having his lands no longer at so simple a rate as before, could no more be obliged to military service, & so became a tenant. Thus the armies, which in earlier times had been always composed of such men as these, ceased of work, & the sword fell out of the hands of the barons. But there being always a necessity to provide for the defence of every country, princes were afterwards allowed to raise armies of volunteers & mercenaries. & great sums got by diets & parliaments for their maintenance, to be levied on the people grown rich by trade, & dispirited for need of military exercise. Such forces were at first only raised for present exigencies, & continued no longer on foot than the occasions lasted. But princes soon found pretences to make them perpetual, the chief of which was the garrisoning frontier towns & fortresses; the methods of war being altered to the tedious & chargeable way of sieges, mainly by the invention of gunpowder. The officers & soldiers of these mercenary armies depending for their subsistence & promotion, as immediately on the prince, as the former militias did on the barons, the power of the sword was transferred from the subject to the king, & war grew a constant trade to live by. Nay, plenty of of the barons themselves being reduced to poverty by their pricey way of life, took commands in those mercenary troops; & being still continued hereditary members of diets, & other assemblies of state, after the loss of their vassals, whom they formerly represented, they were now the readiest of all others to load the people with heavy taxes, which were employed to increase the prince's military power, by guards, armies, & citadels, beyond bounds or treatment.
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