THE FIELD PAY OF A PARLIAMENTARY ARMYThe lord strategus, marching £10,000Polemarches—General of the horse... 2,000Lieutenant-general... 2,000General of the artillery.... 1,000Commissary-general... 1,000Major-general.... 1,000Quartermaster-general... 1,000Two adjutants to the major-general... 1,000Forty colonels..... 40,000100 captains of horse, at £500 a man... 50,000300 captains of foot, at £300 a man... 90,000100 cornets, at £100 a man.... 10,000300 ensigns, at £50 a man.... 15,000800 Quartermasters, Sergeants, Trumpeters,Drummers, 20,00010,000 horse, at 2s 6d per day each... 470,00030,000 foot, at 1s per day each.... 500,000Chirurgeons... 40040,000 auxiliaries, amounting to within alittle as much... 1,100,000The charge of mounting 20,000 horse.. 300,000The train of artillery, holding a 3d tothe whole 900,000Sum total £3,514,400Arms and ammunition are not reckoned, as those which arefurnished out of the store or arsenal of Emporium: nor wastage,as that which goes upon the account of the fleet, maintained bythe customs; which customs, through the care of the Council forTrade and growth of traffic, were long since improved to about£1,000,000 revenue. The house being thus informed of a state ofwar, the commissioners brought in—THE STATE OF THE TREASURY THIS PRESENT YEAR, BEING THEONE-AND-FORTIETH OF THE COMMONWEALTHReceived from the one-and-twentieth of the commonwealth:By £700,000 a year in bank, with the product of the sumrising..............£16,000,000Expended from the one-and-twentieth of this commonwealth:Imprimis, for the addition of arms for 100,000 men tothe arsenal, or tower of Emporium.........£1,000,000For the storing of the same with artillery...300,000For the storing of the same with ammunition...200,000For beautifying the cities, parks, gardens, public walks,and places for recreation of Emporium and Hiera, withpublic buildings, aqueducts, statues,and fountains, etc......1,500,000Extraordinary embassies...150,000Sum........£3,150,000Remaining in the Treasury, the salaries of theExchequer being defalked.......£12,000,000
By comparison of which accounts if a war with an army of 80,000 men were to be made by the penny, yet was the commonwealth able to maintain such a one above three years without levying a tax. But it is against all experience, sense, and reason that such an army should not be soon broken, or make a great progress; in either of which cases, the charge ceases; or rather if a right course be taken in the latter, profit comes in: for the Romans had no other considerable way but victory whereby to fill their treasury, which nevertheless was seldom empty. Alexander did not consult his purse upon his design for Persia: it is observed by Machiavel, that Livy, arguing what the event in reason must have been had that King invaded Rome, and diligently measuring what on each side was necessary to such a war, never speaks a word of money. No man imagines that the Gauls, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Lombards, Saxons, Normans, made their inroads or conquests by the strength of the purse; and if it be thought enough, according to the dialect of our age, to say in answer to these things that those times are past and gone: what money did the late Gustavus, the most victorious of modern princes, bring out of Sweden with him into Germany? An army that goes upon a golden leg will be as lame as if it were a wooden one; but proper forces have nerves and muscles in them, such for which, having £4,000,000 or £5,000,000, a sum easy enough, with a revenue like this of Oceana, to be had at any time in readiness, you need never, or very rarely, charge the people with taxes. What influence the commonwealth by such arms has had upon the world, I leave to historians, whose custom it has been of old to be as diligent observers of foreign actions as careless of those domestic revolutions which (less pleasant it may be, as not partaking so much of the romance) are to statesmen of far greater profit; and this fault, if it be not mine, is so much more frequent with modern writers, as has caused me to undertake this work; on which to give my own judgment, it is performed as much above the time I have been about it, as below the dignity of the matter.
But I cannot depart out of this country till I have taken leave of my Lord Archon, a prince of immense felicity who having built as high with his counsels as he digged deep with his sword, had now seen fifty years measured with his own unerring orbs.
Timoleon (such a hater of tyrants that, not able to persuade his brother Timophanes to relinquish the tyranny of Corinth, he slew him) was afterward elected by the people (the Sicilians groaning to them from under the like burden) to be sent to their relief: whereupon Teleclides, the man at that time of most authority in the Commonwealth of Corinth, stood up, and giving an exhortation to Timoleon, how he should behave himself in this expedition, told him that if he restored the Sicilians to liberty, it would be acknowledged that he destroyed a tyrant; if otherwise, he must expect to hear he had murdered a king. Timoleon, taking his leave with a very small provision for so great a design, pursued it with a courage not inferior to, and a felicity beyond, any that had been known to that day in mortal flesh, having in the space of eight years utterly rooted out of all Sicily those weeds of tyranny, through the detestation whereof men fled in such abundance from their native country that whole cities were left desolate, and brought it to such a pass that others, through the fame of his virtues and the excellency of the soil, flocked as fast from all quarters to it as to the garden of the world: while he, being presented by the people of Syracuse with his town-house and his country retreat, the sweetest places in either, lived with his wife and children a most quiet, happy, and holy life; for he attributed no part of his success to himself, but all to the blessing and providence of the gods. As he passed his time in this manner, admired and honored by mankind, Laphistius, an envious demagogue, going to summon him upon some pretence or other to answer for himself before the assembly, the people fell into such a mutiny as could not be appeased but by Timoleon, who, understanding the matter, reproved them, by repeating the pains and travel which he had gone through, to no other end than that every man might have the free use of the laws. Wherefore when Daemenetus, another demagogue, had brought the same design about again, and blamed him impertinently to the people for things which he did when he was general, Timoleon answered nothing, but raising up his hands, gave the gods thanks for their return to his frequent prayers, that he might but live to see the Syracusans so free, that they could question whom they pleased.
Not long after, being old, through some natural imperfection, he fell blind; but the Syracusans by their perpetual visits held him, though he could not see, their greatest object: if there arrived strangers, they brought him to see this sight. Whatever came in debate at the assembly, if it were of small consequence, they determined it themselves; but if of importance, they always sent for Timoleon, who, being brought by his servants in a chair, and set in the middle of the theatre, there ever followed a great shout, after which some time was allowed for the benedictions of the people; and then the matter proposed, when Timoleon had spoken to it, was put to the suffrage; which given, his servants bore him back in his chair, accompanied by the people clapping their hands, and making all expressions of joy and applause, till, leaving him at his house, they returned to the despatch of their business. And this was the life of Timoleon, till he died of age, and dropped like a mature fruit, while the eyes of the people were as the showers of autumn.
The life and death of my Lord Archon (but that he had his senses to the last, and that his character, as not the restorer, but the founder of a commonwealth, was greater) are so exactly the same, that (seeing by men wholly ignorant of antiquity I am accused of writing romance) I shall repeat nothing: but tell you that this year the whole nation of Oceana, even to the women and children, were in mourning, where so great or sad a funeral pomp had never been seen or known. Some time after the performance of the obsequies a Colossus, mounted on a brazen horse of excellent fabric, was erected in the piazza of the Pantheon, engraved with this inscription on the eastern side of the pedestal:
HIS NAMEIS ASPRECIOUS OINTMENTAnd on the wester with the following:GRATA PATRIAPiae et Perpetuae MemorieD.D.OLPHAUS MEGALETORLORD ARCHON, AND SOLE LEGISLATOROFOCEANAPATER PATRIAEInvincible in the Field The Greatest of CaptainsInviolable in his Faith The Best of PrincesUnfeigned in his Zeal The Happiest of LegislatorsImmortal in his Fame The Most Sincere of ChristiansWho setting the Kingdoms of Earth at Liberty,Took the Kingdom of the Heavens by Violence.Anno AEtat. suoe 116Hujus Reipub. 50
OCEANA is saluted by the panegyrist after this manner: “O the most blessed and fortunate of all countries, Oceana! how deservedly has nature with the bounties of heaven and earth endued thee! Thy ever fruitful womb not closed with ice nor dissolved by the raging star; where Ceres and Bacchus are perpetual twins: thy woods are not the harbor of devouring beasts, nor thy continual verdure the ambush of serpents, but the food of innumerable herds and flocks presenting thee, their shepherdess, with distended dugs or golden fleeces. The wings of thy night involve thee not in the horror of darkness, but have still some white feather; and thy day is (that for which we esteem life) the longest.” But this ecstasy of Pliny, as is observed by Bertius, seems to allude as well to Marpesia and Panopea, now provinces of this commonwealth, as to Oceana itself.
To speak of the people in each of these countries. This of Oceana, for so soft a one, is the most martial in the whole world. “Let States that aim at greatness,” says Verulamius, “take heed how their nobility and gentlemen multiply too fast, for that makes the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain driven out of heart, and in effect but a gentleman’s laborer; just as you may see in coppice woods, if you leave the staddels too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and bushes; so in countries, if the gentlemen be too many, the commons will be base; and you will bring it to that at last, that not the hundreth poll will be fit for a helmet, specially as to the infantry, which is the nerve of an army, and so there will be great population and little strength. This of which I speak has been nowhere better seen than by comparing of Oceana and France, whereof Oceana, though far less in territory and population, has been nevertheless an overmatch, in regard the middle people of Oceana make good solders, which the peasants in France do not.” In which words Verulamius, as Machiavel has done before him, harps much upon a string which he has not perfectly tuned, and that is, the balance of dominion or property, as it follows more plainly, in his praise “of the profound and admirable device of Panurgus, King of Oceana, in making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is, maintained with such a proportion of land to them as may breed a subject to live in convenient plenty, and no servile condition, and to keep the plough in the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings. And thus, indeed,” says he, “you shall attain to Virgil’s character which he gives of ancient Italy.” But the tillage, bringing up a good soldiery, brings up a good commonwealth; which the author in the praise of Panurgus did not mind, nor Panurgus in deserving that praise; for where the owner of the plough comes to have the sword, too, he will use it in defence of his own; whence it has happened that the people of Oceana, in proportion to their property, have been always free. And the genius of this nation has ever had some resemblance with that of ancient Italy, which was wholly addicted to commonwealths, and where Rome came to make the greatest account of her rustic tribes, and to call her consuls from the plough; for in the way of parliaments, which was the government of this realm, men of country lives have been still intrusted with the greatest affairs, and the people have constantly had an aversion to the ways of the court. Ambition, loving to be gay and to fawn, has been a gallantry looked upon as having something in it of the livery; and husbandry, or the country way of life, though of a grosser spinning, as the best stuff of a commonwealth, according to Aristotle, such a one being the most obstinate assertress of her liberty and the least subject to innovation or turbulency. Wherefore till the foundations, as will be hereafter shown, were removed, this people was observed to be the least subject to shakings and turbulency of any; whereas commonwealths, upon which the city life has had the stronger influence, as Athens, have seldom or never been quiet, but at the best are found to have injured their own business by overdoing it. Whence the urban tribes of Rome, consisting of the Turba forensis, and libertines that had received their freedom by manumission, were of no reputation in comparison of the rustics. It is true that with Venice it may seem to be otherwise, in regard the gentlemen (for so are all such called as have a right to that government) are wholly addicted to the city life; but then the Turba forensis, the secretaries, Cittadini, with the rest of the populace, are wholly excluded. Otherwise a commonwealth consisting but of one city would doubtless be stormy, in regard that ambition would be every man’s trade; but where it consists of a country, the plough in the hands of the owner finds him a better calling, and produces the most innocent and steady genius of a commonwealth, such as is that of Oceana.
Marpesia, being the northern part of the same island, is the dry-nurse of a populous and hardy nation, but where the staddels have been formerly too thick, whence their courage answered not their hardiness, except in the nobility, who govern much after the manner of Poland, but that the King was not elective till the people received their liberty; the yoke of the nobility being broken by the commonwealth of Oceana, which in grateful return is thereby provided with an inexhaustible magazine of auxiliaries.
Panopea, the soft mother of a slothful and pusillanimous people, is a neighbor island, anciently subjected by the arms of Oceana; since almost depopulated for shaking the yoke, and at length replanted with a new race. But, through what virtues of the soil or vice of the air soever it be, they come still to degenerate. Wherefore seeing it is neither likely to yield men fit for arms, nor necessary it should, it had been the interest of Oceana so to have disposed of this province, being both rich in the nature of the soil, and full of commodious ports for trade, that it might have been ordered for the best in relation to her purse, which in my opinion, if it had been thought upon in time, might have been best done by planting it with Jews, allowing them their own rites and laws; for that would have brought them suddenly from all parts of the world, and in sufficient numbers. And though the Jews be now altogether for merchandise, yet in the land of Canaan (except since their exile from whence they have not been landlords) they were altogether for agriculture; and there is no cause why a man should doubt, but having a fruitful country and excellent ports, too, they would be good at both. Panopea, well peopled, would be worth a matter of £4,000,000 dry-rents; that is, besides the advantage of the agriculture and trade, which, with a nation of that industry, come at least to as much more. Wherefore Panopea, being farmed out to the Jews and their heirs forever, for the pay of a provincial army to protect them during the term of seven years, and for £2,000,000 annual revenue from that time forward, besides the customs, which would pay the provincial army, would have been a bargain of such advantage, both to them and this commonwealth, as is not to be found otherwise by either. To receive the Jews after any other manner into a commonwealth were to maim it; for they of all nations never incorporate, but taking up the room of a limb, are of no use office to the body, while they suck the nourishment which would sustain a natural and useful member.
If Panopea had been so disposed of, that knapsack, with the Marpesian auxiliary, had been an inestimable treasure; the situation of these countries being islands (as appears by Venice how advantageous such a one is to the like government) seems to have been designed by God for a commonwealth. And yet that, through the straitness of the place and defect of proper arms, can be no more than a commonwealth for preservation; whereas this, reduced to the like government, is a commonwealth for increase, and upon the mightiest foundation that any has been laid from the beginning of the world to this day.
“Illam arcta capiens Neptunus compede stringit:Hanc autem glaucis captus complectitur ulnis.”
The sea gives law to the growth of Venice, but the growth of Oceana gives law to the sea.
These countries, having been anciently distinct and hostile kingdoms, came by Morpheus the Marpesian, who succeeded by hereditary right to the crown of Oceana, not only to be joined under one head, but to be cast, as it were by a charm, into that profound sleep, which, broken at length by the trumpet of civil war, has produced those effects that have given occasion to the preceding discourse, divided into four parts.