whereof the common soldier was the people, the commissioned
officer the Senate, and the general the prince) were foreigners,
and by nation Circassians, that governed Egypt; wherefore these
never durst plant themselves upon dominion, which growing
naturally up into the national interest, must have dissolved the
foreign yoke in that province.
The like in some sort may be said of Venice, the government
whereof is usually mistaken; for Venice, though it does not take
in the people, never excluded them. This commonwealth, the orders
whereof are the most democratical or popular of all others, in
regard of the exquisite rotation of the Senate, at the first
institution took in the whole people; they that now live under
the government without participation of it, are such as have
since either voluntarily chosen so to do, or were subdued by
arms. Wherefore the subject of Venice is governed by provinces,
and the balance of dominion not standing, as has been said, with
provincial government; as the Mamelukes durst not cast their
government upon this balance in their provinces, lest the
national interest should have rooted out the foreign, so neither
dare the Venetians take in their subjects upon this balance, lest
the foreign interest should root out the national (which is that
of the 3,000 now governing), and by diffusing the commonwealth
throughout her territories, lose the advantage of her situation,
by which in great part it subsists. And such also is the
government of the Spaniard in the Indies, to which he deputes
natives of his own country, not admitting the creoles to the
government of those provinces, though descended from Spaniards.
But if a prince or a commonwealth may hold a territory that
is foreign in this, it may be asked why he may not hold one that
is native in the like manner? To which I answer, because he can
hold a foreign by a native territory, but not a native by a
foreign; and as hitherto I have shown what is not the provincial
balance, so by this answer it may appear what it is, namely, the
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