said of those councils that they deposed their kings as often as
they pleased; nor can there be any other consequence of such a
government, seeing where there is a council of the people they do
never receive laws, but give them; and a council giving laws to a
single person, he has no means in the world whereby to be any
more than a subordinate magistrate but force: in which case he is
not a single person and a parliament, but a single person and an
army, which army again must be planted as has been shown, or can
be of no long continuance.
It is true, that the provincial balance bring in nature quite
contrary to the national, you are no way to plant a provincial
army upon dominion. But then you must have a native territory in
strength, situation, or government, able to overbalance the
foreign, or you can never hold it. That an army should in any
other case be long supported by a mere tax, is a mere fancy as
void of all reason and experience as if a man should think to
maintain such a one by robbing of orchards; for a mere tax is but
pulling of plum-trees, the roots whereof are in other men's
grounds, who, suffering perpetual violence, come to hate the
author of it; and it is a maxim, that no prince that is hated by
his people can be safe. Arms planted upon dominion extirpate
enemies and make friends; but maintained by a mere tax, have
enemies that have roots, and friends that have none.
To conclude, Oceana, or any other nation of no greater
extent, must have a competent nobility, or is altogether
incapable of monarchy; for where there is equality of estates,
there must be equality of power, and where there is equality of
power, there can be no monarchy.
To come then to the generation of the commonwealth. It has
been shown how, through the ways and means used by Panurgus to
abase the nobility, and so to mend that flaw which we have
asserted to be incurable in this kind of constitution, he
suffered the balance to fall into the power of the people, and so
broke the government; but the balance being in the people, the
|