appear by musters; and the number and greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps; but yet there is not anything amongst civil affairs more subject to error than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and forces of an estate. The kingdom of heaven is compared, not to any great kernel, or nut, but to a grain of mustard-seed; which is one of the least grains, but hath in it a property and spirit hastily to get up and spread. So are there states great in territory, and yet not apt to enlarge or command: and some that have but a small dimension of stem, and yet apt to be the foundation of great monarchies. Walled towns, stored arsenals, and armories, goodly races of horse, chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like: all this is but a sheep in a lion's skin, except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike. Nay, number itself in armies importeth not much, where the people are of weak courage; for, as Virgil saith, It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.s The army of the Persians, in the plains of Arbela, was such a vast sea of people as did somewhat astonish the commanders in Alexander's army, who came to him, therefore, and wished him to set upon them by night; but he answered, he would not pilfer the victory: and the defeat was easy. When Tigranes, the Armenian, being encamped upon a hill with four hundred thousand men, discovered the army of the Romans, being not above fourteen thousand, marching towards him, he made himself merry with it and said, 'Yonder men are too many for an ambassage, and too few for a fight.' But, before the sun set, he found them enow to give him the chase with infinite slaughter. Many are the examples of the great odds between number and courage: so that a man may truly make a judgment, that the principal point of greatness, in any state, is to have a race of military men. Neither is money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said), where the sinews of men's arms in base and effeminate people are failing. For Solon said well to Croesus (when in ostentation he showed him his gold), 'Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold.' Therefore, let any prince or state think soberly of 7 Matth. xiii. 31. 8 Virg. Ecl. vii. 51. F his forces, except his militia of natives be of good and valiant soldiers. And let princes, on the other side, that have subjects of martial disposition, know their own strength, unless they be otherwise wanting unto themselves. As for mercenary forces (which is the help in this case), all examples show that, whatsoever estate, or prince, doth rest upon them, he may spread his feathers for a time, but he will mew them soon after. The blessing of Judah and Issachar will never meet; that the same people or nation should be both the lion's whelp and the ass between burdens: neither will it be, that a people overlaid with taxes should ever become valiant and martial. It is true that taxes, levied by consent of the estate, do abate men's courage less; as it hath been seen notably in the excises of the Low Countries; and, in some degree, in the subsidies of England. For, you must note, that we speak now of the heart, and not of the purse; so that, although the same tribute and tax, laid by consent or by imposing, be all one to the purse, yet it works diversely upon the courage. So that you may conclude, that no people overcharged with tribute is fit for empire. Let states that aim at greatness take heed how their nobility and gentlemen do multiply too fast; for that maketh the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain, driven out of heart, and, in effect, but the gentleman's labourer. Even as you may see in coppice woods; if you leave your staddles 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, that not the hundredth poll will be fit for a helmet; especially as to the infantry, which is the nerve of an army: and so there will be great population and little strength. This which I speak of hath been no where better seen than by comparing of England and France; whereof England, though far less in territory and population, hath been (nevertheless) an overmatch; in regard the middle people of England make good soldiers, which the peasants of France do not. And herein the device of king Henry the Seventh (whereof I have spoken largely in the history of his life), was profound and admirable; in making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is, maintained with such a proportion of land unto them as Gen. xlix. 9. 14. 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 you shall attain to Virgil's character, which he gives to ancient Italy: Terra potens armis atque ubere glebæ.3 Neither is that state (which, for anything I know, is almost peculiar to England, and hardly to be found anywhere else, except it be, perhaps, in Poland) to be passed over; I mean the state of free servants and attendants upon noblemen and gentlemen, who are no ways inferior unto the yeomanry for arms. And, therefore, out of all question, the splendour, and magnificence, and great retinues, the hospitality of noblemen and gentlemen received into custom, doth much conduce unto martial greatness: whereas, contrariwise, the close and reserved living of noblemen and gentlemen causeth a penury of military forces. By all means it is to be procured, that the trunk of Nebuchadnezzar's tree of monarchy be great enough to bear branches and the boughs; that is, that the natural subjects of the crown or state bear a sufficient proportion to the strange subjects that they govern. Therefore all states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers are fit for empire. For to think that a handful of people can, with the greatest courage and policy in the world, embrace too large extent of dominion, it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. The Spartans were a nice people in point of naturalization; whereby, while they kept their compass, they stood firm; but when they did spread, and their boughs were become too great for their stem, they became a windfall upon the sudden. Never any state was, in this point, so open to receive strangers into their body as were the Romans; therefore it sorted with them accordingly, for they grew to the greatest monarchy. Their manner was to grant naturalization (which they called jus civitatis), and to grant it in the highest degree that is, not only jus commercii, jus connubii, jus hæreditatis: but also jus suffragii, and jus honorum; and this not to singular persons alone, but likewise to whole families: yea, to cities, and sometimes to nations. Add to 3 Virg. Æn. i. 535. 4 Dan. iv. 10, seq. this their custom of plantation of colonies, whereby the Roman plant was removed into the soil of other nations; and, putting both constitutions together, you will say, that it was not the Romans that spread upon the world, but it was the world that spread upon the Romans; and that was the sure way of greatness. I have marvelled sometimes at Spain, how they clasp and contain so large dominions with so few natural Spaniards: but sure the whole compass of Spain is a very great body of a tree; far above Rome and Sparta at the first. And, besides, though they have not had that usage to naturalize liberally, yet they have that which is next to it; that is, to employ, almost indifferently, all nations in their militia of ordinary soldiers; yea, and sometimes in their highest commands. Nay, it seemeth at this instant, they are sensible of this want of natives; as by the Pragmatical Sanction, now published, appeareth. It is certain, that sedentary and within-door arts, and delicate manufactures (that require rather the finger than the arm) have in their nature a contrariety to a military disposition. And generally all warlike people are a little idle, and love danger better than travail: neither must they be too much broken of it, if they shall be preserved in vigour. Therefore it was great advantage in the ancient states of Sparta, Athens, Rome, and others, that they had the use of slaves, which commonly did rid those manufactures. But that is abolished, in greatest part, by the Christian law. That which cometh nearest to it is, to leave those arts chiefly to strangers (which, for that purpose, are the more easily to be received), and to contain the principal bulk of the vulgar natives within those three kinds; tillers of the ground, free servants, and handicraftsmen of strong and manly arts, as smiths, masons, carpenters, &c., not reckoning professed soldiers. But, above all, for empire and greatness it importeth most, that a nation do profess arms as their principal honour, study, and occupation. For the things which we formerly have spoken of are but habilitations towards arms and what is habilitation without intention and act? Romulus, after his death (as they report or feign), sent a present to the Romans, that above all they should intend arms, and then they should prove the greatest empire of the world. The fabric of the state of Sparta was wholly (though not wisely) framed and composed to that scope and end. The Persians and Macedonians had it for a flash. The Gauls, Germans, Goths, Saxons, Normans, and others, had it for a time. The Turks have it at this day, though in great declination. Of Christian Europe they that have it are, in effect, only the Spaniards. But it is so plain, that every man profiteth in that he most intendeth, that it needeth not to be stood upon, it is enough to point at it; that no nation which doth not directly profess arms, may look to have greatness fall into their mouths. And, on the other side, it is a most certain oracle of time, that those states that continue long in that profession (as the Romans and Turks principally have done) do wonders: and those that have professed arms but for an age have nothwithstanding commonly attained that greatness in that age which maintained them long after, when their profession and exercise of arms hath grown to decay. Incident to this point is for a state to have those laws or customs which may reach forth unto them just occasions (as may be pretended) of war. For there is that justice imprinted in the nature of men, that they enter not upon wars (whereof so many calamities do ensue), but upon some at the least specious grounds and quarrels. The Turk hath at hand, for cause of war, the propagation of his law or sect, a quarrel that he may always command. The Romans though they esteemed the extending the limits of their empire to be great honour to their generals when it was done; yet they never rested upon that alone to begin a war. First therefore let nations that pretend to greatness have this, that they be sensible of wrongs, either upon borderers, merchants, or politic ministers; and that they sit not too long upon a provocation. Secondly, let them be prest and ready to give aids and succours to their confederates; as it ever was with the Romans: insomuch, as if the confederates had leagues defensive with divers other states, and, upon invasion offered, did implore their aids severally, yet the Romans would ever be the foremost, and leave it to none other to have the honour. As for the wars, which were anciently made on the behalf of a kind of party, or tacit conformity of estate, I do not see how they may be well justified: as when the Romans made a war for the liberty of Græcia, or when the Lacedæmonians and Athenians made wars to set up or pull down democracies and oligarchies or when wars were made by foreigners, under the pretence of justice or protection, to deliver the subjects of others from tyranny and oppression, and the like." Let it suffice, that no estate expect to be great, that is not awake upon any just occasion of arming. : |