This order consists of three parts, the first restoring the power of ordination to the people, which, that it originally belongs to them, is clear, though not in English yet in Scripture, where the apostles ordained elders by the holding up of hands in every congregation, that is, by the suffrage of the people, which was also given in some of those cities by the ballot. And though it may be shown that the apostles ordained some by the laying on of hands, it will not be shown that they did so in every congregation.

Excommunication, as not clearly provable out of the Scripture, being omitted, the second part of the order implies and establishes a national religion; for there be degrees of knowledge in divine things; true religion is not to be learned without searching the Scripture; the Scriptures cannot be searched by us unless we have them to search; and if we have nothing else, or (which is all one) understand nothing else but a translation, we may be (as in the place alleged we have been) beguiled or misled by the translation, while we should be searching the true sense of the Scripture, which cannot be attained in a natural way (and a commonwealth is not to presume upon that which is supernatural) but by the knowledge of the original and of antiquity, acquired by our own studies, or those of some others, for even faith comes by hearing. Wherefore a commonwealth not making provision of men from time to time, knowing in the original languages wherein the Scriptures were written, and versed in those antiquities to which they so frequently relate, that the true sense of them depends in great part upon that knowledge, can never be secure that she shall not lose the Scripture, and by consequence her religion; which to preserve she must institute some method of this knowledge, and some use of such as have acquired it, which amounts to a national religion.

The commonwealth having thus performed her duty toward God, as a rational creature, by the best application of her reason to Scripture, and for the preservation of religion in the purity of the same, yet pretends not to infallibility, but comes in the third part of the order, establishing liberty of conscience according to the instructions given to her Council of Religion, to raise up her hands to heaven for further light; in which proceeding she follows that (as was shown in the preliminaries) of Israel, who, though her national religion was always a part of her civil law, gave to her prophets the upper hand of all her orders.

But the surveyors having now done with the parishes, took their leave; so a parish is the first division of land occasioned by the first collection of the people of Oceana, whose function proper to that place is comprised in the six preceding orders.

The next step in the progress of the surveyors was to a meeting of the nearest of them, as their work lay, by twenties; where conferring their lists, and computing the deputies contained therein, as the number of them in parishes, being nearest neighbors, amounted to 100, or as even as might conveniently be brought with that account, they cast them and those parishes into the precinct which (be the deputies ever since more or fewer) is still called the hundred; and to every one of these precincts they appointed a certain place, being the most convenient town within the same, for the annual rendezvous; which done, each surveyor, returning to his hundred, and summoning the deputies contained in his lists to the rendezvous, they appeared and received—

The seventh order, requiring, "That upon the first Monday next ensuing the last of January, the deputies of every parish annually assemble in arms at the rendezvous of the hundred, and there elect out of their number one justice of the peace, one juryman, one captain, one ensign of their troop or century, each of these out of the horse; and one juryman, one coroner, one high constable, out of the foot. The election to be made by the ballot in this manner. The jurymen for the time being are to be overseers of the ballot (instead of these, the surveyors are to officiate at the first assembly), and to look to the performance of the same according to what was directed in the ballot of the parishes, saving that the high constable setting forth the urn shall have five several suits of gold balls, and one dozen of every suit; whereof the first shall be marked with the letter A, the second with the letter B, the third with C, the fourth with D, and the fifth with E: and of each of these suits he shall cast one ball into his hat, or into a little urn, and shaking the balls together, present them to the first overseer, who shall draw one, and the suit which is so drawn by the overseer shall be of use for that day, and no other; for example, if the overseer drew an A, the high constable shall put seven gold balls marked with the letter A into the urn, with so many silver ones as shall bring them even with the number of the deputies, who being sworn, as before, at the ballot of the parish to make a fair election, shall be called to the urn; and every man coming in manner as was there shown, shall draw one ball, which, if it be silver, he shall cast it into a bowl standing at the foot of the urn, and return to his place: but the first that draws a gold ball (showing it to the overseers, who if it has not the letter of the present ballot, have power to apprehend and punish him) is the first elector, the second the second elector, and so to the seventh; which order they are to observe in their function. "The electors as they are drawn shall be placed upon the bench by the overseers, till the whole number be complete, and then be conducted, with the list of the officers to be chosen, into a place apart, where, being private, the first elector shall name a person to the first office in the list; and if the person so named, being balloted by the rest of the electors, attains not to the better half of the suffrages in the affirmative, the first elector shall continue nominating others, till one of them so nominated by him attains to the plurality of the suffrages in the affirmative, and be written first competitor to the first office. This done, the second elector shall observe in his turn the like order; and so the rest of the electors, naming competitors each to his respective office in the list, till one competitor be chosen to every office: and when one competitor is chosen to every office, the first elector shall begin again to name a second competitor to the first office, and the rest successively shall name to the rest of the offices till two competitors be chosen to every office; the like shall be repeated till three competitors be chosen to every office. And when three competitors are chosen to every office, the list shall be returned to the overseers, or such as the overseers, in case they or either of them happened to be electors, have substituted in his or their place or places; and the overseers or substitutes having caused the list to be read to the congregation, shall put the competitors, in order as they are written, to the ballot of the congregation; and the rest of the proceedings being carried on in the manner directed in the fifth order, that competitor, of the three written to each office, who has most of the suffrages above half in the affirmative, is the officer. The list being after this manner completed, shall be entered into a register, to be kept at the rendezvous of the hundred, under inspection of the magistrates of the same, after the manner following:

Anno Domini

THE LIST OF THE NEBULOSA

A.A. Equestrian Order, Justice of the Peace, B.B. Equestrian Order, First Juryman, C.C. Equestrian Order, Captain of the Hundred, D.D. Equestrian Order, Ensign, E.E. Second Juryman, F.F. High Constable, G.G. Coroner,

Of the hundred of in the tribe of, which hundred consists at this election of 105 deputies.

"The list being entered, the high constable shall take three copies of the same, whereof he shall presently return one to the lord high sheriff of the tribe, a second to the lord custos rotulorum, and a third to the censors; or these, through the want of such magistrates at the first muster, may be returned to the orator, to be appointed for that tribe. To the observation of all and every part of this order, the officers and deputies of the hundred are all and every of them obliged, as they will answer it to the phylarch, who has power, in case of failure in the whole or any part, to fine all or any of them so failing at discretion, or according to such laws as shall hereafter be provided in that case, but under an appeal to the Parliament." There is little in this order worthy of any further account, but that it answers to the rulers of hundreds in Israel, to the mora or military part of the tribe in Lacedaemon, and to the century in Rome. The jurymen, being two in a hundred, and so forty in a tribe, give the latitude allowed by the law for exceptions. And whereas the golden balls at this ballot begin to be marked with letters, whereof one is to be drawn immediately before it begins, this is to the end that the letter being unknown, men may be frustrated of tricks or foul play, whereas otherwise a man may bring a golden ball with him, and make as if he had drawn it out of the urn. The surveyors, when they had taken copies of these lists, had accomplished their work in the hundreds.

So a hundred is the second division of land occasioned by the second collection of the people, whose civil and military functions proper to this place are comprised in the foregoing order.

Having stated the hundreds, they met once again by twenties, where there was nothing more easy than to cast every twenty hundreds, as they lay most conveniently together, into one tribe; so the whole territory of Oceana, consisting of about 10,000 parishes, came to be cast into 1,000 hundreds, and into fifty tribes. In every tribe at the place appointed for the annual rendezvous of the same, were then, or soon after begun those buildings which are now called pavilions; each of them standing with one open side upon fair columns, like the porch of some ancient temple, and looking into a field capable of the muster of some 4,000 men; before each pavilion stand three pillars sustaining urns for the ballot, that on the right hand equal in height to the brow of a horseman, being called the horse urn, that on the left hand, with bridges on either side to bring it equal in height with the brow of a footman, being called the foot urn, and the middle urn, with a bridge on the side toward the foot urn, the other side, as left for the horse, being without one; and here ended the whole work of the surveyors, who returned to the Lord Archon with this—

ACCOUNT OF THE CHARGE

Imprimis: Urns, balls, and balloting-boxes for 10,000 parishes, the same being wooden-ware, L20,000 Item: Provision of the like kind for a thousand hundreds

3,000 Item: Urns and balls of metal, with balloting-boxes for fifty tribes,

2,000 Item: For erecting of fifty pavilions,

60,000 Item: Wages for four surveyors-general at L1,000 a man

4,000 Item: Wages for the rest of the surveyors, being 1,000 at L250 a man

250,000

Sum Total L339,000

This is no great matter of charge for the building of a commonwealth, in regard that it has cost (which was pleaded by the surveyors) as much to rig a few ships. Nevertheless that proves not them to be honest, nor their account to be just; but they had their money for once, though their reckoning be plainly guilty of a crime, to cost him his neck that commits it another time, it being impossible for a commonwealth (without an exact provision that it be not abused in this kind) to subsist; for if no regard should be had of the charge (though that may go deep), yet the debauchery and corruption whereto, by negligence in accounts, it infallibly exposes its citizens, and thereby lessens the public faith, which is the nerve and ligament of government, ought to be prevented. But the surveyors being despatched, the Lord Archon was very curious in giving names to his tribes, which having caused to be written in scrolls cast into an urn, and presented to the councillors, each of them drew one, and was accordingly sent to the tribe in his lot, as orators of the same, a magistracy no otherwise instituted, than for once and pro tempore, to the end that the council upon so great an occasion might both congratulate with the tribes, and assist at the first muster in some things of necessity to be differently carried from the established administration and future course of the commonwealth.

The orators being arrived, every one as soon as might be, at the rendezvous of his tribe, gave notice to the hundreds, and summoned the muster which appeared for the most part upon good horses, and already indifferently well armed; as to instance in one for all, the tribe of Nubia, where Hermes de Caduceo, lord orator of the same, after a short salutation and a hearty welcome, applied himself to his business, which began with—

The eighth order requiring "That the lord high sheriff as commander-in-chief, and the lord custos rotulorum as muster-master of the tribe (or the orator for the first muster), upon reception of the lists of their hundreds, returned to them by the high constables of the same, presently cause them to be cast up, dividing the horse from the foot, and listing the horse by their names in troops, each troop containing about 100 in number, to be inscribed First, Second, or Third troop, etc., according to the order agreed upon by the said magistrates; which done, they shall list the foot in like manner, and inscribe the companies in like order. These lists upon the eve of the muster shall be delivered to certain trumpeters and drummers, whereof there shall be fifteen of each sort (as well for the present as otherwise to be hereafter mentioned) stipendiated by the tribe. And the trumpeters and drummers shall be in the field before the pavilion, upon the day of the muster, so soon as it is light, where they shall stand every one with his list in his hand, at a due distance, placed according to the order of the list, the trumpeters with the lists of the horse on the right hand, and the drummers with the lists of the foot on the left hand; where having sounded awhile, each of them shall begin to call and continue calling the names of the deputies, as they come into the field, till both the horse and foot be gathered by that means into their due order. The horse and foot being in order, the lord lieutenant of the tribe shall cast so many gold balls marked with the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., as there be troops of horse in the field, together with so many silver balls as there be companies, marked in the same manner, into a little urn, to which he shall call the captains; and the captains drawing the gold balls shall command the horse, and those that draw the silver the foot, each in the order of his lot. The like shall be done by the conductor at the same time for the ensigns at another urn; and they that draw the gold balls shall be cornets, the left ensigns."

This order may puzzle the reader, but tends to a wonderful speed of the muster, to which it would be a great matter to lose a day in ranging and marshalling, whereas by virtue of this the tribe is no sooner in the field than in battalia, nor sooner in battalia than called to the urns or the ballot by virtue of—

The ninth order, "Whereby the censors (or the orator for the first muster) upon reception of the lists of the hundreds from the high constables, according as is directed by the seventh order are to make their notes for the urns beforehand, with regard had to the lists of the magistrates, to be elected by the ensuing orders, that is to say, by the first list called the prime magnitude, six; and by the second called the galaxy, nine. Wherefore the censors are to put into the middle urn for the election of the first list twenty-four gold balls, with twenty-six blanks or silver balls, in all sixty; and into the side urns sixty gold balls, divided into each according to the different number of the horse and foot; that is to say, if the horse and the foot be equal, equally, and if the horse and the foot be unequal, unequally, by an arithmetical proportion. The like shall be done the second day of the muster for the second list, except that the censors shall put into the middle urn thirty-six gold balls with twenty-four blanks, in all sixty; and sixty gold balls into the side urns, divided respectively into the number of the horse and the foot; and the gold balls in the side urns at either ballot are by the addition of blanks to be brought even with the number of the ballotants at either urn respectively. The censors having prepared their notes, as has been shown, and being come at the day appointed into the field, shall present a little urn to the lord high sheriff, who is to draw twice for the letters to be used that day, the one at the side urns, and the other at the middle. And the censors having fitted the urns accordingly, shall place themselves in certain movable seats or pulpits (to be kept for that use in the pavilion) the first censor before the horse urn, the second before the foot urn, the lord lieutenant doing the office of censor pro tempore at the middle urn; where all and every one of them shall cause the laws of the ballot to be diligently observed, taking a special care that no man be suffered to come above once to the urn (whereof it more particularly concerns the sub-censors, that is to say, the overseers of every parish, to be careful, they being each in this regard responsible for their respective parishes) or to draw above one ball, which if it be gold, he is to present to the censor, who shall look upon the letter; and if it be not that of the day, and of the respective urn, apprehend the party, who for this or any other like disorder is obnoxious to the phylarch."

This order being observed by the censors, it is not possible for the people, if they can but draw the balls, though they understand nothing at all of the ballot, to be out. To philosophize further upon this art, though there be nothing more rational, were not worth the while, because in writing it will be perplexed, and the first practice of it gives the demonstration; whence it came to pass that the orator, after some needless pains in the explanation of the two foregoing orders, betaking himself to exemplify the same, found the work done to his hand, for the tribe, as eager upon a business of this nature, had retained one of the surveyors, out of whom (before the orator arrived) they had got the whole mystery by a stolen muster, at which in order to the ballot they had made certain magistrates pro tempore. Wherefore he found not only the pavilion (for this time a tent) erected with three posts, supplying the place of pillars to the urns, but the urns being prepared with a just number of balls for the first ballot, to become the field, and the occasion very gallantly with their covers made in the manner of helmets, open at either ear to give passage to the hands of the ballotants, and slanting with noble plumes to direct the march of the people.

Wherefore he proceeded to—

The tenth order, "Requiring of the deputies of the parishes, that upon every Monday next ensuing the last of February, they make their personal appearance, horse and foot in arms accordingly, at the rendezvous of the tribe, where, being in discipline, the horse upon the right, and the foot upon the left, before the pavilion, and having made oath by holding up their hands, upon the tender of it by the lord high sheriff, to make election without favor, and of such only as they shall judge fittest for the commonwealth, the conductor shill take three balls, the one inscribed with these words (outward files), another with these words (inward files), and the third with these (middle files), which balls he shall cast into a little urn, and present it to the lord high sheriff, who, drawing one, shall give the words of command, as they are thereupon inscribed, and the ballot shall begin accordingly. For example, if the ball be inscribed 'Middle files,' the ballot shall begin by the middle; that is, the two files that are middle to the horse shall draw out first to the horse urn, and the two files that are middle to the foot shall draw out first to the foot urn, and be followed by all the rest of the files as they are next to them in order. The like shall be done by the inward, or by the outward files in case they be first called. And the files, as every man has drawn his ball, if it be silver, shall behind at the urn to countermarch to their places, but he that has drawn a gold ball at a side urn shall proceed to the middle urn, where if the balls he draws be silver he shall also countermarch, but if it be gold he shall take his place upon a form set across the pavilion, with his face toward the lord high sheriff, who shall be seated in the middle of the pavilion, with certain clerks by him, one of which shall write down the names of every elector, that is, of every one that drew a gold ball at the middle urn, and in the order his ball was drawn, till the electors amount to six in number. And the first six electors, horse and foot promiscuously, are the first order of electors; the second six (still accounting them as they are drawn) the second order, the third six the third order, and the fourth six the fourth order of electors; every elector having place in his order, according to the order wherein he was drawn. But so soon as the first order of electors is complete, the lord high sheriff shall send them with a copy of the following list, and a clerk that understands the ballot, immediately to a little tent standing before the pavilion in his eye, to which no other person but themselves, during the election, shall approach. The list shall be written in this manner:"

Anno Domini

THE LIST OF THE PRIME MAGNITUDE, OR FIRST DAY'S ELECTION OF MAGISTRATES

1. The Lord High Sheriff, Commander-in-Chief, 2. Lord Lieutenant, 3. Lord Custos Rotulorum, Muster-Master-General, 4. The Conductor, being Quarter-master General, 5. The First Censor, 6. The Second Censor,

Of the tribe of Nubia, containing at the present muster 700 horse and 1,500 foot, in all 22,000 deputies.

"And the electors of the first band or order, being six, shall each of them name to his respective magistracy in the left such as are not already elected in the hundreds, till one competitor be chosen to every magistracy in the list by the ballot of the electors of the first order, which done, the list with the competitors thereunto annexed shall be returned to the lord high sheriff by the clerk attending that order, but the electors shall keep their places; for they have already given their suffrage, and may not enter into the ballot of the tribe. If there arises any dispute in an order of electors, one of the censors or sub-censors appointed by them in case they be electors, shall enter into the tent of that order, and that order shall stand to his judgment in the decision of the controversy. The like shall be done exactly by each other order of electors, being sent as they are drawn, each with another copy of the same list, into a distinct tent, till there be returned to the lord high sheriff four competitors to every magistracy in the list; that is to say, one competitor elected to every office in every one of the four orders, which competitors the lord high sheriff shall cause to be pronounced or read by a crier to the congregation, and the congregation having heard the whole lists repeated, the names shall be put by the lord high sheriff to the tribe, one by one, beginning with the first competitor in the first order, thence proceeding to the first competitor in the second order, and so to the first in the third and fourth orders. And the suffrages being taken in boxes by boys (as has been already shown) shall be poured into the bowls standing before the censors, who shall be seated at each end of the table in the pavilion, the one numbering the affirmatives and the other the negatives, and he of the four competitors to the first magistracy that has most above half the suffrages of the tribe in the affirmative, is the first magistrate. The like is to be done successively by the rest of the competitors in their order. But because soon after the boxes are sent out for the first name, there be others sent out for the second, and so for the third, etc., by which means divers names are successively at one and the same time in balloting; the boy that carries a box shall sing or repeat continually the name of the competitor for whom that box is carrying, with that also of the magistracy to which he is proposed. A magistrate of the tribe happening to be an elector, may substitute any one of his own order to execute his other function. The magistrates of the prime magnitude being thus elected, shall receive the present charge of the tribe."

If it be objected against this order that the magistrates to be elected by it will be men of more inferior rank than those of the hundreds, in regard that those are chosen first, it may be remembered that so were the burgesses in the former government, nevertheless the knights of the shire were men of greater quality; and the election at the hundred is made by a council of electors, of whom less cannot be expected than the discretion of naming persons fittest for those capacities, with an eye upon these to be elected at the tribe. As for what may be objected in point of difficulty, it is demonstrable by the foregoing orders, that a man might bring 10,000 men, if there were occasion, with as much ease, and as suddenly to perform the ballot, as he can make 5,000 men, drawing them out by double files, to march a quarter of a mile. But because at this ballot, to go up and down the field, distributing the linen pellets to every man, with which he is to ballot or give suffrage, would lose a great deal of time, therefore a man's wife, his daughters, or others, make him his provision of pellets before the ballot, and he comes into the field with a matter of a score of them in his pocket. And now I have as good as done with the sport. The next is—

The eleventh order, "Explaining the duties and functions of the magistrates contained in the list of the prime magnitude, and those of the hundreds, beginning with the lord high sheriff, who, over and above his more ancient offices, and those added by the former order, is the first magistrate of the phylarch, or prerogative troop. The lord lieutenant, over and above his duty mentioned, is commander-in-chief of the musters of the youth, and second magistrate of the phylarch. The custos rotulorum is to return the yearly muster-rolls of the tribe, as well that of the youth as of the elders, to the rolls in emporium, and is the third magistrate of the phylarch. The censors by themselves and their sub-censors, that is, the overseers of the parishes, are to see that the respective laws of the ballot be observed in all the popular assemblies of the tribe. They have power also to put such national ministers, as in preaching shall intermeddle with matters of government, out of their livings, except the party appeals to the phylarch, or to the Council of Religion, where in that case the censors shall prosecute. All and every one of these magistrates, together with the justices of peace, and the jurymen of the hundreds, amounting in the whole number to threescore and six, are the prerogative troop or phylarch of the tribe.

"The function of the phylarch or prerogative troop is fivefold:

"First, they are the council of the tribe, and as such to govern the musters of the same according to the foregoing orders, having cognizance of what has passed in the congregation or elections made in the parishes or the hundreds, with power to punish any undue practices, or variation from their respective rules and orders, under an appeal to the Parliament. A marriage legitimately is to be pronounced by the parochial congregation, the muster of the hundred, or the phylarch. And if a tribe have a desire (which they are to express at the muster by their captains, every troop by his own) to petition the Parliament the phylarch, as the council, shall frame the petition in the pavilion, and propose it by clauses to the ballot of the whole tribe; and the clauses that shall be affirmed by the ballot of the tribe, and signed by the hands of the six magistrates of the prime magnitude, shall be received and esteemed by the Parliament as the petition of the tribe, and no other.

"Secondly, the phylarch has power to call to their assistance what other troops of the tribe they please (he they elders or youth, whose discipline will be hereafter directed), and with these to receive the judges itinerant in their circuits, whom the magistrates of the phylarch shall assist upon the bench, and the juries elsewhere in their proper functions according to the more ancient laws and customs of this nation.

"Thirdly, the phylarch shall hold the court called the quartersessions according to the ancient custom, and therein shall also hear causes in order to the protection of liberty of conscience, by such rules as are or shall hereafter be appointed by the Parliament.

"Fourthly, all commissions issued into the tribes by the Parliament, or by the chancery, are to be directed to the phylarch, or some of that troop, and executed by the same respectively.

"Fifthly, in the case of levies of money the Parliament shall tax the phylarchs, the phylarchs shall tax the hundreds, the hundreds the parishes, and the parishes shall levy it upon themselves. The parishes having levied the tax-money accordingly, shall return it to the officers of the hundreds, the hundred to the phylarchs, and the phylarchs to the Exchequer. But if a man has ten children living, he shall pay no taxes; if he has five living, he shall pay but half taxes; if he has been married three years, or be above twenty-five years of age, and has no child or children lawfully begotten, he shall pay double taxes. And if there happen to grow any dispute upon these or such other orders as shall or may hereto be added hereafter, the phylarchs shall judge the tribes, and the Parliament shall judge the phylarchs. For the rest, if any man shall go about to introduce the right or power of debate into any popular council or congregation of this nation, the phylarch or any magistrate of the hundred, or of the tribe, shall cause him presently to be sent in custody to the Council of War."

The part of the order relating to the rolls in Emporium being of singular use, is not unworthy to be somewhat better opened. In what manner the lists of the parishes, hundreds, and tribes are made, has been shown in their respective orders, where, after the parties are elected, they give an account of the whole number of the elders or deputies in their respective assemblies or musters; the like for this part exactly is done by the youth in their discipline (to be hereafter shown) wherefore the lists of the parishes, youth and elders, being summed up, give the whole number of the people able to bear arms, and the lists of the tribes, youth and elders, being summed up, give the whole number of the people bearing arms. This account, being annually recorded by the master of the rolls, is called the "Pillar of Nilus," because the people, being the riches of the commonwealth, as they are found to rise or fall by the degrees of this pillar, like that river, give an account of the public harvest.

Thus much for the description of the first day's work at the muster, which happened (as has been shown) to be done as soon as said; for as in practice it is of small difficulty, so requires it not much time, seeing the great Council of Venice, consisting of a like number, begins at twelve of the clock, and elects nine magistrates in one afternoon. But the tribe being dismissed for this night, repaired to their quarters, under the conduct of their new magistrates. The next morning returning to the field very early, the orator proceeded to—

The twelfth order, "Directing the muster of the tribe in the second day's election, being that of the list called the galaxy; in which the censors shall prepare the urns according to the directions given in the ninth order for the second ballot; that is to say, with thirty-six gold balls in the middle urn, making four orders, and nine electors in every order, according to the number of the magistrates in the list of the galaxy, which is as follows:

1. Knight 2. Knight

To be chosen out of the horse. 3. Deputy 4. Deputy 5. Deputy

To be chosen out of the horse. 6. Deputy 7. Deputy 8. Deputy 9. Deputy

To be chosen out of the foot.

"The rest of the ballot shall proceed exactly according to that of the first day. But, forasmuch as the commonwealth demands as well the fruits of a man's body as of his mind, he that has not been married shall not be capable of these magistracies till he be married. If a deputy already chosen to be an officer in the parish, in the hundred, or in the tribe, be afterward chosen of the galaxy, it shall be lawful for him to delegate his office in the parish, in the hundred, or in the tribe, to any one of his own order being not already chosen into office. The knights and deputies being chosen, shall be brought to the head of the tribe by the lord high sheriff, who shall administer to them this oath: 'Ye shall well and truly observe and keep the orders and customs of this commonwealth which the people have chosen.' And if any of them shall refuse the oath, he shall be rejected, and that competitor which had the most voices next shall be called in his place, who, if he takes the oath, shall be entered in the list; but if he also refuses the oath, he who had most voices next shall be called, and so till the number of nine out of those competitors which had most voices be sworn knights and deputies of the galaxy. (This clause, in regard to the late divisions, and to the end that no violence be offered to any man's conscience, to be of force but for the first three years only.) The knights of the galaxy being elected and sworn, are to repair, by the Monday next ensuing to the last of March, to the Pantheon or palace of justice, situated in the metropolis of this commonwealth (except the Parliament, by reason of a contagious sickness, or some other occasion, has adjourned to another part of the nation), where they are to take their places in the Senate, and continue in full power and commission as senators for the full term of three years next ensuing the date of their election. The deputies of the galaxy are to repair by the same day (except as before excepted) to the halo situated in Emporium, where they are to be listed of the prerogative tribe, or equal representative of the people; and to continue in full power and commission as their deputies for the full term of three years next ensuing their election. But, forasmuch as the term of every magistracy or office in this commonwealth requires an equal vacation, a knight or deputy of the galaxy, having fulfilled his term of three years, shall not be re-elected into the same galaxy or any other, till he has also fulfilled his three years' vacation."

Whoever shall rightly consider the foregoing orders, will be as little able to find how it is possible that a worshipful knight should declare himself in ale and beef worthy to serve his country, as how my lord high sheriff's honor, in case he were protected from the law, could play the knave. But though the foregoing orders, so far as they regard the constitution of the Senate and the people, requiring no more as to an ordinary election than is therein explained, that is but one-third part of their knights and deputies, are perfect; yet must we in this place, and as to the institution, of necessity erect a scaffold. For the commonwealth to the first creation of her councils in full number, required thrice as many as are eligible by the foregoing orders. Wherefore the orator whose aid in this place was most necessary, rightly informing the people of the reason, stayed them two days longer at the muster, and took this course. One list, containing two knights and seven deputies, he caused to be chosen upon the second day; which list being called the first galaxy, qualified the parties elected of it with power for the term of one year, and no longer: another list, containing two knights and seven deputies more, he caused to be chosen the third day, which list being called the second galaxy, qualified the parties elected of it with power for the term of two years, and no longer. And upon the fourth day he chose the third galaxy, according as it is directed by the order, empowered for three years; which lists successively falling (like the signs or constellations of one hemisphere, which setting, cause those of the other to rise) cast the great orbs of this commonwealth into an annual, triennial, and perpetual revolution.

The business of the muster being thus happily finished, Hermes de Caduceo, lord orator of the tribe of Nubia, being now put into her first rapture, caused one of the censor's pulpits to be planted in front of the squadron, and ascending into the same, spake after this manner:

"MY LORDS, THE MAGISTRATES AND THE PEOPLE OF THE TRIBE OF NUBIA:

"We have this day solemnized the happy nuptials of the two greatest princes that are upon the earth or in nature, arms and councils, in the mutual embraces whereof consists your whole commonwealth; whose councils upon their perpetual wheelings, marches, and countermarches, create her armies, and whose armies with the golden volleys of the ballot at once create and salute her councils. There be those (such is the world at present) that think it ridiculous to see a nation exercising its civil functions in military discipline; while they, committing their buff to their servants, come themselves to hold trenchards. For what avails it such as are unarmed, or (which is all one) whose education acquaints them not with the proper use of their swords, to be called citizens? What were 2,000 or 3,000 of you, though never so well affected to your country, but naked, to one troop of mercenary soldiers? If they should come upon the field and say, 'Gentlemen, it is thought fit that such and such men should be chosen by you,' where were your liberty? or, 'Gentlemen, parliaments are exceeding good, but you are to have a little patience; these times are not so fit for them,' where were your commonwealth? What causes the monarchy of the Turks but servants in arms? What was it that begot the glorious Commonwealth of Rome but the sword in the hands of her citizens? Wherefore my glad eyes salute the serenity and brightness of this day with a shower that shall not cloud it.

"Behold the army of Israel become a commonwealth, and the Commonwealth of Israel remaining an army, with her rulers of tens and of fifties, her rulers of hundreds and thousands, drawing near (as this day throughout our happy fields) to the lot by her tribes, increased above threefold, and led up by her phylarchs or princes, to sit upon fifty thrones, judging the fifty tribes of Oceana! Or, is it Athens, breaking from her iron sepulchre, where she has been so long trampled by hosts of Janizaries? For certainly that is the voice of Theseus, having gathered his scattered Athenians into one city. This freeborn nation lives not upon the dole or bounty of one man, but distributing her annual magistracies and honors with her own hand, is herself King People—(At which the orator was awhile interrupted with shouts, but at length proceeded.) is it grave Lacedaemon in her armed tribe, divided by her oboe and her mora, which appears to chide me that I teach the people to talk, or conceive such language as is dressed like a woman, to be a fit usher of the joys of liberty into the hearts of men? is it Rome in her victorious arms (for so she held her concio or congregation) that congratulates with us, for finding out that which she could not hit on, and binding up her Comitia curiata, centuriata, and tributa, in one inviolable league of union? Or is it the great council of incomparable Venice, bowling forth by the selfsame ballot her immortal commonwealth? For, neither by reason nor by experience is it impossible that a commonwealth should be immortal; seeing the people being the materials, never die; and the form, which is motion, must, without opposition, be endless. The bowl which is thrown from your hand, if there be no rub, no impediment, shall never cease: for which cause the glorious luminaries that are the bowls of God, were once thrown forever; and next these, those of Venice. But certainly, my lords, whatever these great examples may have shown us, we are the first that have shown to the world a commonwealth established in her rise upon fifty such towers, and so garrisoned as are the tribes of Oceana, containing 100,000 elders upon the annual list, and yet but an outguard; besides her marching armies to be equal in the discipline, and in the number of her youth.

"And forasmuch as sovereign power is a necessary but a formidable creature, not unlike the powder which (as you are soldiers) is at once your safety and your danger, being subject to take fire against you as well as for you, how well and securely is she, by your galaxies so collected as to be in full force and vigor and yet so distributed that it is impossible you should be blown up by your own magazine? Let them who will have it, that power if it be confined cannot be sovereign, tell us, whether our rivers do not enjoy a more secure and fruitful reign within their proper banks, than if it were lawful for them, in ravaging our harvests, to spill themselves? whether souls, not confined to their peculiar bodies, do govern them any more than those of witches in their trances? whether power, not confined to the bounds of reason and virtue, has any other bounds than those of vice and passion? or if vice and passion be boundless, and reason and virtue have certain limits, on which of these thrones holy men should anoint their sovereign? But to blow away this dust, the sovereign power of a commonwealth is no more bounded, that is to say straitened, than that of a monarch; but is balanced. The eagle mounts not to her proper pitch, if she be bounded, nor is free if she be not balanced. And lest a monarch should think he can reach further with his sceptre, the Roman eagle upon such a balance spread her wings from the ocean to Euphrates. Receive the sovereign power; you have received it, hold it fast, embrace it forever in your shining arms. The virtue of the loadstone is not impaired or limited, but receives strength and nourishment, by being bound in iron. And so giving your lordships much joy, I take my leave of this tribe."

The orator descending, had the period of his speech made with a vast applause and exultation of the whole tribe, attending him for that night to his quarter, as the phylarch with some commanded troops did the next day to the frontiers of the tribe, where leave was taken on both sides with more tears than grief.

So a tribe is the third division of land occasioned by the third collection of the people, whose functions proper to that place are contained in the five foregoing orders.

The institution of the commonwealth was such as needed those props and scaffolds which may have troubled the reader; but I shall here take them away, and come to the constitution which stands by itself, and yields a clearer prospect.

The motions, by what has been already shown, are spherical; and spherical motions have their proper centre, for which cause (ere I proceed further) it will be necessary, for the better understanding of the whole, that I discover the centre whereupon the motions of this commonwealth are formed.

The centre, or basis of every government, is no other than the fundamental laws of the same.

Fundamental laws are such as state what it is that a man, and what the means may call his own, that is to say, property; be whereby a man may enjoy his own, that is to say, protection. The first is also called dominion, and the second empire or sovereign power, whereof this (as has been shown) is the natural product of the former, for such as is the balance of dominion in a nation, such is the nature of its empire.

Wherefore the fundamental laws of Oceana, or the centre of this commonwealth, are the agrarian and the ballot: the agrarian by the balance of dominion preserving equality in the root; and the ballot by an equal rotation conveying it into the branch, or exercise of sovereign power, as, to begin with the former, appears by—

The thirteenth order, "Constituting the agrarian laws of Oceana, Marpesia, and Panopea, whereby it is ordained, first, for all such lands as are lying and being within the proper territories of Oceana, that every man who is at present possessed, or shall hereafter be possessed, of an estate in land exceeding the revenue of L2,000 a year, and having more than one son, shall leave his lands either equally divided among them, in case the lands amount to above L2,000 a year to each, or so near equally, in case they come under, that the greater part or portion of the same remaining to the eldest exceed not the value of L2,000 revenue. And no man, not in present possession of lands above the value of L2,000 by the year, shall receive, enjoy (except by lawful inheritance) acquire, or, purchase to himself lands within the said territories, amounting, with those already in his possession, above the said revenue. And if a man has a daughter or daughters, except she be an heiress or they be heiresses, he shall not leave or give to any. One of them in marriage, or otherwise, for her portion, above the value of L1,500 in lands, goods, and moneys. Nor shall any friend, kinsman, or kinswoman add to her or their portion or portions that are so provided for, to make any one of them greater. Nor shall any man demand or have more in marriage with any woman. Nevertheless an heiress shall enjoy her lawful inheritance, and a widow, whatsoever the bounty or affection of her husband shall bequeath to her, to be divided in the first generation, wherein it is divisible according as has been shown.

"Secondly, for lands lying and being within the territories of Marpesia, the agrarian shall hold in all parts as it is established in Oceana, except only in the standard or proportion of estates in land, which shall be set for Marpesia, at L500. And,

"Thirdly, for Panopea, the agrarian shall hold in all parts, as in Oceana. And whosoever possessing above the proportion allowed by these laws, shall be lawfully convicted of the same, shall forfeit the overplus to the use of the State."

Agrarian laws of all others have ever been the greatest bugbears, and so in the institution were these, at which time it was ridiculous to see how strange a fear appeared in everybody of that which, being good for all, could hurt nobody. But instead of the proof of this order, I shall out of those many debates that happened ere it could be passed, insert two speeches that were made at the Council of legislators, the first by the Right Honorable Philautus de Garbo, a young man, being heir-apparent to a very noble family, and one of the councillors, who expressed himself as follows:

"May it please your Highness, my Lord Archon of Oceana.

"If I did not, to my capacity, know from how profound a councillor I dissent, it would certainly be no hard task to make it as light as the day. First, that an agrarian is altogether unnecessary; secondly, that it is dangerous to a commonwealth; thirdly, that it is insufficient to keep out monarchy; fourthly, that it ruins families; fifthly, that it destroys industry; and last of all, that though it were indeed of any good use, it will be a matter of such difficulty to introduce in this nation, and so to settle that it may be lasting, as is altogether invincible.

"First, that an agrarian is unnecessary to a commonwealth, what clearer testimony can there be than that the commonwealths which are our contemporaries (Venice, to which your Highness gives the upper hand of all antiquity, being one) have no such thing? And there can be no reason why they have it not, seeing it is in the sovereign power at any time to establish such an order, but that they need it not; wherefore no wonder if Aristotle, who pretends to be a good commonwealths man, has long since derided Phaleas, to whom it was attributed by the Greeks, for his invention.

"Secondly, that an agrarian is dangerous to a commonwealth is affirmed upon no slight authority seeing Machiavel is positive that it was the dissension which happened about the agrarian that caused the destruction of Rome; nor do I think that it did much better in Lacedaemon, as I shall show anon.

"Thirdly, that it is insufficient to keep out monarchy cannot without impiety be denied, the holy Scriptures bearing witness that the Commonwealth of Israel, notwithstanding her agrarian, submitted her neck to the arbitrary yoke of her princes.

"Fourthly, therefore, to come to my next assertion, that it is destructive to families: this also is so apparent, that it needs pity rather than proof. Why alas, do you bind a nobility (which no generation shall deny to have been the first that freely sacrificed their blood to the ancient liberties of this people) on an unholy altar? Why are the people taught that their liberty, which, except our noble ancestors had been born, must have long since been buried, cannot now be born except we be buried? A commonwealth should have the innocence of the dove. Let us leave this purchase of her birth to the serpent, which eats itself out of the womb of its mother.

"Fifthly but it may be said, perhaps, that we are fallen from our first love, become proud and idle. It is certain, my lords, that the hand of God is not upon us for nothing. But take heed how you admit of such assaults and sallies upon men's estates, as may slacken the nerve of labor, and give others also reason to believe that their sweat is vain; or else, whatsoever be pretended, your agrarian (which is my fifth assertion) must indeed destroy industry. For, that so it did in Lacedaemon is most apparent, as also that it could do no otherwise, where every man having his forty quarters of barley, with wine proportionable, supplied him out of his own lot by his laborer or helot; and being confined in that to the scantling above which he might not live, there was not any such thing as a trade, or other art, except that of war, in exercise. Wherefore a Spartan, if he were not in arms, must sit and play with his Angers, whence ensued perpetual war, and, the estate of the city being as little capable of increase as that of the citizens, her inevitable ruin. Now what better ends you can propose to yourselves in the like ways, I do not so well see as I perceive that there may be worse; for Lacedaemon yet was free from civil war: but if you employ your citizens no better than she did, I cannot promise you that you shall fare so well, because they are still desirous of war that hope that it may be profitable to them; and the strongest security you can give of peace, is to make it gainful. Otherwise men will rather choose that whereby they may break your laws, than that whereby your laws may break them. Which I speak not so much in relation to the nobility or such as would be holding, as to the people or them that would be getting; the passion in these being so much the stronger, as a man's felicity is weaker in the fruition of things, than in their prosecution and increase.

"Truly, my lords, it is my fear, that by taking of more hands, and the best from industry, you will farther endamage it, than can be repaired by laying on a few, and the worst; while the nobility must be forced to send their sons to the plough, and, as if this were not enough, to marry their daughters also to farmers.

"Sixthly, but I do not see (to come to the last point) how it is possible that this thing should be brought about, to your good I mean, though it may to the destruction of many. For that the agrarian of Israel, or that of Lacedaemon, might stand, is no such miracle; the lands, without any consideration of the former proprietor, being surveyed and cast into equal lots, which could neither be bought, nor sold, nor multiplied: so that they knew whereabout to have a man. But in this nation no such division can be introduced, the lands being already in the hands of proprietors, and such whose estates lie very rarely together, but mixed one with another being also of tenures in nature so different, that as there is no experience that an agrarian was ever introduced in such a case, so there is no appearance how or reason why it should: but that which is against reason and experience is impossible."

The case of my Lord Philautus was the most concerned in the whole nation; for he had four younger brothers, his father being yet living, to whom he was heir of L10,000 a year. Wherefore being a man both of good parts and esteem, his words wrought both upon men's reason and passions, and had borne a stroke at the head of the business, if my Lord Archon had not interposed the buckler in this oration:

"MY LORDS, THE LEGISLATORS OF OCEANA:

"My Lord Philautus has made a thing which is easy to seem hard; if the thanks were due to his eloquence, it would be worthy of less praise than that he owes it to his merit, and the love he has most deservedly purchased of all men: nor is it rationally to be feared that he who is so much beforehand in his private, should be in arrear in his public, capacity. Wherefore, my lord's tenderness throughout his speech arising from no other principle than his solicitude lest the agrarian should be hurtful to his country, it is no less than my duty to give the best satisfaction I am able to so good a patriot, taking every one of his doubts in the order proposed. And,

"First, whereas my lord, upon observation of the modern commonwealths, is of opinion that an agrarian is not necessary: it must be confessed that at the first sight of them there is some appearance favoring his assertion, but upon accidents of no precedent to us. For the commonwealths of Switzerland and Holland, I mean of those leagues, being situated in countries not alluring the inhabitants to wantonness, but obliging them to universal industry, have an implicit agrarian in the nature of them: and being not obnoxious to a growing nobility (which, as long as their former monarchies had spread the wing over them, could either not at all be hatched, or was soon broken) are of no example to us, whose experience in this point has been to the contrary. But what if even in these governments there be indeed an explicit agrarian? For when the law commands an equal or near equal distribution of a man's estate in land among his children, as it is done in those countries, a nobility cannot grow; and so there needs no agrarian, or rather there is one. And for the growth of the nobility in Venice (if so it be, for Machiavel observes in that republic, as a cause of it, a great mediocrity of estates) it is not a point that she is to fear, but might study, seeing she consists of nothing else but nobility, by which, whatever their estates suck from the people, especially if it comes equally, is digested into the better blood of that commonwealth, which is all, or the greatest, benefit they can have by accumulation. For how unequal soever you will have them to be in their incomes, they have officers of the pomp, to bring them equal in expenses, or at least in the ostentation or show of them. And so unless the advantage of an estate consists more in the measure than in the use of it, the authority of Venice does but enforce our agrarian; nor shall a man evade or elude the prudence of it, by the authority of any other commonwealth.

"For if a commonwealth has been introduced at once, as those of Israel and Lacedaemon, you are certain to find her underlaid with this as the main foundation; nor, if she is obliged more to fortune than prudence, has she raised her head without musing upon this matter, as appears by that of Athens, which through her defect in this point, says Aristotle, introduced her ostracism, as most of the democracies of Greece. But, not to restrain a fundamental of such latitude to any one kind of government, do we not yet see that if there be a sole landlord of a vast territory, he is the Turk? that if a few landlords overbalance a populous country, they have store of servants? that if a people be in an equal balance, they can have no lords? that no government can otherwise be erected, than upon some one of these foundations? that no one of these foundations (each being else apt to change into some other) can give any security to the government, unless it be fixed? that through the want of this fixation, potent monarchy and commonwealths have fallen upon the heads of the people, and accompanied their own sad ruins with vast effusions of innocent blood? Let the fame, as was the merit of the ancient nobility of this nation, be equal to or above what has been already said, or can be spoken, yet have we seen not only their glory but that of a throne, the most indulgent to and least invasive for so many ages upon the liberty of a people that the world has known, through the mere want of fixing her foot by a proportionable agrarian upon her proper foundation, to have fallen with such horror as has been a spectacle of astonishment to the whole earth. And were it well argued from one calamity, that we ought not to prevent another? Nor is Aristotle so good a commonwealths man for deriding the invention of Phaleas as in recollecting himself, where he says that democracies, when a less part of their citizens overtop the rest in wealth, degenerate into oligarchies and principalities; and, which comes nearer to the present purpose, that the greater part of the nobility of Tarentum coming accidentally to be ruined, the government of the few came by consequence to be changed into that of the many.

"These things considered, I cannot see how an agrarian, as to the fixation or security of a government, can be less than necessary. And if a cure be necessary, it excuses not the patient, his disease being otherwise desperate, that it is dangerous; which was the case of Rome, not so stated by Machiavel, where he says, that the strife about the agrarian caused the destruction of that commonwealth. As if when a senator was not rich (as Crassus held) except he could pay an army, that commonwealth could expect nothing but ruin whether in strife about the agrarian, or without it. 'Of late,' says Livy, 'riches have introduced avarice, and voluptuous pleasures abounding have through lust and luxury begot a desire of lasting and destroying all good orders.' if the greatest security of a commonwealth consists in being provided with the proper antidote against this poison, her greatest danger, must be from the absence of an agrarian, which is the whole truth of the Roman example. For the Laconic, I shall reserve the further explication of it, as my lord also did, to another place; and first see whether an agrarian proportioned to a popular government be sufficient to keep out monarchy. My lord is for the negative, and fortified by the people of Israel electing a king. To which I say that the action of the people therein expressed is a full answer to the objection of that example; for the monarchy neither grew upon them, nor could; by reason of the agrarian, possibly have invaded them, if they had not pulled it upon themselves by the election of a king. Which being an accident, the like whereof is not to be found in any other people so planted, nor in this till, as it is manifest, they were given up by God to infatuation (for says he to Samuel, 'They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them,), has something in it which is apparent, by what went before, to have been besides the course of nature, and by what followed.

"For the King having no other foundation than the calamities of the people, so often beaten by their enemies, that despairing of themselves they were contented with any change, if he had peace as in the days of Solomon, left but a slippery throne to his successor, as appeared by Rehoboam. And the agrarian, notwithstanding the monarchy thus introduced, so faithfully preserved the root of that commonwealth, that it shot forth oftener and by intervals continued longer than any other government, as may be computed from the institution of the same by Joshua, 1,465 years before Christ, to the total dissolution of it, which happened in the reign of the emperor Adrian, 135 years after the incarnation. A people planted upon an equal agrarian, and holding to it, if they part with their liberty, must do it upon good-will, and make but a bad title of their bounty. As to instance yet further in that which is proposed by the present order to this nation, the standard whereof is at L2,000 a year; the whole territory of Oceana being divided by this proportion, amounts to 5,000 lots. So the lands of Oceana being thus distributed, and bound to this distribution, can never fall to fewer than 5,000 proprietors. But 5,000 proprietors so seized will not agree to break the agrarian, for that were to agree to rob one another; nor to bring in a king, because they must maintain him, and can have no benefit by him; nor to exclude the people, because they can have as little by that, and must spoil their militia. So the commonwealth continuing upon the balance proposed, though it should come into 5,000 hands, can never alter, and that it should ever come into 5,000 hands is as improbable as anything in the world that is not altogether impossible.

"My lord's other considerations are more private, as that, this order destroys families; which is as if one should lay the ruin of some ancient castle to the herbs which usually grow out of them, the destruction of those families being that indeed which naturally produced this order. For we do not now argue for that which we would have, but for that which we are already possessed of, as would appear if a note were but taken of all such as have at this day above L2,000 a year in Oceana. If my lord should grant (and I will put it with the most) that they who are proprietors in land, exceeding this proportion, exceed not 300, with what brow can the interest of so few be balanced with that of the whole nation? or rather, what interest have they to put in such a balance? they would live as they had been accustomed to do; who hinders them? they would enjoy their estates; who touches them? they would dispose of what they have according to the interest of their families; it is that which we desire. A man has one son, let him be called; would he enjoy his father's estate? it is his, his son's, and his son's son's after him. A man has five sons, let them be called; would they enjoy their father's estate? It is divided among them; for we have four votes for one in the same family, and therefore this must be the interest of the family, or the family knows not its own interest. If a man shall dispute otherwise, he must draw his arguments from custom and from greatness, which was the interest of the monarchy, not of the family; and we are now a commonwealth. If the monarchy could not bear with such divisions because they tendered to a commonwealth, neither can a commonwealth connive at such accumulations because they tend to a monarchy. If the monarchy might make bold with so many for the good of one, we may make bold with one for the good of so many, nay, for the good of all.

"My lords, it comes into my mind, that which upon occasion of the variety of parties enumerated in our late civil wars, was said by a friend of mine coming home from his travels, about the latter end of these troubles; that he admired how it came to pass, that younger brothers, especially being so many more in number than their elder did not unite as one man against a tyranny, the like whereof has not been exercised in any other nation. And truly, when I consider that our countrymen are none of the worst-natured, I must confess I marvel much how it comes to pass that we should use our children as we do our puppies—take one, lay it in the lap, feed it with every good bit, and drown five; nay, yet worse, forasmuch as the puppies are once drowned, whereas the children are left perpetually drowning. Really, my lords, it is a flinty custom! and all this for his cruel ambition, that would raise himself a pillar a golden pillar for his monument, though he has children, his own reviving flesh, and a kind of immortality. And this is that interest of a family, for which we are to think ill of a government that will not endure it. But quiet ourselves; the land through which the river Nilus wanders in one stream, is barren; but where it parts into seven, it multiplies its fertile shores by distributing, yet keeping and improving, such a propriety and nutrition, as is a prudent agrarian to a well-ordered commonwealth.

"Nor (to come to the fifth assertion) is a political body rendered any fitter for industry by having one gouty and another withered leg, than a natural. It tends not to the improvement of merchandise that there be some who have no need of their trading, and others that are not able to follow it. If confinement discourages industry, an estate in money is not confined, and lest industry should want whereupon to work, land is not engrossed or entailed upon any man, but remains at its devotion. I wonder whence the computation can arise, that this should discourage industry. Two thousand pounds a year a man may enjoy in Oceana, as much in Panopea, L500 in Marpesia; there be other plantations, and the commonwealth will have more. Who knows how far the arms of our agrarian may extend themselves? and whether he that might have left a pillar, may not leave a temple of many pillars to his more pious memory? Where there is some measure in riches, a man may be rich, but if you will have them to be infinite, there will be no end of starving himself, and wanting what he has: and what pains does such a one take to be poor Furthermore, if a man shall think that there may be an industry less greasy or more noble, and so cast his thoughts upon the commonwealth, he will have leisure for her and she riches and honors for him; his sweat shall smell like Alexander's. My Lord Philautus is a young man who, enjoying his L10,000 a year, may keep a noble house in the old way, and have homely guests; and having but two, by the means proposed, may take the upper hand of his great ancestors; with reverence to whom, I may say, there has not been one of them would have disputed his place with a Roman consul.

"My lord, do not break my heart; the nobility shall go to no other ploughs than those which we call our consuls. But, says he, it having been so with Lacedaemon, that neither the city nor the citizens were capable of increase, a blow was given by that agrarian, which ruined both. And what are we concerned with that agrarian, or that blow while our citizens and our city (and that by our agrarian) are both capable of increase? The Spartan, if he made a conquest, had no citizens to hold it; the Oceaner will have enow. The Spartan could have no trade; the Oceaner may have all. The agrarian in Laconia, that it might bind on knapsacks, forbidding all other arts but that of war, could not make an army of above 30,000 citizens. The agrarian in Oceana, without interruption of traffic, provides us in the fifth part of the youth an annual source or fresh spring of 100,000, besides our provincial auxiliaries, out of which to draw marching armies; and as many elders, not feeble, but men most of them in the flower of their age, and in arms for the defence of our territories. The agrarian in Laconia banished money, this multiplies it; that allowed a matter of twenty or thirty acres to a man, this 2,000 or 3,000; there is no comparison between them. And yet I differ so much from my lord, or his opinion that the agrarian was the ruin of Lacedaemon, that I hold it no less than demonstrable to have been her main support. For if, banishing all other diversions, it could not make an army of above 30,000, then, letting in all other diversions, it must have broken that army. Wherefore Lysander, bringing in the golden spoils of Athens, irrevocably ruined that commonwealth; and is a warning to us, that in giving encouragement to industry, we also remember that covetousness is the root of all evil. And our agrarian can never be the cause of those seditions threatened by my lord, but is the proper cure of them, as Lucan notes well in the state of Rome before the civil wars, which happened through the want of such an antidote.

"Why then are we mistaken, as if we intended not equal advantages in our commonwealth to either sex, because we would not have women's fortunes consist in that metal which exposes them to cutpurses? If a man cuts my purse I may have him by the heels or by the neck for it; whereas a man may cut a woman's purse, and have her for his pains in fetters. How brutish, and much more than brutish, is that commonwealth which prefers the earth before the fruits of the womb? If the people be her treasure, the staff by which she is sustained and comforted, with what justice can she suffer them, by whom she is most enriched, to be for that cause the most impoverished? And yet we see the gifts of God, and the bounties of heaven in fruitful families, through this wretched custom of marrying for money, become their insupportable grief and poverty. Nor falls this so heavy upon the lower sort, being better able to shift for themselves, as upon the nobility or gentry. For what avails it in this case, from whence their veins have derived their blood; while they shall see the tallow of a chandler sooner converted into that beauty which is required in a bride? I appeal, whether my Lord Philautus or myself be the advocate of nobility; against which, in the case proposed by me, there would be nothing to hold the balance. And why is a woman, if she may have but L1,500, undone? If she be unmarried, what nobleman allows his daughter in that case a greater revenue than so much money may command? And if she marry, no nobleman can give his daughter a greater portion than she has. Who is hurt in this case?—nay, who is not benefited? If the agrarian gives us the sweat of our brows without diminution; if it prepares our table; if it makes our cup to overflow, and above all this, in providing for our children, anoints our heads with that oil which takes away the greatest of worldly cares; what man, that is not besotted with a covetousness as vain as endless, can imagine such a constitution to be his poverty? Seeing where no woman can be considerable for her portion, no portion will be considerable with a woman; and so his children will not only find better preferments without his brokage, but more freedom of their own affections. "We are wonderful severe in laws, that they shall not marry without our consent, as if it were care and tenderness over them; but is it not lest we should not have the other L1,000 with this son, or the other L100 a year more in jointure for that daughter? These, when we are crossed in them, are the sins for which we water our couch with tears, but not of penitence. Seeing whereas it is a mischief beyond any that we can do to our enemies, we persist to make nothing of breaking the affection of our children. But there is in this agrarian a homage to pure and spotless love, the consequence whereof I will not give for all your romances. An alderman makes not his daughter a countess till he has given her L20,000, nor a romance a considerable mistress till she be a princess; these are characters of bastard love. But if our agrarian excludes ambition and covetousness, we shall at length have the care of our own breed, in which we have been curious as to our dogs and horses. The marriage-bed will be truly legitimate, and the race of the commonwealth not spurious. But (impar magnanimis ausis, imparque dolori) I am hurled from all my hopes by my lord's last assertion of impossibility, that the root from whence we imagine these fruits should be planted or thrive in this soil. And why? Because of the mixture of estates and variety of tenures. Nevertheless, there is yet extant in the Exchequer an old survey of the whole nation; wherefore such a thing is not impossible. Now if a new survey were taken at the present rates, and the law made that no man should hold hereafter above so much land as is valued therein at L2,000 a year, it would amount to a good and sufficient agrarian. It is true that there would remain some difficulty in the different kind of rents, and that it is a matter requiring not only more leisure than we have, but an authority which may be better able to bow men to a more general consent than is to be wrought out of them by such as are in our capacity. Wherefore as to the manner, it is necessary that we refer it to the Parliament; but as to the matter, they cannot otherwise fix their government upon the right balance.

"I shall conclude with a few words to some parts of the order, which my lord has omitted. As first to the consequences of the agrarian to be settled in Marpesia, which irreparably breaks the aristocracy of that nation; being of such a nature, as standing, it is not possible that you should govern. For while the people of that country are little better than the cattle of the nobility, you must not wonder if, according as these can make their markets with foreign princes, you find those to be driven upon your grounds. And if you be so tender, now you have it in your power, as not to hold a hand upon them that may prevent the slaughter which must otherwise ensue in like cases, the blood will lie at your door. But in holding such a hand upon them, you may settle the agrarian; and in settling the agrarian, you give that people not only liberty, but lands; which makes your protection necessary to their security; and their contribution due to your protection, as to their own safety.

"For the agrarian of Panopea, it allowing such proportions of so good land, men that conceive themselves straitened by this in Oceana, will begin there to let themselves forth, where every citizen will in time have his villa. And there is no question, but the improvement of that country by this means must be far greater than it has been in the best of former times. I have no more to say, but that in those ancient and heroic ages (when men thought that to be necessary which was virtuous) the nobility of Athens, having the people so much engaged in their debt that there remained no other question among these than which of those should be king, no sooner heard Solon speak than they quitted their debts, and restored the commonwealth; which ever after held a solemn and annual feast called the Sisacthia, or Recision, in memory of that action. Nor is this example the phoenix; for at the institution by Lycurgus, the nobility having estates (as ours here) in the lands of Laconia, upon no other valuable consideration than the commonwealth proposed by him, threw them up to be parcelled by his agrarian. But now when no man is desired to throw up a farthing of his money, or a shovelful of his earth, and that all we can do is but to make a virtue of necessity, we are disputing whether we should have peace or war. For peace you cannot have without some government, nor any government without the proper balance. Wherefore if you will not fix this which you have, the rest is blood, for without blood you can bring in no other."

By these speeches made at the institution of the agrarian you may perceive what were the grounds of it. The next is—

The fourteenth order, "Constituting the ballot of Venice, as it is fitted by several alterations, and appointed to every assembly, to be the constant and only way of giving suffrage in this commonwealth, according to the following scheme."

I shall endeavor by the following figure to demonstrate the manner of the Venetian ballot (a thing as difficult in discourse or writing, as facile in practice) according to the use of it in Oceana. The whole figure represents the Senate, containing, as to the house or form of sitting, a square and a half; the tribunal at the upper end being ascended by four steps. On the uppermost of these sit the magistrates that constitute the signory of the commonwealth, that is to say, A the strategus; B the orator; C the three commissioners of the great seal; D the three commissioners of the Treasury, whereof one, E, exercises for the present the office of a censor at the middle urn, F To the two upper steps of the tribunal answer G, G-G, G, the two long benches next the wall on each side of the house; the outwardmost of which are equal in height to the uppermost step, and the innermost equal in height to the next. Of these four benches consists the first seal; as the second seat consists in like manner of those four benches H, H-H, H, which being next the floor, are equal in height to the two nethermost steps of the throne. So the whole house is distributed into two seats, each consisting of four benches.

This distribution causes not only the greater conveniency; as will be shown, to the senators in the exercise of their function at the ballot, but a greater grace to the aspect of the Senate. In the middle of the outward benches stand I, 12 the chairs of the censors, those being their ordinary places, though upon occasion of the ballot they descend, and sit where they are shown by K, K at each of the outward urns L, L. Those M, M that sit with their tables, and the bowls N, N before them, upon the halfspace or second step of the tribunal from the floor, are the clerks or secretaries of the house. Upon the short seats O, O on the floor (which should have been represented by woolsacks) sit: P, the two tribunes of the horse. Q, the two tribunes of the foot; and R, R-R, R the judges, all which magistrates are assistants, but have no suffrage. This posture of the Senate considered, the ballot is performed as follows:

First, whereas the gold balls are of several suits, and accordingly marked with several letters of the alphabet, a secretary presents a little urn (wherein there is one ball of every suit or mark) to the strategus and the orator; and look what letter the strategus draws, the same and no other is to be used for that time in the middle urn F; the like for the letter drawn by the orator is to be observed for the side urns L, L, that is to say if the strategus drew a ball with an A, all the gold balls in the middle urn for that day are marked with the letter A; and if the orator drew a B, all the gold balls in the side urn for that day are marked with the letter B, which done immediately before the ballot, and so the letter unknown to the ballotants, they can use no fraud or juggling; otherwise a man might carry a gold ball in his hand, and seem to have drawn it out of an urn. He that draws a gold ball at any urn, delivers it to the censor or assessor of that urn, who views the character, and allows accordingly of his lot.

The strategus and the orator having drawn for the letters, the urns are prepared accordingly by one of the commissioners and the two censors. The preparation of the urns is After this manner. If the Senate be to elect, for example, the list called the tropic of magistrates, which is this:

1. The Lord Strategus;

2. The Lord Orator;

3. The Third Commissioner of the Great Seal;

4. The Third Commissioner of the Treasury;

5. The First Censor;

6. The Second Censor;

this list or schedule consists of six magistracies, and to every magistracy there are to be four competitors; that is, in all four-and-twenty competitors proposed to the house. They that are to propose the competitors are called electors, and no elector can propose above one competitor: wherefore for the proposing of four-and-twenty competitors you must have four-and-twenty electors; and whereas the ballot consists of a lot and of a suffrage, the lot is for no other use than for the designation of electors; and he that draws a gold ball at the middle urn is an elector. Now, as to have four-and-twenty competitors proposed, you must have four-and-twenty electors made, so to have four-and-twenty electors made by lot, you must have four-and-twenty gold balls in the middle urn; and these (because otherwise it would be no lot) mixed with a competent number of blanks, or silver balls. Wherefore to the four-and-twenty gold balls cast six-and-twenty silver ones, and those (reckoning the blanks with the prizes) make fifty balls in the middle urn. This done (because no man can come to the middle urn that has not first drawn a gold ball at one of the side urns) and to be sure that the prizes or gold balls in this urn be all drawn, there must come to it fifty persons; therefore there must be in each of the side urns five-and-twenty gold balls, which in both come to fifty; and to the end that every senator may have his lot, the gold balls in the side urns are to be made up with blanks equal to the number of the ballotants at either urn; for example, the house consisting of 300 senators, there must be in each of the side urns 125 blanks and twenty-five prizes, which come in both the side urns to 300 balls. This is the whole mystery of preparing the urns, which the censors having skill to do accordingly, the rest of the ballot, whether the parties balloting understand it or not must of necessary consequence come right; and they can neither be out, nor fall into any confusion in the exercise of this art.

But the ballot, as I said, is of two parts, lot and suffrage, or the proposition and result. The lot determines who shall propose the competitors; and the result of the Senate, which of the competitors shall be the magistrates. The whole, to begin with the lot, proceeds in this manner:

The first secretary with an audible voice reads first the list of the magistrates to be chosen for the day, then the oath for fair election, at which the senators hold up their hands; which done, another secretary presents a little urn to the strategus, in which are four balls, each of them having one of these four inscriptions: "First seat at the upper end," "First seat at the lower end," "Second seat at the upper end," "Second seat at the lower end." And look which of them the strategus draws, the secretary pronouncing the inscription with a loud voice, the seat so called comes accordingly to the urns: this in the figure is the second seat at the upper end. The manner of their coming to the side urns is in double files, that being two holes in the cover of each side urn, by which means two may draw at once. The senators therefore S, S-S, S are coming from the upper end of their seats H, H-H, H to the side urns L, L. The senators T T-T are drawing. The senator V has drawn a gold ball at his side urn, and is going to the middle urn F, where the senator W, having done the like at the other side urn, is already drawing. But the senators X, X-X, X having drawn blanks at their side urns, and thrown them into the bowls Y Y standing at the feet of the urns, are marching by the lower end into their seats again; the senator a having done the like at the middle urn, is also throwing his blank into the bowl b and marching to his seat again: for a man by a prize at a side urn gains no more than right to come to the middle urn, where, if he draws a blank, his fortune at the side urn comes to nothing at all; wherefore he also returns to his place. But the senator C has had a prize at the middle urn, where the commissioner, having viewed his ball, and found the mark to be right, he marches up the steps to the seat of the electors, which is the form d set across the tribunal, where he places himself, according as he was drawn, with the other electors e, e, e drawn before him. These are not to look back, but sit with their faces toward the signory or state, till their number amount to that of the magistrates to be that day chosen, which for the present, as was shown, are six: wherefore six electors being made, they are reckoned according as they were drawn: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, in their order, and the first six that are chosen are the first order of electors.

The first order of electors being made, are conducted by a secretary, with a copy of the list to be chosen, out of the Senate, and into a committee or council-chamber, being neither suffered by the way, nor in their room (till the ballot be ended), to have conference with any but themselves; wherefore the secretary, having given them their oath that they shall make election according to the law and their conscience, delivers them the list, and seats himself at the lower end of the table with his pen and paper, while another secretary keeps the door.

By such time as the first order of electors are thus seated, the second order of electors is drawn, who, with a second copy of the same list, are conducted into another committee-chamber, by other secretaries performing the same office with the former.

The like exactly is done by the third and by the fourth orders (or hands, as the Venetians call them) of electors, by which means you have the four-and-twenty electors divided according to the four copies of the same list, by six, into four hands or orders; and every one of these orders names one competitor to every magistracy in the list; that is to say, the first elector names to the first magistracy, the second elector to the second magistracy, and so forth. But though the electors, as has been shown, are chosen by mere lot, yet the competitors by them named are not chosen by any lot, but by the suffrage of the whole order for example, the first elector in the first order proposes a name to be strategus, which name is balloted by himself and the other five electors, and if the name so balloted attain not to above half the suffrages, it is laid aside, and the first elector names another to the same magistracy and so in case this also fails, another, till one he has named, whether it be himself, or some other, has attained to above half the suffrages in the affirmative; and the name so attaining to above half the suffrages in the affirmative is written to the first magistracy in the list by the secretary which being done, the second elector of the first order, names to 'the second magistracy till one of his nomination be chosen to the same. The like is done by the rest of the electors of the first order, till one competitor be chosen, and written to every magistracy in their list. Now the second, third, and fourth orders of electors doing exactly after the same manner, it comes to pass that one competitor to every magistracy being chosen in each order, there be in all four competitors chosen to every magistracy.

If any controversy arises in an order of electors, one of the censors (these being at this game the groom-porters) is advertised by the secretary who brings him in, and the electors disputing are bound to acquiesce in his sentence. For which cause it is that the censors do not ballot at the urns; the signory also abstains, lest it should deform the house: wherefore the blanks in the side urns are by so many the fewer. And so much for the lot, which is of the greater art but less consequence, because it concerns proposition only: but all (except the tribunes and the judges, which being but assistants have no suffrage) are to ballot at the result, to which I now come.

The four orders of electors having perfected their lists, the face of the house is changed: for the urns are taken away, and every senator and magistrate is seated in his proper place, saving the electors, who, having given their suffrages already, may not stir out of their chambers till the house have given theirs, and the rest of the ballot be performed; which follows in this manner:

The four lists being presented by the secretaries of each council of electors to the signory, are first read, according to their order, to the house, with an audible voice; and then the competitors are put to the ballot or suffrage of the whole Senate in this manner: A, A named to be strategus in the first order, whereupon eight ballotins, or pages, such as are expressed by the figures f, f, take eight of the boxes represented, though rudely, by the figures g, g, and go four on the one and four on the other side of the house, that is, one to every bench, signifying "A, A named to be the strategus in the first order.." and every magistrate or senator (beginning by the strategus and the orator first) holds up a little pellet of linen, as the box passes, between his finger and his thumb, that men may see he has but one, and then puts it into the same. The box consisting in the inner part of two boxes, being painted on the outside white and green, to distinguish the affirmative from the negative side, is so made that when your hand is in it, no man can see to which of the sides you put the suffrage, nor hear to which it falls, because the pellet being linen, makes no noise. The strategus and the orator having begun, all the rest do the like.

The ballotins having thus gathered the suffrages, bring them before the signory, in whose presence the outward boxes being opened, they take out the inner boxes, whereof the affirmative is white, and the negative green, and pour the white in the bowl N on the right hand, which is white also, and the green into the bowl N on the left, which is also green. These bowls or basins (better represented at the lower end of the figure by h, i) being upon this occasion set before the tables of the secretaries at the upper end N, N, the white on the right hand, and the green on the left, the secretaries on each side number the balls, by which, if they find that the affirmatives amount not to above one-half, they write not the name that was balloted, but if they amount to above one-half, they write it, adding the number of above half the suffrages to which it attained. The first name being written, or laid aside, the next that is put is BB named to be strategus in the second order; the third CC, named to be strategus in the third order; the fourth DD, named to be strategus in the fourth order and he of these four competitors that has most above half in the affirmative, is the magistrate; or if none of them attain to above half, the nomination for that magistracy is to be repeated by such new electors as shall be chosen at the next ballot. And so, as is exemplified in the first magistracy, proceeds the ballot of the rest; first in the first, then in the second, and so in the third and fourth orders.

Now whereas it may happen that AA, for example, being named strategus in the first order, may also be named to the same or some one or more other magistracies in one or more of the other orders; his name is first balloted where it is first written, that is to the more worthy magistracy, whereof if he misses, he is balloted as it comes in course for the next, and so for the rest, if he misses of that, as often as he is named.

And because to be named twice, or oftener, whether to the same or some other magistracy, is the stronger recommendation, the note must not fail to be given upon the name, at the proposition in this manner: AA named to be strategus in the first, and in the second order, or AA named to be strategus in the first and the third, in the first and the fourth, etc. But if he be named to the same magistracy in the first, second, third, and fourth orders, he can have no competitor; wherefore attaining to above half the suffrages, he is the magistrate. Or thus: AA named to be strategus in the first, to be censor in the second, to be orator in the third, and to be commissioner of the seal in the fourth order, or the like in more or fewer orders, in which cases if he misses of the first magistracy, he is balloted to the second; if he misses of the second, to the third; and if he misses of the third, to the fourth.

The ballot not finished before sunset, though the election of the magistrates already chosen be good, voids the election of such competitors as being chosen are not yet furnished with magistracies, as if they had never been named (for this is no juggling-box, but an art that must see the sun), and the ballot for the remaining magistracies is to be repeated the next day by new orders of electors, and such competitors as by them shall be elected. And so in the like manner, if of all the names proposed to the same magistracy, no one of them attains to above half the suffrages in the affirmative.

The senatorian ballot of Oceana being thus described, those of the parish, of the hundred, and of the tribe, being so little different, that in this they are all contained, and by this may be easily understood, are yet fully described, and made plain enough before in the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth orders.

This, therefore, is the general order, whence those branches of the ballot, some whereof you have already seen, are derived; which, with those that follow, were all read and debated in this place at the institution. When my Lord Epimonus de Garrula, being one of the councillors, and having no further patience (though the rulers were composed by the agent of this commonwealth, residing for that purpose at Venice) than to hear the direction for the parishes, stood up and made way for himself in this manner:

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS, MY LORD ARCHON:

"Under correction of Mr. Peregrin, Spy, our very learned agent and intelligencer, I have seen the world a little, Venice, and (as gentlemen are permitted to do) the great Council balloting. And truly I must needs say, that it is for a dumb show the goodliest that I ever beheld with my eyes. You should have some would take it ill, as if the noble Venetians thought themselves too good to speak to strangers, but they observed them not so narrowly. The truth is, they have nothing to say to their acquaintance; or men that are in council sure would have tongues: for a council, and not a word spoken in it, is a contradiction. But there is such a pudder with their marching and countermarching, as, though never a one of them draw a sword, you would think they were training; which till I found that they did it only to entertain strangers, I came from among them as wise as I went thither But in the Parliament of Oceana you had no balls nor dancing, but sober conversation; a man might know and be known, show his parts, and improve them. And now if you take the advice of this same fellow, you will spoil all with his whimsies. Mr. Speaker—cry you mercy, my Lord Archon, I mean—set the wisest man of your house in the great Council of Venice, and you will not know him from a fool. Whereas nothing is more certain than that flat and dull fellows in the judgment of all such as used to keep company with them before, upon election into our house, have immediately chitted like barley in the vat, where it acquires a new spirit, and flowed forth into language, that I am as confident as I am here, if there were not such as delight to abuse us, is far better than Tully's; or, let anybody but translate one of his orations, and speak it in the house, and see if everybody do not laugh at him.

"This is a great matter, Mr. Speaker; they do not cant it with your book-learning, your orbs, your centres, your prime magnitudes, and your nebulones, things I profess that would make a sober man run stark mad to hear them; while we, who should be considering the honor of our country and that it goes now or never upon our hand, whether it shall be ridiculous to all the world, are going to nine-holes or trow madam for our business, like your dumb Venetian, whom this same Sir Politic your resident, that never saw him do anything but make faces, would insinuate to you, at this distance, to have the only knack of state. Whereas if you should take the pains, as I have done, to look a little nearer, you would find these same wonderful things to be nothing else but mere natural fopperies, or capriccios as they call them in Italian, even of the meanest, of that nation. For, put the case you be travelling in Italy, ask your contadino, that is, the next country-fellow you meet, some question, and presently he ballots you an answer with a nod, which is affirmative; or a shake with his head, which is the negative box; or a shrug with his shoulder, which is the bossolo di non sinceri. Good! You will admire Sandys for telling you, that grotta di cane is a miracle: and I shall be laughed at, for assuring you, that it is nothing else but such a damp (continued by the neighborhood of certain sulphur mines) as through accidental heat does sometimes happen in our coalpits. But ingratitude must not discourage an honest man from doing good. There is not, I say, such a tongue-tied generation under heaven as your Italian, that you should not wonder if he makes signs. But our people must have something in their diurnals; we must ever and anon be telling them our minds; or if we be at it when we raise taxes, like those gentlemen with the finger and the thumb, they will swear that we are cutpurses. Come, I know what I have heard them say, when some men had money that wrought hard enough for it; and do you conceive they will be better pleased when they shall be told that upon like occasions you are at mumchance or stool-ball?