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He might as well have said that the estates of particular men in a commonwealth are not the riches of particular men, but the riches of the commonwealth; for equality of estates causes equality of power, and equality of power is the liberty, not only of the commonwealth, but of every man.
He who grieves over the battle of Zama should carry on his thoughts to a period thirty years later, when Hannibal must in the course of nature have been dead, and consider how the isolated Phoenician city of Carthage was fitted to receive and to consolidate the civilization of Greece, or by its laws and institutions to bind together barbarians of every race and language into an organized empire, and prepare them for becoming, when that empire was dissolved, the free members of the commonwealth of Christian Europe."
The regulations of a new mining camp were fraught with as great interest to him as the accumulated precedents of the English Constitution, and he had investigated the rulings of the mixed courts of Egypt and of the government of the little Dutch republic near the Cape with as keen an effort to comprehend as he had shown in studying the laws of the American colonies and of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
His Imperialism, while it gave him the vision of a commonwealth of nations within the British Possessions, did not blind him to the larger vision of the unity of English-speaking peoples, and to the still nobler vision of universal brotherhood of which his fellow-countryman sang under conditions of unrest very similar to our own:
It was the so-called schismatics, ranters, and levellers, the disputatious corporals and Anabaptist musketeers, the dread and abhorrence alike of prelate and presbyter, who, under the lead of Cromwell, "Ruined the great work of time, And cast the kingdoms old Into another mould." The Commonwealth was the work of the laity, the sturdy yeomanry and God- fearing commoners of England.
A striking illustration of the gradual encroachments of reason is the change which was silently wrought in public opinion on the subject of witchcraft. The famous efforts of James I to carry out the Biblical command, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, were outdone by the zeal of the Puritans under the Commonwealth to suppress the wicked old women who had commerce with Satan.
Bernard, our good patron, be with us! in all this same town I have not seen one poor lane of roasting cooks; and yet I have not a little looked about and sought for so necessary a part of a commonwealth: ay, and I dare assure you that I have pried up and down with the exactness of an informer; as ready to number, both to the right and left, how many, and on what side, we might find most roasting cooks, as a spy would be to reckon the bastions of a town.
And since such attachment and devotion cannot be looked for from any save your own subjects, you must, if you would preserve your dominions, or maintain your commonwealth or kingdom, arm the natives of your country; as we see to have been done by all those who have achieved great things in war.
Let him only see some advantage for himself to induce to assist you more powerfully. Suppose you should give us what you have and what you may acquire in Flanders with the promise to treat secretly with us when the time comes. Could you do that?" The envoy replied that this would be tearing the commonwealth in pieces. If places were given away, the jealousy of the English would be excited.
V. The Peoples of the North VI. The Attempt of Marius at Revolution and the Attempt of Drusus at Reform VII. The Revolt of the Italian Subjects, and the Sulpician Revolution VIII. The East and King Mithradates IX. Cinna and Sulla X. The Sullan Constitution XI. The Commonwealth and Its Economy XII. Nationality, Religion, and Education XIII. Literature and Art The Revolution
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