nevertheless, more light may be taken from that which followeth,) and let us speak first of the materials of seditions, then of the motives of them, and thirdly of the remedies.
Concerning the materials of seditions, it is a thing well to be considered; for the surest way to prevent seditions, (if the times do bear it,) is to take away the matter of them; for if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds, much poverty and much discontentment. It is certain, so many overthrown estates, so many votes for troubles. Lucan noteth well the state of Rome before the civil war,
"Hinc usura vorax, rapidumque in tempore fœnus,
Hinc concussa tides, et multis utile bellum."
This same "multus utile bellum," is an assured and infallible sign of a state disposed to seditions and troubles; and if this poverty and broken estate in the better sort be joined with a want and necessity in the mean people, the danger is imminent and great; for the rebellions of the belly are the worst. As for discontentments, they are in the politic body like humours in the natural, which are apt to gather a preternatural heat and to inflame; and let no prince measure the danger of them by this, whether they be just or unjust: for that were to imagine people to be too reasonable, who do often spurn at their own good; nor yet by this, whether the griefs whereupon they rise be in fact great or small; for they are the most dangerous discontentments where the fear is greater than the feeling: "Dolendi modus, timendi non item:" besides, in great oppressions, the same things that provoke the patience, do withal mate the courage: but in fears it is not so; neither let any prince, or state, be secure concerning discontentments because they have been often, or have been long, and yet no peril hath ensued; for as it is true that every vapour, or fume, doth not turn into a storm, so it is nevertheless true, that storms, though they blow over divers times, yet may fall at last; and as the Spanish proverb noteth well, "The cord breaketh at the last by the weakest pull."
The causes and motions of seditions are innovation in religion, taxes, alteration of laws and customs, breaking of privileges, general oppression, advancement of umvorthy persons, strangers, dearths, disbanded soldiers, factions grown desperate; and whatsoever in offending people joineth and knitteth them in a common cause.
For the remedies, there may be some general preservatives, whereof we will speak: as for the just cure it must answer to the particular disease; and so be left to counsel rather than rule. The first remedy, or prevention, is to remove, by all means possible, that material cause of sedition whereof we speak, which is, want and poverty in the estate; to which purpose serveth the opening and well-balancing of trade; the cherishing of manufactures; the banishing of idleness; the repressing of waste and excess, by sumptuary laws; the improvement and husbanding of the soil; the regulating of prices of things vendible; the moderating of taxes and tributes, and the like. Generally, it is to be foreseen that the population of a kingdom (especially if it be not mown down by wars) do not exceed the stock of the kingdom which should maintain them: neither is the population to be reckoned only by number; for a smaller number that spend more and earn less, do wear out an estate sooner than a greater number that live lower and gather more; therefore the multiplying of nobility,[1] and other degrees of quality, in an overproportion to the common people, doth speedily bring a state to necessity; and so doth likewise an overgrown clergy, for they bring nothing to the stock; and, in like manner, when more are bred scholars than preferments can take off.
It is likewise to be remembered, that forasmuch as the increase of any estate must be upon the foreigner, (for whatsoever is somewhere gotten, is somewhere lost,) there be but three things which one nation selleth unto another; the commodity, as nature yieldeth it; the manufacture; and the victure, or carriage; so that if these three wheels go, wealth will flow as in a spring tide. And it cometh many times to pass, that "materiam superabit opus," that the work and carriage is more worth than the material, and enricheth a state more; as is notably seen in the Low Countrymen, who have the best mines above ground in the world.
Above all things, good policy is to be used, that the treasure and monies in a state be not gathered into few hands; for, otherwise, a stale may have a great stock, and yet starve: and money is like muck, not good except it be spread. This is done chiefly by suppressing, or, at the least, keeping a strait hand upon the devouring trades of usury, engrossing, great pasturages, and the like.
For removing discontentments, or at least the danger of them, there is in every state (as we know) two portions of subjects, the nobles and the commonality. When one of these is discontent, the danger is not great; for common people are of slow motion, if they be not excited by the greater sort; and the greater sort are of small strength, except the multitude be apt and ready to move of themselves: then is the danger, when the greater sort do but wait for the troubling of the waters amongst the meaner, that then they may declare themselves. The poets feign that the rest of the gods would have bound Jupiter, which he hearing of, by the counsel of Pallas, sent for Briareus, with his hundred hands, to come in to his aid: an emblem, no doubt, to show how safe it is for monarchs to make sure of the good will of common people.
