pected and tumultuous subjects; some are profitable in present, and some may be converted and improved to profit by plantations and good policy. And therefore true consideration of estate can hardly find what to reject, in matter of territory, in any empire, except it be some glorious acquests obtained sometime in the bravery of wars, which cannot be kept without excessive charge and trouble; of which kind were the purchases of King Henry VIII. that of Tournay and that of Bulloigne; and of the same kind are infinite other the like examples almost in every war, which for the most part upon treaties of peace are restored again.1

Thus have we now defined where the largeness of territory addeth true greatness, and where not. The application of these positions unto the particular or supposition of this your majesty's kingdom of Britain, requireth few words. For as I professed in the beginning, I mean not to blazon or amplify, but only to observe and express matter.

First, Your majesty's dominion and empire comprehendeth all the islands of the north-west ocean, where

1 In the manuscript the sentence went on thus; but a line has been drawn across the words. "Or if they be too great to be yielded up or abandoned, then it hath been the policy of the wisest estates, in case where they had impatronized themselves of any province that did border and lie open to the continual infestation of an enemy that was their match in power, rather to erect and place some beneficiary prince that might have dependence upon them, than to hold it and make it good by their own forces: as we find the state of Rome did by the kingdom of Armenia which fronted upon the Parthians, and the counsel of the Turk did by the provinces of Transilvania, Valachia, and Moldavia, that fronted upon the Christians, though that policy hath not sorted very prosperous unto them of late years."

The case of these Turkish provinces, which had recently revolted under Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania, was adduced by Bacon in his speech on the Naturalization of the Scots as an instance of the liability of all unions to break which are not cemented by naturalization.

it is open, until you come to the imbarred or frozen sea towards Iceland; in all which tract it hath no intermixture or interposition of any foreign land, but only of the sea, whereof you are also absolutely master.

Secondly, The quantity and content of these countries is far greater than have been the principal or fundamental regions of the greatest monarchies, greater than Porsia proper, greater than Macedon, greater than Italy. So as here is potentially body and stem enough for Nabuchodonosor's tree, if God should have so ordained,

Thirdy, The prowess and valour of your subjects is able to master and wield far more territory that filieth to their lot. But that followech, ne be spoken of in the pyxw pi

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Wherein no man can be ignorant of the idolatry that is generally committed in these degenerate times to money, as if it could do all things public and private. But leaving popular errors, this is likewise to be examined by reason and examples, and such reason as is no new conceit or invention, but hath formerly been discerned by the sounder sort of judgments. For we see that Solon, who was no contemplative wise man, but a statesman and a lawgiver, used a memorable censure to Crœsus, when he showed him great treasures and store of gold and silver that he had gathered, telling him, that whensoever another should come that had better iron than he, he would be master of all his gold and silver. Neither is the authority of Machiavel to be despised, specially in a matter whereof he saw the evident experience before his eyes in his own times and country, who derideth the received and current opinion and principle of estate taken first from a speech of Mutianus the lieutenant of Vespasian, That money was the sinews of war; affirming that it is a mockery, and that there are no other true sinews of war, but the sinews and muscles of men's arms: and that there was never any war, wherein the more valiant people had to deal with the more wealthy, but that the war, if it were well conducted, did nourish and pay itself. And had he not reason so to think, when he saw a needy and ill-provided army of the French, (though needy rather by negligence than want of means, as the French manner oftentimes is,) make their passage only by the reputation of their swords by their sides undrawn, through the whole length of Italy (at that time abounding in wealth after a long peace), and that without resistance, and to seize and leave what coun

tries and places it pleased them? But it was not the experience of that time alone, but the records of all times that do concur to falsify that conceit, that wars are decided not by the sharpest sword but by the greatest purse. And that very text or saying of Mutianus which was the original of this opinion, is misvouched, for his speech was, Pecuniæ sunt nervi belli civilis; which is true, for that civil wars cannot be between people of differing valour; and again because in them men are as oft bought as vanquished. But in case of foreign wars, you shall scarcely find any of the great monarchies of the world, but have had their foundations in poverty and contemptible beginnings being in that point also conform to the heavenly kingdom, of which it is pronounced. Regnum Dei non vent cum observatione. Persia, a montainous country, and * poor people in comparison of the Medes and other previees which, they subdned. The state of Sparta * state whorem poverty was martel by iw and Ànsnet 2 s, use of gait and site and rich furniture doing interdieren. The star of Maretimi, & sULIE maroonsex unì ghohứ uni the time a Pulin. The stuk a. Kamt, & State Thứ hat noir une pasuri, de The state a the Kirss, whel had ear

inundations of necessitous and indigent people, the one from the East, and the other from the West; that of the Arabians or Saracens, and that of the Goths, Vandals, and the rest: who, as if they had been the true inheritors of the Roman empire, then dying, or at least grown impotent and aged, entered upon Egypt, Asia, Græcia, Afric, Spain, France; coming to these nations, not as to a prey, but as to a patrimony; not returning with spoil, but seating and planting themselves in a number of provinces, which continue their progeny and bear their names till this day. And all these men had no other wealth but their adventures, nor no other title but their swords, nor no other press but their poverty. For it was not with most of those people as it is in countries reduced to a regular civility, that no man almost marrieth except he see he have means to live; but population went on, howsoever sustentation followed; and taught by necessity, as some writers report, when they found themselves surcharged with people they divided their inhabitants into three parts; and one third, as the lot fell, was sent abroad and left to their adventures. Neither is the reason much unlike (though the effect hath not followed in regard of a special diversion) in the nation of the Swisses, inhabiting a country which, in regard of the mountainous situation and the popular estate, doth generate faster than it can sustain. In which people, it well appeared what an authority iron hath over gold at the battle of Granson, at what time one of the principal jewels of Burgundy was sold for twelve pence by a poor Swiss, that knew no more a precious stone than did Esop's cock. And although this people have made no plantations with their arms, yet we see the reputa