can send them out and keep them there, and he offends a minority only of
the citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to give them to the new
inhabitants; and those whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered,
are never able to injure him; whilst the rest being uninjured are easily
kept quiet, and at the same time are anxious not to err for fear it
should happen to them as it has to those who have been despoiled. In
conclusion, I say that these colonies are not costly, they are more
faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as has been said, being
poor and scattered, cannot hurt. Upon this, one has to remark that men
ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge
themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot;
therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a
kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.

But in maintaining armed men there in place of colonies one spends much
more, having to consume on the garrison all the income from the
state, so that the acquisition turns into a loss, and many more are
exasperated, because the whole state is injured; through the shifting
of the garrison up and down all become acquainted with hardship, and
all become hostile, and they are enemies who, whilst beaten on their
own ground, are yet able to do hurt. For every reason, therefore, such
guards are as useless as a colony is useful.

Again, the prince who holds a country differing in the above respects
ought to make himself the head and defender of his less powerful
neighbours, and to weaken the more powerful amongst them, taking care
that no foreigner as powerful as himself shall, by any accident, get
a footing there; for it will always happen that such a one will be
introduced by those who are discontented, either through excess of
ambition or through fear, as one has seen already. The Romans were