some banished nobleman is to be supported underhand (for by the League it
cannot be done avowedly) who has a pretension to the crown, by which
means that suspected prince may be kept in awe. Now when things are in
so great a fermentation, and so many gallant men are joining counsels how
to carry on the war, if so mean a man as I should stand up and wish them
to change all their counsels--to let Italy alone and stay at home, since
the kingdom of France was indeed greater than could be well governed by
one man; that therefore he ought not to think of adding others to it; and
if, after this, I should propose to them the resolutions of the
Achorians, a people that lie on the south-east of Utopia, who long ago
engaged in war in order to add to the dominions of their prince another
kingdom, to which he had some pretensions by an ancient alliance: this
they conquered, but found that the trouble of keeping it was equal to
that by which it was gained; that the conquered people were always either
in rebellion or exposed to foreign invasions, while they were obliged to
be incessantly at war, either for or against them, and consequently could
never disband their army; that in the meantime they were oppressed with
taxes, their money went out of the kingdom, their blood was spilt for the
glory of their king without procuring the least advantage to the people,
who received not the smallest benefit from it even in time of peace; and
that, their manners being corrupted by a long war, robbery and murders
everywhere abounded, and their laws fell into contempt; while their king,
distracted with the care of two kingdoms, was the less able to apply his
mind to the interest of either. When they saw this, and that there would
be no end to these evils, they by joint counsels made an humble address
to their king, desiring him to choose which of the two kingdoms he had
the greatest mind to keep, since he could not hold both; for they were
too great a people to be governed by a divided king, since no man would
willingly have a groom that should be in common between him and another.
Upon which the good prince was forced to quit his new kingdom to one of