his friends (who was not long after dethroned), and to be contented with
his old one. To this I would add that after all those warlike attempts,
the vast confusions, and the consumption both of treasure and of people
that must follow them, perhaps upon some misfortune they might be forced
to throw up all at last; therefore it seemed much more eligible that the
king should improve his ancient kingdom all he could, and make it
flourish as much as possible; that he should love his people, and be
beloved of them; that he should live among them, govern them gently and
let other kingdoms alone, since that which had fallen to his share was
big enough, if not too big, for him:--pray, how do you think would such a
speech as this be heard?"

"I confess," said I, "I think not very well."

"But what," said he, "if I should sort with another kind of ministers,
whose chief contrivances and consultations were by what art the prince's
treasures might be increased? where one proposes raising the value of
specie when the king's debts are large, and lowering it when his revenues
were to come in, that so he might both pay much with a little, and in a
little receive a great deal. Another proposes a pretence of a war, that
money might be raised in order to carry it on, and that a peace be
concluded as soon as that was done; and this with such appearances of
religion as might work on the people, and make them impute it to the
piety of their prince, and to his tenderness for the lives of his
subjects. A third offers some old musty laws that have been antiquated
by a long disuse (and which, as they had been forgotten by all the
subjects, so they had also been broken by them), and proposes the levying
the penalties of these laws, that, as it would bring in a vast treasure,
so there might be a very good pretence for it, since it would look like
the executing a law and the doing of justice. A fourth proposes the