not excepting the very persons of his subjects; and that no man has any
other property but that which the king, out of his goodness, thinks fit
to leave him. And they think it is the prince's interest that there be
as little of this left as may be, as if it were his advantage that his
people should have neither riches nor liberty, since these things make
them less easy and willing to submit to a cruel and unjust government.
Whereas necessity and poverty blunts them, makes them patient, beats them
down, and breaks that height of spirit that might otherwise dispose them
to rebel. Now what if, after all these propositions were made, I should
rise up and assert that such counsels were both unbecoming a king and
mischievous to him; and that not only his honour, but his safety,
consisted more in his people's wealth than in his own; if I should show
that they choose a king for their own sake, and not for his; that, by his
care and endeavours, they may be both easy and safe; and that, therefore,
a prince ought to take more care of his people's happiness than of his
own, as a shepherd is to take more care of his flock than of himself? It
is also certain that they are much mistaken that think the poverty of a
nation is a mean of the public safety. Who quarrel more than beggars?
who does more earnestly long for a change than he that is uneasy in his
present circumstances? and who run to create confusions with so desperate
a boldness as those who, having nothing to lose, hope to gain by them? If
a king should fall under such contempt or envy that he could not keep his
subjects in their duty but by oppression and ill usage, and by rendering
them poor and miserable, it were certainly better for him to quit his
kingdom than to retain it by such methods as make him, while he keeps the
name of authority, lose the majesty due to it. Nor is it so becoming the
dignity of a king to reign over beggars as over rich and happy subjects.
And therefore Fabricius, a man of a noble and exalted temper, said 'he
would rather govern rich men than be rich himself; since for one man to
abound in wealth and pleasure when all about him are mourning and