JiSSA YS CIVIL AND MORAL. 



The causes and motives of seditions are, innovation in religion, 

 taxes, alteration of laws and customs, breaking of privileges, general 

 oppression, advancement of unworthy persons, strangers, dearths, dis 

 banded soldiers, factions grown desperate ; and whatsoever in offending 

 people joincth and knitteth them in a common cause. 



For the remedies, there may be some general preservative, whereof 

 \vc will speak ; as for the just cure, it must answer to the particular 

 disease : and so be left to counsel, rather than rule. 



The first remedy or prevention, is to remove by all means possible 

 that material cause of sedition, whereof we spake ; which is want and 

 poverty in the estate. To which purpose scrveth the opening and well 

 balancing of trade ; the cherishing of manufactures ; the banishing of 

 idleness ; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary laws ; the 

 improvement and husbanding of the soil ; the regulating of prices of 

 things vendible : the moderating of taxes and tributes, and the like. 

 Generally it is to be foreseen, that the population of a kingdom, espe 

 cially if it be not mown down by wars, do not exceed the stock of the 

 kingdom which should maintain them. Neither is the population to 

 be reckoned only by number : for a smaller number, that spend more, 

 and earn less, do wear out an estate sooner than a greater number 

 that live lower and gather more. Therefore the multiplying of nobility, 

 and other degrees of quality, in an over proportion to the common 

 people, doth speedily bring a state to necessity : and so doth likewise 

 an overgrown clergy ; for they bring nothing to the stock : and in 

 like manner, when more are bred scholars, than preferments can 

 take off. 



It is likewise to be remembered, that forasmuch as the Increase of 

 any estate must be upon the foreigner, for whatsover is somewhere 

 gotten is somewhere lost, there be but three things which one nation 

 seHcth unto another ; the commodity as nature yieldcth it ; the manu 

 facture ; and the vecture or carriage. So that if these three wheels 

 go, wealth will flow as in a spring tide. And it cometh many times to 

 pass, that &quot; materiam supcrabit opus,&quot; that the work and carriage is 

 more worth than the material, and cnrichcth a state more ; as is not 

 ably seen in the Low-Countrymen, who have the best mines above 

 ground in the world. 



Above all things good policy is to be used, that the treasure and 

 moneys in a state be not gathered into few hands. For otherwise a 

 state may have a great stock, and yet starve. And money is like muck, 

 not good except it be spread. This is done chicily by suppressing, or 

 at the least keeping a strait hand upon, the devouring trades of usury, 

 ingrossing, great pasturages, and the like. 



For removing discontentments, or at least the danger of them : 

 there is in every state, as we know, two portions of subjects, the 

 noblesse, and the commonalty. When one of these is discontent, the 

 danger is not great : for common people arc of slow motion, if they 

 be not excited by the greater sort ; and the greater sort arc of small 

 strength, except the multitude be apt and ready to move of themselves. 

 Then is the danger, when the greater sort do but wait for the troubling 



