And if there have been, as was shown, a kingdom of the
Goths in Spain, and of the Vandals in Asia, consisting of a
single person and a Parliament (taking a parliament to be a
council of the people only, without a nobility), it is expressly
said of those councils that they deposed their kings as often as
they pleased; nor can there be any other consequence of such a
government, seeing where there is a council of the people they do
never receive laws, but give them; and a council giving laws to a
single person, he has no means in the world whereby to be any
more than a subordinate magistrate but force: in which case he is
not a single person and a parliament, but a single person and an
army, which army again must be planted as has been shown, or can
be of no long continuance.
It is true, that the provincial balance bring in nature quite
contrary to the national, you are no way to plant a provincial
army upon dominion. But then you must have a native territory in
strength, situation, or government, able to overbalance the
foreign, or you can never hold it. That an army should in any
other case be long supported by a mere tax, is a mere fancy as
void of all reason and experience as if a man should think to
maintain such a one by robbing of orchards; for a mere tax is but
pulling of plum-trees, the roots whereof are in other men's
grounds, who, suffering perpetual violence, come to hate the
author of it; and it is a maxim, that no prince that is hated by
his people can be safe.
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