My Lord Archon's arrival being known, the signory,
accompanied by the tribunes, repaired to him, with the news he
had already heard by the herald, to which my lord strategus added
that his highness could not doubt upon the demonstrations given,
but the minds of men were firm in the opinion that he could be no
seeker of himself in the way of earthly pomp and glory, and that
the gratitude of the Senate and the people could not therefore be
understood to have any such reflection upon him. But so it was,
that in regard of dangers abroad, and parties at home, they durst
not trust themselves without a standing army, nor a standing army
in any man's hands but those of his highness.
The Archon made answer, that he ever expected this would be
the sense of the Senate and the people; and this being their
sense, he should have been sorry they had made choice of any
other than himself for a standing general; first, because it
could not have been more to their own safety, and secondly
because so long as they should have need of a standing army, 'his
work was, not done, that he would not dispute against the
judgment of the Senate and the people, nor ought that to be.
Nevertheless, he made little doubt but experience would show
every party their own interest in this government, and that
better improved than they could expect from any other; that men's
animosities should overbalance their interest for any time was
impossible, that humor could never be lasting, nor through the
constitution of the government of any effect at the first charge.
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