him. For he tells us himself, that the fenate by a bold effort having made fome fevere decrees against his proceedings, and against the tribunes, these all left the city, and went over to his party, and confequently along with them the affections and interefts of the people; which is further manifeft from the accounts he gives us of the citizens in feveral towns mutinying against their commanders, and delivering both to his devotion. Befides, Cæ-far's public and avowed pretenfions for beginning the civil war were to reftore the tribunes and the people oppreffed (as he pretended) by the nobles..

This forced Pompey, against his inclinations, upon the neceffity of changing fides, for fear of being forfaken by both; and of clofing in with the fenate and chief magiftrates, by whom he was chofen general against Cæfar..

Thus at length the fenate (at least the primitive part of then, the nobles) under Pompey, and the commons under Cæfar, came to a final decifion of the long quarrels between them. For, I think, the ambition of private men did by no means begin or occafion this war; though civil diffenfions never fail of introducing and spiriting the ambition of private men; who thus become indeed the great inftruments for deciding of fuch quarrels, and at last are fure to feize on the prize. But no man, that fees a flock of vultures hovering over two armies ready to engage, can juftly charge the blood drawn in the battle to them, though the carcafes fall to their fhare. For while the balance of power is equally held, the ambition of private men, whether orators or great commanders, gives. neither danger nor fear, nor can poffibly inflave their country; but that once broken, the divided parties are forced to unite each to its head, under whofe conduct or fortune one fide is at first victorious, and at last both are flaves. And to put it paft difpute, that this entire fubverfion of the Roman liberty and constitution was altogether owing to thofe meatures, which had broke the balance between the patricians and plebeians, whereof the ambition of particular men was but an effect and confequence, we need only confider, that when the uncorrupted part of the fenate had, by the death of Cæfar, made one great effort to refore their former state and liberty, the fuccefs did not answer their hopes, but that whole affembly

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affembly was fo funk in its authority, that thofe patriots. were forced to fly, and give way to the madness of the people, who by their own difpofitions,. ftirred up with the harangues of their orators, were now wholly bent upon fingle and defpotic flavery.. Elfe, how could fuch a profligate as Antony, or a boy of eighteen, like Octavius, ever dare to dream of giving the law to fach an empire and people? wherein the latter fucceeded, and entailed the vileft tyranny, that heaven in its anger ever inflicted on a corrupt and poisoned people. And this, with fo little appearance at Cæfar's death, that when Cicero wrote to Brutus, how he had prevailed by his credit with Octavius to promife hin [Brutus] pardon and fecurity for his perfon, that great Roman received the notice with the utmost indignity, and returned Cicero an anfxer, yet upon record, fall of the highest reféntment and contempt for fuch an offer, and from fuch a hand.

Here ended all fhew or fhadow of liberty in Rome. Here was the repofitory of all the wife contentions and ftruggles for power between the nobles and commons, lapped up fafely in the bofom of a Nero and a Caligula, a Tiberius and a Domitian.

Let us now fee from this deduction of particular impeachments, and general difenfions in Greece and Rome, what conclufions may naturally be formed for instruction of any other state, that may haply upon many points labour under the like circumftances.

UPO

CHA P. IV.

PON the fubject of impeachments we may obferve, that the cuftom of accufing the nobles to the people, either by themselves, or their orators, (now ftyled an impeachment in the name of the commons), hath been very ancient both in Greece and Rome, as well as Carthage; and therefore may seem to be the inherent right of a free people, nay, perhaps it is really fo: but then it is to beconfidered, firft, that this custom was peculiar to repu blics, or fuch states where the administration lay principally in the hands of the commons, and ever raged more or less according to their incroachments upon abfolute power:

power; having been always looked upon, by the wifeft men and best authors of those times, as an effect oflicentioufnefs, and not of liberty; a diftinétion, which no multitude, either reprefented or collective, hath been at any time very nice in obferving. However, perhaps this cuftom in a popular state of impeaching particular men may feem to be nothing elfe, but the people's chufing upon occafion to exercife their own jurifdiction in perfon; as if a king of England fhould fit as chief justice in his court of king's bench; which, they Tay, in former times he fometimes did. But in Sparta, which was called a kingly government, though the people were perfectly free, yet because the administration was in the two kings and the ephori with the affiftance of the fenate, we read of no impeachments by the people; nor was the process against great men, either upon account of ambition or ill conduct, though it reached fometimes to kings themselves, ever formed that way, as I can recollect, but only paffed through thofe hands, where the administration lay. So likewife during the regal government in Rome, though it was inftituted a mixed monarchy, and the people made great advances in power, yet I do not remember to have read of one impeachment from the commons against a patrician, until the confular state began, and the people had made great incroachments upon the administration.

Another thing to be confidered is, that allowing this right of impeachment to be as inherent as they please, yet, if the commons have been perpetually mistaken in the merits of the causes and the perfons, as well as in the confequences of fuch impeachments upon the peace of the ftate, we cannot conclude less, than that the commons in Greece and Rome (whatever they may be in other ftates) were by no means qualified either as profecutors or judges in fuch matters; and therefore that it would have been prudent, to have referved these privileges dormant, never to be produced but upon very great and urging occa fions, where the state is in apparent danger, the univerfal body of the people in clamours against the adininiftration, and no other remedy in view. But for a few popular orators or tribunes, upon the fcore of perfona! piques; or to employ the pride they conceive in feeing themfelves at the head of a party; or as a method for advancement ;

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or moved by certain powerful arguments that could make Demofthenes philippize for fuch men, I fay, when the ftate would of itfelf gladly be quiet, and hath, befides, affairs of the last importance upon the anvil, to impeach Miltiades after a great naval victory, for not pursu ing the Ferfian feet to impeach Arifides, the perfon mot verfed among them in the knowledge and practice of their laws, for a blind fufpicion of his acting in an arbitrary way (that is, as they expound it, not in concert with the people): to impeach Fericles, after all his fervices, for a few inconfiderable accounts; or to impeach Fhocion, who had been guilty of no other crime but negotiating a treaty for the peace and fecurity of his country : what could the continuance of fuch proceedings end in, but the utter difcouragement of all virtuous actions and perfons, and confequently in the ruin of a ftate? therefore the hiftorians of those ages feldom fail to fet this matter in all its lights, leaving us the higheft and most honourable ideas of those perfons, who fuffered by the perfecution of the people, together with the fatal confequences they had, and how the perfecutors feldom failed to repent, when it was too late.

Thefe impeachınents perpetually falling upon many of the best men both in Greece and Rome, are a cloud of witneffes, and examples enough to difcourage men of virtue and abilities from engaging in the fervice of the public; and help on the other fide to introduce the ambitious, the covetous, the fuperficial, and the ill-defigning; who are as apt to be bold, and forward, and meddling, as the former are to be cautious, and modest, and referved. This was fo well known in Greece, that an eagerness after employments in the state was looked upon by wife men, as the worst title a man could fet up; and made Plato fay, That if all men were as good as they ought, the quarrel in a commonwealth would be not as it is now, who should be minifiers of flate, but whe

Though in other paffages Lord Orford's character is fuppofed to be drawn under the name of Themiftocles, yet he feems to be reprefented by Miltiades here; for Themistocles was not impeached at all. See p. 20. Hawkef.

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fhould not be fo. And Socrates * is introduced by Xenophon feverely chiding a friend of his for not entering into the public fervice, when he was every way qualified for it: fuch a backwardness there was at that time among good men to engage with an ufurping people, and a fet of pragmatical ambitious orators. And Diodorus tells ust, that when the petalism was erected at Syracuse, in imitation of the of racism at Athens, it was fo notorioufly levelled against all who had either birth or merit to recommend them, that whoever poffeffed either, withdrew for fear, and would have no concern in public affairs. So that the people themselves were forced to abrogate it for fear of bringing all things into confufion.

There is one thing more to be observed, wherein all the popular impeachments in Greece and Rome feem to have agreed; and that was, a notion they had of being concerned in point of honour to condemn whatever perfon they impeached, however frivolous the articles were, upon which they began, or however weak the furmifes, whereon they were to proceed in their proofs. For, to conceive that the body of the people could be mistaken, was an indignity not to be imagined, till the confequences had convinced them, when it was paft remedy. And I look upon this as a fate, to which all popular accufations are fubject; though I should think that the faying, Vox populi vox Dei, ought to be understood of the univerfal bent and current of a people, not of the bare majority of a few reprefentatives, which is often procured by little arts, and great industry and application, wherein thofe

Oftracism was a kind of popular fentence to banishment paffed against men whose personal influence, from whatever cause, was thought to render them dangerous to the ftate; the votes were given by writing the name of the perfon on a shell by the Greek's, called öspaxov, and casting the shell into an urn.

Petalifm was a sentence nearly of the same kind; and as oftracim was denominated from the hell on which the name of the fufpected party was written, petalism took its name from wisanov, a leaf, which the Syracufrans ufed for the same pur pole. Hawkef.

VOL. II.

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