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• To His Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland.
• Introduction.
• Postscript.
• Political Discourses Upon Sallust.
• Discourse I.: Of Faction and Parties.
• Sect. I.: How Easily the People Are Led Into Faction, and Kept In It, By Their Own Heat and Prejudices, and the Arts of Their Leaders; How Hard They Are to Be Cured; and With What Partiality and Injustice Each Side Treats the Other.
• Sect. II.: How Apt Parties Are to Err In the Choice of Their Leaders. How Little They Regard Truth and Morality, When In Competition With Party. the Terrible Consequences of All This; Worthy Men Decried and Persecuted; Worthless and Wicked Men Popular and
• Sect. III.: Party Infers Public Weakness: Its Devilish Spirit, and Sirange Blindness: What Public Ruin It Threatens: the People Rarely Interested In It; Yet How Eager and Obstinate In It, and Bewitched By It.
• Discourse II.: Of Patriots and Parricides.
• Sect. I.: How Virtue and Vice, Public Services, and Public Crimes, May Be Said to Bring Their Own Rewards.
• Sect. II.: A Suffering Patriot More Happy Than a Successful Parricide: Public Oppressors Always Unhappy.
• Sect. III.: Cautions Against the Arts and Encroachments of Ambition. the Character of a Patriot, and That of a Parricide. How Much It Is the Duty, How Much the Interest, of All Governors to Be Patriots.
• Sect. IV.: How Apt the World Is to Be Deceived With Glare and Outside, to Admire Prosperous Iniquity, and to Slight Merit In Disgrace. Public Spirit the Duty of All Men. the Evils and Folly Attending the Want of It.
• Sect. V.: Considerations Upon Two Distinguished Romans, Cato and Cæsar; One In the Interest of His Country, the Other In His Own Interest: With the Fate and Issue of Cæsar’s Ambition, to Himself and His Race.
• Discourse III.: Of the Resignation of Sylla.
• Sect. I.: His Policy In Resigning; His Motives and Encouragement to Resign.
• Sect. II.: What Measures, and Precautions, He Had Taken For His Security, After His Resignation.
• Discourse IV.: Of the Pride and Ill Conduct of the Patricians, After the Expulsion of Kings.
• Sect. I.: The Roman Commonwealth Unequally Balanced. the Kingly Power, Upon the Expulsion of Tarquin, Engrossed, and Imperiously Exercised, By the Patricians. the Ill Policy of This to Themselves, the Injustice of It to the Plebeians.
• Sect. II.: The Plebeians, Long Oppressed, Obtain a Remedy By Force; But a Remedy Dangerous to the State.
• Discourse V.: Of the Institution and Power of the Popular Tribunes.
• Sect. I.: The Blind Confidence of the People In the Tribunes: the Ambition, and Violent Attempts, of Those Popular Leaders.
• Sect. II.: Reflections On the Plausible Professions, and Dangerous Conduct, of the Gracchi. Public Reformations, How Cautiously to Be Attempted.
• Sect. III.: The Boundless Power Assumed By the Tribunes: With What Boldness and Iniquity They Exercise It. the People Still Their Dupes.
• Discourse VI.: Of Public Corruption; Particularly That of the Romans.
• Sect. I.: The Interest of Virtue, and of the Public, Every Man’s Interest.
• Sect. II.: The Fatal Tendency of Public Corruption. the Public Sometimes Served By Encouraging Private Corruption. Other Means of Corruption, Beside That of Money. Corruption Sometimes Practised By Such Who Rail At It; In Some Instances, By Good Men, Who
• Sect. III.: Some Corruptions In the State to Be Borne, Rather Than Removed By the Introduction of Greater.
• Sect. IV.: How Hard to Prevent Corruption, Where the Means of Corruption Are Found.
• Sect. V.: Venal Men, With What Ill Grace They Complain of Any Ill Conduct, Or Corruption, In Him Who Bought Them: People Once Corrupted, How Abandoned to All Corruption.
• Sect. VI.: Amongst a Corrupt People, the Most Debauched and Desperate Leaders Are the Most Popular.
• Sect. VII.: When the People Are Thoroughly Corrupt, All True Sense of Liberty Is Lost. Outrage and Debauchery Then Pass For Liberty, Defiance of Law For Public Spirit, and Incendiaries For Patriots.
• Sect. VIII.: The Swift Progress of Corruption In the Roman Republic. Its Final Triumph In the Dissolution of the State.
• Discourse VII.: Of the Corruption In the Roman Seats of Justice, and the Oppression In the Provinces.
• Sect. I.: Of the Extreme Difficulty In Procuring Justice At Rome, Against Any Considerable Criminal.
• Sect. II.: The Wonderful Guilt and Enormities of Verres In Sicily, Confidently Committed, From Assurance of Impunity. Cicero’ S Character of the Judges: Their Bold and Constant Venality.
• Sect. III.: The Virtue of the Old Romans, In the Administration of Justice, and Government of Provinces. Their Posterity, and Successors, How Unlike Them. the Wise and Righteous Administration of Cicero, With That of the Provincial Governors In China
• Discourse VIII.: Of Civil Wars.
• Sect. I.: Who the First Authors of Civil War: What Inslames It Most, and Why It Is So Hard to Be Checked.
• Sect. II.: The Chief Power In a Civil War, Vested In the Generals, Yet Little Reverenced By the Soldiers. Both Soldiers and People Grow Hardened and Ungovernable.
• Sect. III.: The Shocking Corruption, and Dissolute Manners, Produced By Civil War; With the Dreadful Barbarities and Devastations Attending It.
• Sect. IV.: The Soldiery, In a Civil War, Only Consider Themselves: What Low Instruments and Causes Serve to Begin and Continue It.
• Sect. V.: How Hard to Put an End to a Civil War. the Tendency of One, to Produce More. How It Sharpens the Spirits of Men, Shocks the Civil Constitution, and Produces Tyranny.
• Sect. VI.: The Evils, and Sudden Changes, Brought By Civil War Upon Particular Families, and Upon a Country In General; With the Fierce Discontents, and Animosities, and Ill Morals, Which It Entails.
• Sect. VII.: A View of the Affecting Horrors, and Calamities, Produced By Civil War; Taken From the History of Greece.
• Discourse IX.: To His Grace Archibald, Duke of Argyll. of the Mutability of Government.
• Sect. I.: Why Free Governments Are More Changeable In Their Frame, Than Such As Are Single and Arbitrary.
• Sect. II.: The Danger to Free Government From Popular Maxims, and Popular Men; With the Advantages It Furnishes Against Itself.
• Sect. III.: The Signal Power of Enthusiasm, and Pious Imposture, In Settling, Changing, Or Perpetuating Government.
• Sect. IV.: The Surprising, Despotic, But Pacific Government, Established By the Jesuits, By the Force of Imposture, In Paraguay.
• Sect. V.: The Inevitable Danger of Trusting Ecclesiastical Persons With Any Worldly Power, Or Any Share In Government.
• Sect. VI.: The Profession of the Missionaries Abroad; How Notoriously Insincere, and Contradictory to Their Tenets and Practices At Home.
• Sect. VII.: The Duration of Tyrannical Single Governments, and the Changeable Nature of Such As Are Popular and Free, Further Considered and Illustrated.
• Sect. VIII.: An Inquiry, Which Is the Most Equal and Perfect Government: Our Own Proved to Be So.
• Postscript.
• The Conspiracy of Cataline
• To His Grace Evelyn, Duke of Kingston.
• The First Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Spoken In the Senate.
• The Second Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Addressed to the People.
• The Third Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Addressed to the People.
• The Fourth Oration of Cicero Against Catiline. Spoken In the Senate.
• The War Against Jugurtha.
• To the Right Honourable the Earl of Cholmondeley.
• The War Against Jugurtha.
• The Speech of M. Æmilius Lepidus, the Consul, Against Sylla.
• The Speech of L. Philippus Against Lepidus.
• Pompey ’s Letter to the Senate.
• The Oration of Licinius, the Tribune: Addressed to the People.
• The Letter Which Mithridates, King of Pontus, Sent to Arsaces, King of Parthia.
• The First Epistle of Sallust to Caius Julius CÆsar: Concerning the Regulation of the Commonwealth.
• The Second Epistle of Sallust to Caius Julius CÆsar: Concerning the Regulation of the Commonwealth.

TO His ROYAL HIGHNESS THE Duke of CUMBERLAND.

SIR,

OBSERVATIONS upon Government, if they be just, cannot be unacceptable to a Great Subject so nearly related to Sovereignty. Whether the following be so, I humbly leave to Your Discernment; as I do to Your Good-nature, to forgive what was honestly designed, though it should be found weakly executed. All Minds truly Great are truly Humane: I am therefore sure, that though I cannot instruct Your Royal Highness, I shall not offend You.

As it is incumbent upon all Men, especially the Greatest, to support the best Government, Your Royal Highness has convinced all Men how well qualified You are to support Ours. That Ours is the best, I not only sincerely believe, but think demonstrable: Not that it is free from Faults; none ever was: Faults, I doubt, imply Decay, as Decay does a Tendency to perish. Bad Governments are scarce ever to be mended: Good Government, once overthrown, is generally overthrown for ever. What can be a greater Call to prevent such Overthrow, and whatever tends to produce it?

Your Royal Highness has acquired from many Languages, Antient and Modern, whatever becomes a Prince to have acquired: Such exact Care hath been taken of Your Education, such Your own Capacity, and such the Ability of those who were honoured with that important Trust. You can therefore readily perceive, whether my Reasoning, upon the following important Subjects, be useful and solid.

You have always become the high Rank in which You were born; You have adorned it, and shewn how eminently You are like to be, what all Men of distinguished Figure in a great State ought to be, but what too few are, an Ornament to it, and a Champion for it. Few, Sir, of Your high Rank have found at Your Years, fewer have embraced, fewer still have improved, an Opportunity of displaying military Talents, and earned such military Renown.

It hath been the Character of Your illustrious Ancestors, to be warlike: It hath been their Glory to engage young in War, and to defend Right against Violence. The King Your Father distinguished himself at Your Years, as You have done. The King Your Grandfather, in his Fifteenth Year, fought by the Side of the Prince his Father, at the Battle of Treves, where that brave Prince commanded the Confederate Cavalry, animated as well as commanded them, rallied them in Person, vanquished at their Head a Marshal of France, and routed a French Army. In that War that Prince lost many of his Family, and several Brothers, all brave Patriots like himself, exposing their Lives to rescue their common. Country from Usurpation.

That War was like This War. As Your Progenitors behaved, You have behaved; and the same Spirit which fired Them, fired You. Yet, whatever Courage then inspired You, I appeal, Sir, to Your own Heart, whether the chearful Persuasion of a righteous Cause, of relieving the Oppressed, and humbling insolent Oppressors, did not heighten as well as justify Your Ardour in the Day of Battle? This is the genuine Character, This the glorious Employment, of military Virtue: What Pity that it should ever be otherwise employed?

I congratulate You, Sir, upon Your engaging so young, in so just, so interesting a Cause. In Your first Battle You defended Justice, set invaded Nations free, crushed wanton Usurpers, and gained Glory without one Check from Your own Breast, without one Stain upon Your Fame. This was a Pursuit truly Heroic, and suitably crowned with Victory. It was a Cause of final Concernment to all Europe, a Cause worthy of Your princely Zeal, worthy of the Magnanimity of Your Royal Father, worthy of the Spirit with which He, with which You, animated by His Example, espoused it, and made it triumph. If ever Lives so important are to be exposed, it should be upon such an animating, such an alarming Occasion; To assert national Independence, to scatter Intruders, and break general Bondage.

The inglorious Cause of the War on one Side blazoned the Glory of the other, and consequently Your Glory; when all the Outrages of War were committed under Professions of Friendship; a War in Defiance of all the awful Appeals to God and Man, of private Conscience, and public Infamy; a War renewed just after Peace had been purchased at a great Price; a War pushed on, yet the Price of Peace still retained.

I question whether History ever recorded, or the World ever saw, such a daring Insult upon all public Faith and Shame; unless, perhaps, from the same Quarter, where the most solemn Engagements were never binding, Negotiations ever turned into Snares, and Treaties into Mockery.

From the same Quarter it is no Wonder to see Insincerity, and the most pernicious Morals, spread, with melancholy Success, over all Countries who sottishly derive their Modes and Maxims from thence. What can be a greater Source of ill Morals in all Shapes, than an open Contempt of all the Bonds that restrain, of all the Principles that awe, the human Soul? Surely, a People famous for Vanity and want of Truth, afford but a scandalous Pattern for Imitation: Their meanest Actions are Marvels; every Officer a Hero, every Prince more than Man, and their Monarchs Deities. Some of them, who never won a Laurel with their own Sword, have, by the inimitable Flattery of their Subjects, been crowned with more than ever graced the Head of Cæsar, or any of the antient Heroes. When, by Surprize, they had beaten their weaker Neighbours, and made some guilty Acquisitions, more by great Want of Faith, than even by great Armies; all their Depredations have been extolled and hallowed by a hireling Army of Panegyrists, as the Conquests of a Hero, nay, of a Deity.

A Hero without Heroism can only be created by Flatterers without Shame: A King void of Faith can pass for a Hero with none, but Sycophants void of Conscience. Praise not merited, but bought, rarely lives so long as the Buyer, even though he be constantly buying: If it be ingenious Praise, it will rather be the Portion of the Seller: At all Events, it will be for ever stained with the Reproach of being Sold.

I have heard of a Prince represented as sufficient upon Earth to do all that even the Divine Being could do there. The Monks and Poets scarce left Almighty God the Possession of his own Throne, with Ability to rule the Skies. They prophesied, or rather threatened, that their Grand Idol would, one Day, be at least his Coadjutor even Above.

After this, (and this was but One, of a Thousand such Excesses) no Strain of Flattery can be surprising, not even that of Divine Worship publicly paid to his Statue, erected with all the Pomp of Idolatry and holy Ceremonies, Genuflexion, and even devout Prostrations; the Courtiers, the Citizens, the Soldiers, solemnly attending, and awfully adoring this perishable Divinity. This Mockery of Omnipotence was so far from shocking Him whom it most ought to have shocked, that the foremost Idolater in the impious Worship paid to human Frailty was rewarded with a Profusion of Bounty and Honours. Such is the Intoxication of Flattery, when it is most incredible, and even blasphemous! The Title of Immortal was but a moderate Compliment, in Comparison with the rest, and very aukwardly claimed by such who always kept far from Danger.

Such Princes seem to have been insensible, that they were formed of the same Mould with other Men; that their Blood was of the same Colour; themselves liable to the same Infirmities; that with all their Power, however boasted and boundless, they could not prolong Life, much less vanquish Death; that it was their Duty, and best Glory, to shew Tenderness and Benignity to those, who, in the Grave, and beyond it, would be upon a Level with Them; that Flattery is not Fame; that a Throne is only so far glorious, as he who possesseth it acts with general Beneficence; that the most exalted Thrones have been often filled with such as were a Bane and Disgrace to human Nature; that Folly is contemptible, Iniquity detestable, even under the Blaze of a Crown.

Does not Your Royal Highness still find something very instructive, even from these offensive Characters, of Princes swoln to an enormous Size in their own Conceit, by the Poison of Flattery? Such Instances shew, what immoderate Pride may attend moderate Parts; how confidently a human Creature may claim Attributes more than human; that a vehement Appetite for Praise, is no Proof that Praise is due; that a warlike Spirit is not always necessary to do warlike Mischief; and that the World may be greatly disturbed by the meanest Characters in it; a melancholy Consideration, too apparent at most Times, never more than at this Time!

By what You have been doing, and by what You are going to do, Your Royal Highness has convinced the World, that You esteem Royal Birth, without a Display of Royal Qualities, no genuine Warrant for Fame. You know, that Virtue first made Men noble; that it is with Royalty as with Nobility (Royalty being only the most exalted Nobility); when it renounces its Foundress, it debases itself: That the Distinctions of High and Low are not produced from human Nature, but from the Nature of Society; and that the Protection and Defence of Society are the most amiable Grounds of Title and Elevation: That none but a useful and benevolent Character, can be a moral Character; that none but a moral Character, can be truly a great one: That even Courage, without Benevolence and Justice, is as great a Solecism, as Religion without Virtue.

To be brave, is a praise-worthy Character in a Prince; nor is a Prince without Resolution, fit for a princely Place: To be just and brave, is a glorious Character; glorious in a King, glorious in the Son of a King. This Island can boast such Characters, and from them the pleasing Hopes of what may be expected from the rest of the same Stock. Their greatest Danger, and consequently ours, is their being too brave.

It is no Pedantry to quote Latin to one who so well understands it. Non te fortem esse dicimus, sed querimur, was a just Complaint and Caution offered to our glorious King William. I hope his present Majesty, I hope Your Royal Highness, will not disregard the same Caution. That fine Genius, Dr. Thomas Burnet, thought it no Compliment to that great Hero, that he was brave; but complains of him as too brave, by exposing that precious Life, which endangered or secured the Lives of all, as it was itself secure, or in Danger.

Dr. Burnet knew the Value of that Heroic Prince; though All did not. The Malevolence of Party, which distressed his Reign, clouded his living Glory, but hath not been able to contaminate his Fame. Is not this, Sir, a pleasing Reflection, that Justice and Praise, if they do not meet, will, first or last, overtake, solid Merit; and false Merit, however exalted, will, sooner or later, be despised? The Memory of King William fares, as that of great and good Princes ought to fare: It lives in the Voice of Fame; whilst the Memory of despicable Men, great only in Rank and Vanity, however flattered, and even worshiped, in their Life-time, will be despicable, or lost.

I could mention another Instance of the Justice of Time to great and good Characters, but that it might too nearly affect Your Royal Highness: It is that of a great Princess deceased, whose Fame hath grown with Time, and still grows: The sure Sign of high Merit! They who spoke not well of her some Years ago, do it now: They who speak with Indifference of her now, will praise her some Years hence.

The worthless Dead, as they could not expect, neither can they bear Remembrance. True Worth gains by the Grave. The Good which they did, is remembred: The little and great Falsities, raised about them, are forgotten; personal Envy ceases; the Clamour of Party is heard no more: Justice is restored, Truth prevails, and that Virtue, which stands in no Man’s Way, is by all Men applauded.

After Death, Characters are better known. The Good stand the Test of Posterity. The Great and Virtuous continue to be loved and praised. The Great and Bad are hated and blasted. Nero and Messalina are Names of Reproach and Horror, at the End of Seventeen hundred Years: Scipio and Portia are Names still celebrated, at a greater Distance of Time. They themselves indeed feel neither Obloquy, nor Praise: But they will ever live in Record, and reap eternal Renown, or eternal Infamy. It cannot but be a Pleasure to the Public, to see what laudable Claims Your Royal Highness already has to the Favour of Posterity.

Great Heroes, when they prove just Rulers, are a matchless Blessing. Such were Aristides, Epaminondas, the two Scipio’s, with many other Antients. Such was Henry IV. of France: Such was our Edward III. Such our King William. Such Blessing is the more valuable, as it is exceeding rare. Few Heroes prove just Magistrates, and therefore are imperfect Heroes, whatever Custom and Flattery may call them: They generally as little regard the Rights as the Lives of Men. A late celebrated Prince in the North, as warlike a Spirit as ever alarmed or wasted the World, had small Tenderness for Magistracy and Laws, and as little Feeling for human Calamities. Cromwell had great Talents for Government: So had Cæsar. But they were Usurpers; and as the Laws were against Them, They were against the Laws. Demetrius Poliorcetes was a Hero, at least a complete Warrior; but had utter Contempt for the civil Tribunal, and regular Administration of Justice: He knew no Decision of Property, but by the Sword, and was a Soldier in the Seat of Judgment.

Your Royal Highness will own, that the most comprehensive, the most amiable Qualities of a Prince are Justice and Fortitude. Aristotle, I think, places the latter foremost in the Rank of moral Virtues; probably because it implies a Defence of the rest. People, therefore, under a King thus qualified, have reason to think themselves happy: It is a dangerous Symptom where they do not. The best Rulers do not escape popular Censure, however poorly founded. The Athenians reproached the virtuous Cymon for having bad Wine; as the Romans did the great Scipio Africanus for sleeping, having no other Fault to find with him: The Enemies of Pompey upbraided him, for using but one Finger in scratching his Head. Plutarch, who observes this, adds, that the People, growing tired with their old Rulers, often incline to worse, out of pure Wantonness, and from a Taste utterly depraved.

For myself, Sir, I sincerely believe, that as no Prince ever oppressed or wronged his Subjects, without suffering bitter Retribution in some Shape; I am equally persuaded, that no People ever proved ungrateful to a good Prince, without paying dear for it, and punishing themselves. I hope Your Royal Highness will never see Either Case tried; I am satisfied You will contribute to Neither, but (were there Occasion) always delight to prevent Both.

I have great Pleasure in subscribing myself, as I do, with very zealous and very profound Respect,

SIR,

Your most Dutiful,

Most Obedient, and

Most Humble Servant,

T. Gordon.