The balance of foreign or provincial empire is of a contrary nature. A man may as well say that it is unlawful for him who has made a fair and honest purchase to have tenants, as for a government that has made a just progress and enlargement of itself to have provinces. But how a province may be justly acquired appertains to another place. In this I am to show no more than how or upon what kind of balance it is to be held; in order whereto I shall first show upon what kind of balance it is not to be held. It has been said, that national or independent empire, of what kind soever, is to be exercised by them that have the proper balance of dominion in the nation; wherefore provincial or dependent empire is not to be exercised by them that have the balance of dominion in the province, because that would bring the government from provincial and dependent, to national and independent. Absolute monarchy, as that of the Turks, neither plants its people at home nor abroad, otherwise than as tenants for life or at will; wherefore its national and provincial government is all one. But in governments that admit the citizen or subject to dominion in lands, the richest are they that share most of the power at home; whereas the richest among the provincials, though native subjects, or citizens that have been transplanted, are least admitted to the government abroad;for men, like flowers or roots being transplanted, take after the soil wherein they grow. Wherefore the Commonwealth of Rome, by planting colonies of its citizens within the bounds of Italy, took the best way of propagating itself, and naturalizing the country; whereas if it had planted such colonies without the bounds of Italy it would have alienated the citizens, and given a root to liberty abroad, that might have sprung up foreign or savage, and hostile to her: wherefore it never made any such dispersion of itself and its strength, till it was under the yoke of the Emperors, who, disburdening themselves of the people, as having less apprehension of what they could do abroad than at home, took a contrary course.
The Mamelukes (which, till any man show me the contrary, Ishall presume to have been a commonwealth consisting of an army, whereof the common soldier was the people, the commissioned officer the Senate, and the general the prince) were foreigners, and by nation Circassians, that governed Egypt; wherefore these never durst plant themselves upon dominion, which growing naturally up into the national interest, must have dissolved the foreign yoke in that province.
The like in some sort may be said of Venice, the government whereof is usually mistaken; for Venice, though it does not take in the people, never excluded them. This commonwealth, the orders whereof are the most democratical or popular of all others, in regard of the exquisite rotation of the Senate, at the first institution took in the whole people; they that now live under the government without participation of it, are such as have since either voluntarily chosen so to do, or were subdued by arms. Wherefore the subject of Venice is governed by provinces, and the balance of dominion not standing, as has been said, with provincial government; as the Mamelukes durst not cast their government upon this balance in their provinces, lest the national interest should have rooted out the foreign, so neither dare the Venetians take in their subjects upon this balance, lest the foreign interest should root out the national (which is that of the 3,000 now governing), and by diffusing the commonwealth throughout her territories, lose the advantage of her situation, by which in great part it subsists. And such also is the government of the Spaniard in the Indies, to which he deputes natives of his own country, not admitting the creoles to the government of those provinces, though descended from Spaniards.
But if a prince or a commonwealth may hold a territory that is foreign in this, it may be asked why he may not hold one that is native in the like manner? To which I answer, because he can hold a foreign by a native territory, but not a native by a foreign; and as hitherto I have shown what is not the provincial balance, so by this answer it may appear what it is, namely, the overbalance of a native territory to a foreign; for as one country balances itself by the distribution of property according to the proportion of the same, so one country overbalances another by advantage of divers kinds. For example, the Commonwealth of Rome overbalanced her provinces by the vigor of a more excellent government opposed to a crazier. Or by a more exquisite militia opposed to one inferior in courage or discipline. The like was that of the Mamelukes, being a hardy people, to the Egyptians, that were a soft one. And the balance of situation is in this kind of wonderful effect; seeing the King of Denmark, being none of the most potent princes, is able at the Sound to take toll of the greatest; and as this King, by the advantage of the land, can make the sea tributary, so Venice, by the advantage of the sea, in whose arms she is impregnable, can make the land to feed her gulf. For the colonies in the Indies, they are yet babes that cannot live without sucking the breasts of their mother cities, but such as I mistake if when they come of age they do not wean themselves; which causes me to wonder at princes that delight to be exhausted in that way. And so much for the principles of power, whether national or provincial, domestic or foreign; being such as are external, and founded in the goods of fortune.
