An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations Part 9

"Take," says that able and profound writer, "this compendium of the Roman history. The Romans subdued all nations by their maxims; but, when they had succeeded in doing so, they could no longer preserve their republican form of government. It was necessary to change the plan, and maxims contrary to their first, being introduced, they were divested of all their grandeur."

This was literally the case; but then it is clear that this compendium, only includes the secondary causes, and their effects; for the perseverance in maxims till they had obtained their end, and then changing

{38} This is exactly one of the charges brought against the Carthaginians in the last Punic war.

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them, which was not an act of the will, must have been occasioned by some cause inherent in their situation, which had gradually changed.

In searching for this cause we shall be very much a.s.sisted, and the conclusion will be rendered more certain, by observing in what particular circ.u.mstances, they resembled other nations who had undergone a similar changes. =sic=

In doing this, we find the inquiry wonderfully abridged indeed, and the conclusion reduced nearly to a mathematical certainty, by observing that the change of maxims, that is to say, the change in ways of thinking, whenever it has taken place, has followed soon after the introduction of wealth and refinement, which change manners, and consequently maxims.

Wealth, acquired by conquest, was incompatible with that austere virtue and independent principle which form the basis of republican prosperity.

As all public employments were obtained by the favour of the people; and as all wealth and power were obtained by the channels of public employment; bribery and corruption, which cannot take place in a poor republic, became very common in this wealthy one; so that this republican government, so const.i.tuted, lost all those advantages it possessed while it was poor.

Had the murderers of Julius Caesar, either understood the real corruption of the commonwealth, or foreseen that a new master would rise up, they would never have destroyed that admirable man. Had Rome not been ready to receive a master, Julius Caesar, with all his ambition, would never have grasped at the crown.

In nations that obtain wealth by commerce, manufactures, or any other means than by conquests, the corruption of the state is not naturally so great. The wealth originates in the people, and not in the state; and, besides that they are more difficult to purchase, there is less means of doing so, and less inducement; neither can they, being the sources of wealth themselves, become so idle and corrupted. {39}

{39} The wild and ungovernable direction that the French revolution took originated chiefly in the creation of a.s.signats, which not only exempted the people from taxes at first, but had the effect of producing an artificial and temporary degree of wealth, that [end of page #41] enabled vast numbers, either in the pay of others, or at their own expense, to make cabals and politics their whole study. Rome never was in such a licentious state, because, before the citizens got into that situation, the military power was established.

In the ancient nations that fell one after another, we have seen the young and vigorous subdue the more wealthy and luxurious; or we have seen superior art and skill get the better of valour and ignorance; but, in the fall of the Roman empire, the art and skill were all on the side of those who fell, and the vigour of those who conquered was not so powerful an agent as the very low and degraded state into which the masters of the world had themselves fallen.

It is by no means consistent with the plan of this work, nor is it any way necessary for the inquiry, to enter into the particular details of the degraded and miserable state to which the Romans were reduced; insomuch, that those who emigrated previously to its fall, and settled amongst barbarous nations, found themselves more happy than they had been, being freed from taxation and a variety of oppressions.

Though the Roman people are, of all others, those whose rise and fall are the most distinctly known; yet, in some circ.u.mstances, their case does not apply to nations in general. Had they cultivated commerce and the arts, with the same success that they pursued conquest, they must have become wealthy at a much earlier period, and they would not have found themselves in possession of an almost boundless empire, composed of different nations, subdued by force, and requiring force to be preserved.

The decline of nations, who become rich by means of industry, may be natural; but, the fall of a nation, owing its greatness to the subjugation of others, must be necessary. Human affairs are too complicated and varied to admit of perfect equality, and the relative situations of mankind are always changing; yet, in some instances, perhaps, changes might be obviated, or protracted, by timely preventives. But there is no possibility of keeping them long in so unnatural a situation, as that of a nation of wealthy and idle people, ruling over and keeping in subjection others who are more hardy, poorer, and more virtuous, than themselves.

Before the western empire fell, the following causes of its weakness were arrived at a great height. [end of page #42]

Manners were corrupted to the highest degree; there was neither public nor private virtue; intrigue, cabal, and money, did every thing.

Property was all in the hands of a few; the great ma.s.s of the people were wretchedly poor, mutinous, and idle.

Italy was unable to supply its inhabitants with food. The lands were in the possession of men, who, by rapacity in the provinces, had acquired large incomes, and to whom cultivation was no object; the country was either laid out in pleasure grounds, or neglected.

The revenues of the state were wasted on the soldiers; in shews to keep the people occupied, and on the purchase of corn, brought to Rome from a distance.

The load of taxes was so great, that the Roman citizens envied the barbarians, and thought they could not be worse than they were, should they fall under a foreign yoke. All attachment to their country was gone; and every motive to public spirit had entirely ceased to operate.

The old n.o.ble families, who alone preserved a sense of their ancient dignity, were neglected in times of quiet, and persecuted in times of trouble. They still preserved an attachment to their country, but they had neither wealth, power, nor authority.

The vile populace, having lost every species of military valour, were unable to recruit the armies; the defence, against the provinces which rebelled, was in the hands of foreign mercenaries; and Rome paid tribute to obtain peace from some of those she had insulted in the hour of her prosperity and insolence.

Gold corrupted all the courts of justice; there were no laws for the rich, who committed crimes with impunity; while the poor did the same through want, wretchedness, and despair.

In this miserable state of things, the poor, for the sake of protection, became a sort of partizans or retainers of the rich, whom they were ready to serve on all occasions: so that, except in a few forms, there was no trace left of the inst.i.tutions that had raised the Romans above all other nations. [end of page #43]

CHAP. V.

_Of the Cities and Nations that rose to Wealth and Power in the middle Ages, after the Fall of the Western Empire, and previously to the Discovery of the Pa.s.sage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, and of America.--Different Effects of Wealth on Nations in cold and in warm Climates, and of the Fall of the Eastern Empire_.

After the fall of the western empire, the Italian states were the first that revived commerce in the west of Europe, which they may indeed be said alone to have kept alive, with the single exception of the city of Ma.r.s.eilles.

Venice had begun to flourish when the barbarians took Rome; and Florence afforded a refuge for those of the n.o.bility who escaped from their terrible grasp: but, for four centuries after, till the time of Charlemagne, there was, indeed, nothing that had either the semblance of power, wealth, or greatness, in Europe. The Saracens, as early as the seventh century, had got possession of Egypt, and had extended their ravages in Asia, to the borders of the Black Sea, having in vain endeavoured to take the city of Constantinople, and make themselves masters of the eastern empire, as their rivals, the Goths, had conquered that in the west.

The momentary greatness which shone forth in the reign of Charlemagne was, in many respects, like that during the reign of Alexander the Great. The power of each depended on the individual character of the man, and their empires, extended by their courage and skill, fell to pieces immediately after they were no more.

As the only permanent change that Alexander had effected was that of removing the chief seat of commerce from Phoenicia to the southern border of the Mediterranean Sea; so, the only permanent effect of the reign of Charles the Great was, his extending Christianity, and some degree of civilization, to the north of the Danube; {40} thus bring-

{40} The people to the north of the Danube had never been subdued by the Romans. In the time of Charlemagne they were Pagans, and in a most rude state of barbarism.

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ing the borders of the Baltic Sea within the limits of the civilized world.

Charlemagne paved the way for the greatness of the Flemings, the Saxons, and the Hans Towns, which began to flourish a few centuries after his time; but his own country was never in a more abject situation than soon after his decease.

The Danes took and burned the city of Paris, and they conquered, settled, and gave its name to the present country of Normandy. {41}

It would throw no light on the subject of the present inquiry to notice the quarrels, the feuds, and revolutions, that took place during the dark ages, and the reign of the feudal system, previously to the time of the crusades; when a wild romantic spirit extended civilization a little more widely than before, and laid the foundation for a new order of things, and a new species of wealth and power, different from those of the ancient world, the extent of which was bounded by the fertile regions of the south.

The first holy war took place in the eleventh century, and commerce and industry were introduced into the north of Europe very soon after.

The Danes, who alone had power by sea in those times, exercised it by piracies and seizing all merchant vessels; particularly such as pa.s.sed the Sound, from the Baltic to the North Sea. This rendered it necessary for the cities that had commerce to carry on to a.s.sociate for the sake of protection, as the Arabian merchants had formerly done by land, and do to this day, to prevent being robbed by those who live by hunting and depredation.

This gave rise to the famous Hanseatic League, which began to become formidable towards the end of the twelfth century. {42}

As men living in northern countries have many wants unknown to those of the south, so the industry that began on the borders of the

{41} They were equally successful in England, but that country was not then to be considered as making any part of that world, with the revolutions of which this inquiry is connected.

{42} There is a dispute relative to this: but, as no writers give it a later date, and some give it an earlier one, it is certain that it must have existed at that time. Many disputes never ascertain the point intended, yet clear up something else that is equally useful.

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