 of the Traveling of the Utopians from Utopia. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Generally. Utopia by St. Thomas Moore of the Traveling of the Utopians. If any man has a mind to visit his friends that live in some other town and desires to travel and see the rest of the country, he obtains leave very easily from the syphilgrint and trinobors when there is no particular occasion for him at home. Such as travel carry with them a passport from the Prince which both certifies the license that is granted for traveling and limits the time of their return. They are furnished with a wagon and a slave who drives the oxen and looks after them. But unless there are women in the company, the wagon is sent back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for nothing but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in any place longer than a night, everyone follows his proper occupation and is very well used by those of his own trade. But if any man goes out of the city to which he belongs without leave and is found rambling without a passport, he is severely treated. He is punished as a fugitive and sent home disgracefully. And if he falls again into the like fault, is condemned to slavery. If any man has a mind to travel only over the precinct of his own city, he may freely do it with his father's permission and his wife's consent. But when he comes into any of the country houses, if he expects to be entertained by them, he must labor with them and conform to their rules. And if he does this, he may freely go over the whole precinct, being then as useful to the city to which he belongs as if he were still within it. Thus you see that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretenses of excusing any from labor. There are no taverns, no ale houses, nor stews among them, nor any other occasions of corrupting each other, of getting into corners or forming themselves into parties. All men live in full view, so that all are obliged both to perform their ordinary task and to employ themselves well in their spare hours. And it is certain that a people thus ordered must live in great abundance of all things, and these being equally distributed among them, no man can want or be obliged to beg. In their great council at Amarrow, to which there are three sent from every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in provisions and what are under any scarcity, that so the one may be furnished from the other, and this is done freely without any sort of exchange, for according to their plenty or scarcity, they supply or are supplied from one another, so that indeed the whole island is, as it were, one family. When they have thus taken care of their whole country and laid up stores for two years, which they do to prevent the ill consequences of an unfavorable season, they order an exportation of the over-plus, both of corn, honey, wool, flax, wood, wax, tallow, leather, and cattle, which they send out, commonly in great quantities, to other nations. This is part of all these goods to be freely given to the poor of the countries to which they send them, and sell the rest at moderate rates, and by this exchange they not only bring back those few things that they need at home, for indeed they scarce need anything but iron, but likewise a great deal of gold and silver, and by their driving this trade so long, it is not to be imagined how vast a treasure they have got among them, so that now they do not much care whether they sell off their merchandise A great part of their treasure is now in bonds, but in all their contracts no private man stands bound, but the writing runs in the name of the town, and the towns that owe them money raise it from those private hands that owe it to them, lay it up in their public chamber, or enjoy the profit of it till the utopians call for it, and they choose rather to let the greatest part of it lie in their hands, who make advantage by it, than to call for it themselves, but if they see that any of their other neighbors stand more in need of it, then they call it in and lend it to them. Whenever they are engaged in war, which is the only occasion in which their treasure can be usefully employed, they make use of it themselves, in great extremities or sudden accidents they employ it in hiring foreign troops, whom they more willingly expose to danger than their own people. They give them great pay knowing well that this will work even on their enemies, that it will engage them either to betray their own side or at least to desert it, and that it is the best means of the jealousies among them. For this end they have an incredible treasure, but they do not keep it as a treasure, but in such a manner as I am almost afraid to tell, lest you think it so extravagant as to be hardly credible. This I have the more reason to apprehend because if I had not seen it myself, I could not have been easily persuaded to have believed it upon any man's report. It is certain that all things appear incredible to us in proportion as they differ from known customs, but one who can judge a right will not wonder to find that, since their constitution differs so much from ours, their value of gold and silver should be measured by a very different standard. For since they have no use for money among themselves, but keep it as a provision against events which seldom happen, and between which there are generally long intervening intervals, they value it no farther than it deserves, that is, in proportion to its use, so that it is plain they must prefer to gold or silver, for men can no more live without iron than without fire or water. But nature has marked out no use for the other metals so essential as not easily to be dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity, whereas on the contrary it is their opinion that nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless. If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom, it would raise a jealousy of the Prince and Senate and give birth to that foolish mistrust into which the people are apt to fall, a jealousy of their intending to sacrifice the interests of the public to their own private advantage. If they should work it into vessels or any sort of plate, they fear that the people might grow too fond of it, and so be unwilling to let the plate be run down if a war made it necessary to employ it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all these inconveniences, they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who value gold so much and lay it up so carefully. They eat and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable appearance, though formed of brittle materials, while they make their chamber pots and closed stools of gold and silver, only in their public halls but in their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of infamy, they hang an earring of gold and make others wear a chain or a coronet of the same metal, and thus they take care by all possible means to render gold and silver of no esteem. And from hence it is that while other nations part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look when they're giving in all they possess of those metals, when there were any use for them but as departing with a trifle or as we would esteem the loss of a penny. They find pearls on their coasts and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks. They do not look after them, but if they find them by chance they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood. But when they grow to years and see that none but children use such bobbles, they of their own accord without being bid by their parents lay them aside and would be as much ashamed to use them afterwards as children among us, when they come to years are of their puppets and other toys. I never saw a clearer instance of the opposite impressions that different customs make on people than I observed in the ambassadors of the Animoleans, who came to Amoril when I was there. As they came to treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies of several towns met together to wait for their coming. The ambassadors of the nations that lie near Utopia, knowing their customs and that fine clothes are in no esteem among them, that silk is despised and gold is a badge of infamy, used to come very modestly clothed, but the Animoleans lying more remote and having had little commerce with them, understanding that they were coarsely clothed and all in the same manner took it for granted that they had none of those fine things among them of use. And they, being a vain glorious rather than a wise people, resolved to set themselves out with so much pomp that they should look like gods and strike the eyes of the poor Utopians with their splendor. Thus three ambassadors made their entry with a hundred attendants, all clad in garments of different colors and the greater part in silk. The ambassadors themselves who were of the nobility of their country were in cloth of gold with their rings, earrings and rings of gold. Their caps were covered with bracelets set full of pearls and other gems in a word they were set out with all those things that among the Utopians were either the badges of slavery, the marks of infamy, or the playthings of children. It was not unpleasant to see, on the one side, how they looked big when they compared their rich habits with the plain clothes of the Utopians who were come out in great numbers to see them make their entry to observe how much they were mistaken in the impression which they hoped this pomp would have made on them. It appeared so ridiculous a show to all that had never stirred out of their country and had not seen the customs of other nations that though they paid some reverence to those that were the most meanly clad as if they had been the ambassadors, yet when they saw the ambassadors themselves so full of golden chains they looked upon them as slaves and for bore to treat them with reverence. You might have seen the children roam big enough to despise their playthings and who had thrown away their jewels called to their mothers, pushed them gently and cry out, See that great fool that wears pearls and gems as if he were yet a child? While their mothers very innocently replied, Hold your peace, this, I believe, is one of the ambassadors' fools. Others censured the fashion of their chains and observed that they were of no use for they were too slight to bind their slaves who could easily break them among so loose about them that they thought it easy to throw them away and so get from them. But after the ambassadors had stayed a day among them and saw so vast a quantity of gold in their houses which was as much despised by them as it was esteemed in other nations and beheld more gold and silver in the chains and fetters of one slave than all their ornaments amounted to. Their plumes fell and they were ashamed of all that glory for which they had formed value themselves to decide a resolution that they immediately took when on their engaging in some free discourse with the Utopians they discovered their sense of such things and their other customs. The Utopians wonder how any man should be so much taken with the glaring doubtful lustre of a jewel or a stone that can look up to a star or to the sun himself or how any should value himself because his cloth is made of a finer thread for how fine so ever that thread may be once no better than the fleece of a sheep and that sheep was a sheep still for all its wearing it. They wonder much to hear that gold which in itself is so useless a thing should be everywhere so much esteemed that even man for whom it was made and by whom it has its value should yet be thought of less value than this metal that a man of lead who has no more sense than a log of wood is as bad as he is foolish should have many wise and good men to serve him only because he has a great heap of that metal and that if it should happen that by some accident or trick of law which sometimes produces as great changes as chance itself all this wealth should pass from the master to the meanest varlet of his whole family he himself would very soon become one of his servants as if he were a thing that belonged to his wealth and so were bound to follow its fortune but they much more admire and detest the folly of those who when they see a rich man give him anything nor are in any sort dependent on his bounty yet merely because he is rich give him little less than divine honors even though they know him to be so covetous and base-minded that notwithstanding all his wealth he will not part with one farthing of it to them as long as he lives these and such like notions have that people imbibe partly from their education being bred in a country whose customs and laws are opposite to all such foolish maxims and partly from their learning and studies for though there are but few in any town that are so wholly excused from labor as to give themselves entirely up to their studies these being only such persons as discover from their childhood an extraordinary capacity and disposition for letters yet their children in a great part of the nation both men and women are taught to spend those hours in which they are not obliged to work in reading and this they do through the whole progress of life they have all their learning in their own tongue which is both a copious and pleasant language and in which a man can fully express his mind it runs over a great tract of many countries but it is not equally pure in all places they had never so much as heard of the names of any of those philosophers that are so famous in these parts of the world before we went among them and yet they had made the same discoveries as the Greeks both in music logic, arithmetic, and geometry but as they are almost in everything equal to the ancient philosophers so they far exceed our modern logicians for they have never yet fallen upon the barbarous niceties that our youth are forced to learn in those trifling logical schools that are among us they are so far from mining chimeras and fantastical images made in the mind that none of them could comprehend what we meant when we talked to them of a man in the abstract as common to all men in particular so that we spoke of him as a thing that we could point out with our fingers yet none of them could perceive him and yet distinct from everyone as if he were some monstrous colossus or giant yet for all this ignorance of these empty notions they knew astronomy and were perfectly acquainted with the motions of the heavenly bodies and have many instruments well contrived and divided by which they very accurately compute the course and positions of the sun moon and stars but for the cheat of dividing by the stars by their oppositions or conjunctions it has not so much as entered into their thoughts they have a particular sagacity founded upon much observation and judging of the weather by which they know when they may look for rain wind or other alterations in the air but as to the philosophy of these things the cause of the saltiness of the sea of its ebbing and flowing and of the original and nature both of the heavens and the earth they dispute of them partly as our Christian philosophers have done and partly upon some new hypothesis in which as they differ from them so they do not in all things agree among themselves as to moral philosophy they have the same disputes among them as we have here they examine what are properly good both for the body in the mind and whether any outward thing can be called truly good or if that term belong only to the endowments of the soul they inquire likewise into the nature of virtue and pleasure but their chief dispute is concerning the happiness of a man and wherein it consists whether in some one thing or in a great many they seem indeed more inclinable to that opinion that places if not the whole yet the chief part of a man's happiness and pleasure and what may seem more strange they make use of arguments even from religion notwithstanding its severity and roughness for the support of that opinion so indulgent to for they never dispute concerning happiness without fetching some arguments from the principles of religion as well as from natural reason since without the former they reckon that all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural and effective these are their religious principles that the soul of man is immortal and that God of his goodness has designed that it should be happy and that he has therefore appointed rewards for good and virtuous actions and punishments of vice to be distributed after this life though these principles of religion are conveyed down among them by tradition they think that even reason itself determines a man to believe and acknowledge them and freely confess that if these were taken away no man would be so insensible as not to seek after pleasure by all possible means lawful or unlawful using only this caution that a lesser pleasure might not stand in the way of a greater and that no pleasure ought to be pursued that should draw a great deal of pain after it for they think it the maddest thing in the world to pursue virtue that is a sour and difficult thing and not only to renounce the pleasures of life but willingly to undergo much pain and trouble if a man has no prospect of a reward and what reward can there be for one that has passed his whole life not only without pleasure but in pain if there is nothing to be expected after death yet they do not place happiness in all sorts of pleasures but only in those that in themselves are good and honest there is a party among them who place happiness and bear virtues others think that our natures are conducted by virtue to happiness as that which is the chief good of man they define virtue thus that it is a living according to nature and think that we are made by God for that end they believe that a man then follows the dictates of nature when he pursues or avoids things according to the direction of reason they say that the first dictate of reason is the kindling in us a love and reverence for the divine majesty to whom we owe both all that we have and all that we can ever hope for and the next place reason directs us to keep our minds as free from passion and as cheerful as we can and that we should consider ourselves as bound by the ties of good nature and humanity to our utmost endeavors to help forward the happiness of other persons for there never was any man such a morose and severe pursuer of virtue such an enemy to pleasure that though he set hard rules for men to undergo much pain many watchings and other rigors yet did not at the same time advise them to do all they could in order to relieve and ease the miserable and who did not represent gentleness and good nature as amiable dispositions and from thence they infer that if a man ought to advance in comfort of the rest of mankind there being no virtue more proper and peculiar to our nature than to ease the miseries of others to free from trouble and anxiety and furnishing them with the comforts of life in which pleasure consists nature much more vigorously leads them to do all this for himself a life of pleasure is either a real evil and in that case we ought not to assist others in their pursuit of it but on the contrary to keep them from it all we can as from that which is most hurtful and deadly or if it is a good thing so that we not only may but ought to help others to it why then ought not a man to begin with himself since no man can be more bound to look after the good of another than after his own for nature cannot direct us to be good and kind to others and yet at the same time to be unmerciful and cruel to ourselves thus as they define virtue to be living according to nature prompts all people on to seek after pleasure as the end of all they do they also observe that in order to our supporting the pleasures of life nature inclines us to enter into society for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind as to be the only favorite of nature who on the contrary seems to have placed on a level all those that belong to the same species upon this they infer that no man ought to seek his own conveniences so eagerly as to prejudice others and therefore they think that not only all agreements between private persons ought to be observed but likewise that all those laws ought to be kept which either a good prince has published in due form or to which a people that is neither oppressed with tyranny nor circumvented by fraud has consented for distributing those conveniences of life which afford us all our pleasures they think it is an evidence of true wisdom for a man to pursue his own advantage as far as the laws allow it they accounted piety to prefer the public good to one's private concerns but they think it unjust for a man to seek for pleasure by snatching another man's pleasures from him and on the contrary they think it a sign of a gentle and good soul for a man to dispense with his own advantage for the good of others and that by this means a good man finds as much pleasure one way as he parts with another for as he may expect the like when he may come to need it so if that should fail him yet the sense of a good action and the reflections that he makes on the love and gratitude of those whom he has so obliged gives the mind more pleasure than the body could have found in that from which it had restrained itself they are also persuaded that God will make up the loss of those small pleasures with a vast and endless joy of which religion easily convinces a good soul thus upon an inquiry into the whole matter they reckon that all our actions and even all our virtues terminate in pleasure as in our chief end and greatest happiness and they call every motion or state either of body or mind in which nature teaches us to delight a pleasure thus they cautiously limit pleasure only to those appetites to which nature leads us for they say that nature leads us only to those delights to which reason as well as sense carries us to any other person nor lose the possession of greater pleasures and of such as draw no troubles after them but they look upon those delights which men by a foolish though common mistake call pleasure as if they could change as easily the nature of things as the use of words as things that greatly abstract their real happiness instead of advancing it because they so entirely possess the minds of those that are once captivated by them with a false notion of pleasure that there is no room left for pleasures of a truer or purer kind there are many things that in themselves have nothing that is truly delightful on the contrary they have a good deal of bitterness in them and yet from our perverse appetites after forbidden objects are not only ranked among the pleasures but are made even the greatest designs of life among those who pursue those sophisticated pleasures they reckon such as I mentioned before who think themselves really the better for having fine clothes in which they think they are doubly mistaken both in the opinion they have of their clothes and in that they have of themselves for if you consider the use of clothes why should a fine thread be thought better than a coarse one and yet those men as if they had some real advantages beyond others and did not owe them holy to their mistakes look big seem to fancy themselves to be more valuable and imagine that a respect is due to them for the sake of a rich garment to which they would not have pretended if they had been more mealy closed and even resent it as in a front if that respect is not paid them it is also a great folly to be taken with outward remarks of respect which signify nothing for what true or real pleasures can one man find in another's standing bear or making legs to him will the bending in other man's knees give ease to yours and will the heads being bear cure the madness and yet it is wonderful to see how this false notion of pleasure bewitches many who delight themselves with the fancy of their nobility and are pleased with this conceit that they are descended from ancestors who have been held for some successions rich and who have had great possessions for this is all that makes nobility a present yet they do not think themselves a wit the less noble though their immediate parents have left none of this wealth to them or though they themselves have squandered it away the utopians have no better opinion of those who are much taken with gems and precious stones and to account it a degree of happiness next to a divine one if they can purchase one that is very extraordinary especially if it be of that sort of stones that is then in greatest request for the same sort is not at all times universally of the same value nor will men buy it unless it be dismounted and taken out of the gold the jeweler is then made to give good security and required solemnly to swear that the stone is true that by such an exact caution a false one might not be bought instead of a true though if you were to examine it your eye could find no difference between the counterfeit and that which is true so that they are all one to you as much as if you are blind or can it be thought that they who heap up a useless mass of wealth not for any use that it is to bring them but merely to please themselves with contemplation of it and joy any true pleasure in it the delight they find is only a false shadow of joy those are no better whose error is somewhat different from the former and who hide it out of their fear of losing it for what other name can fit the hiding it in the earth or rather the restoring it to it again it being thus cut off from being useful either to its owner or to the rest of mankind and yet the owner having hit it carefully is glad as he thinks he is now sure of it if it should be stole the owner though he might live perhaps ten years after the theft of which he knew nothing would find no difference between his having or losing it for both ways it was equally useless to him among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight in hunting and fouling or gaming of whose madness they have only heard for they have no such things among them but they have asked us what sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice for if there were any pleasure in it they think the doing it so often should give one a surfeit of it and what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking and howling of dogs which seem rather odious than pleasant sounds nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare more than of seeing one dog run after another for if the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure to the eye on both these occasions since that is the same in both cases but if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs they sought rather to stir pity that a weak harmless and fearful hare should be devoured by strong fierce and cruel dogs therefore all this business of hunting is among the utopians turned over to their butchers and those as has been already said are all slaves and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a butcher's work for they accounted both more profitable and more decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure from which he can reap but small advantage they look on the desire of the bloodshed even of beasts as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with cruelty or that at least by two frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure must degenerate into it thus though the rabble of mankind look upon these and on innumerable other things of the same nature as pleasures the utopians on the contrary observing that there is nothing in them truly pleasant conclude that they are not to be reckoned among pleasures for though these things may create some tickling in the senses which seems to be a true notion of pleasure yet they imagine that this does not arise from the thing itself but from a depraved custom which may so vitiate a man's taste that bitter things may pass for sweet as women with child think pitch or tallow tastes sweeter than honey but as a man's sense when corrupted either by a disease or some ill habit does not change the nature of other things so neither can it change the nature of pleasure they reckon up several sorts of pleasures which they call true ones and some belong to the body the pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it to which they add the joyful reflections on a well spent life at the assured hopes of a future happiness they divide the pleasures of the body into two sorts the one is that which gives our senses some real delight and it's performed either by recruiting nature and supplying those parts which feed the internal heat of life by eating or drinking or when nature is eased of any overcharged that oppresses it when we are relieved from sudden pain or that which arises from satisfying the appetite which nature has wisely given to lead us to the propagation of the species there is another kind of pleasure that arises neither from our receiving what the body requires nor it's being relieved when overcharged and yet by a secret unseen virtue affects the senses raises the passions and strikes the mind with generous impressions this is the pleasure that arises from music another kind of bodily pleasure is that which results from an undisturbed and vigorous constitution of body when life and active spirits seem to actuate every part this lively health when entirely free from all mixture of pain of itself gives an inward pleasure independent of all external objects of delight and though this pleasure does not so powerfully affect us nor act so strongly on the senses as some of the others yet it may be esteemed as the greatest of all pleasures and almost all the utopians reckon it the foundation and basis of all the other joys of life since this alone makes the state of life easy and desirable and when this is wanting a man is really capable of no other pleasure they look upon freedom from pain if it does not rise from perfect health to be a state of stupidity rather than of pleasure this subject has been very narrowly canvassed among them and it has been debated whether a firm and entire health could be called a pleasure or not some have thought there was no pleasure but what was excited by some sensible motion in the body but this opinion has been long ago excluded from among them so that now they almost universally agree that health is the greatest of all bodily pleasures and that as there is a pain in sickness which is as opposite in its nature to pleasure as sickness itself is to health is accompanied with pleasure and if any should say that sickness is not really pain but that it only carries pain along with it they look upon that as a fetch of subtlety that does not much alter the matter it is all one in their opinion whether it be said that health is in itself a pleasure or that it begets a pleasure as fire gives heat so it be granted that all those whose health is entire have a true pleasure in the enjoyment of it and they reason thus what is the pleasure of eating but that a man's health which had been weakened does with the assistance of food drive away hunger and so recruiting itself recovers its former vigor and being thus refreshed it finds a pleasure in that conflict and if the conflict is pleasure the victory must yet breed a greater pleasure except we fancy that it becomes stupid as soon as it has obtained that which it pursued and so neither knows nor rejoices in its own welfare if it is said that health cannot be felt they absolutely deny it for what man is in health that does not perceive it when he is awake is there any man that is so dull and stupid as not to acknowledge that he feels a delight in health and what is delight but another name for pleasure but of all pleasures they esteem those to be most valuable that lie in the mind the chief of which arise out of true virtue and the witness of a good conscience in health the chief pleasure that belongs to the body for they think that the pleasure of eating and drinking and all the other delights of sense are only so far desirable as they give or maintain health but they are not pleasant in themselves otherwise than as they resist those impressions that our natural infirmities are still making upon us for as a wise man desires rather to avoid diseases than to take physics and to be freed from pain rather than to find ease by remedies more desirable not to need this sort of pleasure than to be obliged to indulge it if any man imagines that there is a real happiness in these enjoyments he must then confess that he would be the happiest of all men if he were to lead his life in perpetual hunger thirst and itching and by consequence in perpetual eating drinking and scratching himself which anyone may easily see would not be only a base but a miserable state of life these are indeed the lowest of pleasures they are at least pure for we can never relish them but when they are mixed with the contrary pains the pain of hunger must give us the pleasure of eating and hear the pain out balances the pleasure and as the pain is more vehement so it lasts much longer whereas it begins before the pleasure so it does not cease but with the pleasure that extinguishes it and both expire together they think therefore none of those pleasures are to be valued any further than as they are necessary yet they rejoice in them and with due gratitude acknowledge the tenderness of the great author of nature who has planted in us appetites by which those things that are necessary for our preservation are likewise made pleasant to us for how miserable a thing would life be if those daily diseases of hunger and thirst were to be carried off by such bitter drugs as we must use for those diseases that return seldom or upon us and thus these pleasant as well as proper gifts of nature maintain the strength and the sprightliness of our bodies they also entertain themselves with the other delights let in at their eyes their ears and their nostrils as the pleasant relishes and seasonings of life which nature seems to have marked out peculiarly for man since no other sort of animals contemplates the figure and beauty of the universe nor is delighted with smells any further than as they distinguish meats by them nor do they apprehend the concords or discords of sound yet in all pleasures whatsoever they take care that a lesser joy does not hinder a greater and that pleasure may never breed pain which they think always follows dishonest pleasures but they think at madness for a man to wear out the beauty of his face or the force of his natural strength to corrupt the sprightliness of his body by sloth and laziness or to waste it by fasting that it is madness to weaken the strength of his constitution and reject the other delights of life unless by renouncing his own satisfaction he can either serve the public or promote the happiness of others for which he expects a greater recompense from God so that they look on such a course of life as the mark of a mind that is both cruel to itself and ungrateful to the author of nature as if we would not be beholden to him for his favors and therefore rejects all his blessings as one who should afflict himself for the empty shadow of virtue or for no better end than to render himself capable of bearing those who possibly will never happen this is their notion of virtue and of pleasure they think that no man's reason can carry him to a truer idea of them unless some discovery from heaven should inspire him with sublime or notions I have not now the leisure to examine whether they think right or wrong in this matter nor do I judge it necessary for I have only undertaken to give you an account of their constitution but not to defend all their principles I am sure that whatever may be said of their notions there is not in the whole world either a better people or a happier government their bodies are vigorous and lively and though they are but of a middle stature and have neither the fruit fullest soil nor the purest air in the world yet they fortify themselves so well by their temperate course of life against the unhealthiness of their air and by their industry they so cultivate their soil that there is nowhere to be seen a greater increase both of corn and cattle nor are there anywhere healthier than men and freer from disease for one may there see reduced to practice not only all the art that the husband men employs in manuring and improving in ill soil but whole woods plucked up by the roots and in other places new ones planted where there were none before their principal motive for this is the convenience of carriage that their timber may be either near their towns or growing on the banks of the sea or of some rivers so as to be floated to them for it is harder work to carry wood at any distance over land than corn the people are industrious, apt to learn as well as cheerful and pleasant and none can endure more labor when it is necessary but except in that case they love their ease they are unwirried pursuers of knowledge for when we had given them some hints of the learning and discipline of the Greeks concerning whom we only instructed them for we know that there was nothing among the Romans except their historians and their poets that they would value much it was strange to see how eagerly they were set on learning that language we began to read a little of it to them rather in compliance with their importunity than out of any hopes of their reaping from it any great advantage but after a very short trial we found they made such progress that we saw our labor was like to be more successful than we could have expected they learned to write their characters and to pronounce their language so exactly had so quick an apprehension they remembered it so faithfully and became so ready and correct in the use of it that it would have looked like a miracle if the greater part of those whom we taught had not been men both of extraordinary capacity and of a fit age for instruction they were for the greatest part chosen from among their learned men by their chief counsel though some studied it of their own accord and three years time they became masters of the whole language so that they read the best of the Greek authors easily I am indeed apt to think that they learned that language the more easily from it having some relation to their own I believe that they were a colony of the Greeks for though their language comes nearer the Persian yet they retain many names both for their towns and magistrates that are of Greek derivation I happened to carry a great many books with me instead of merchandise when I sailed my fourth voyage where I was so far from thinking of soon coming back I never too have returned at all and I gave them all my books among which were many of Plato's and some of Aristotle's works I had also theophristas on plants which to my great regret was imperfect for having laid it carelessly by while we were at sea a monkey had seized upon it and in many places torn out the leaves they have no books of grammar but Lazarus for I did not carry theodorus with me nor have they any dictionaries and dioshirities they esteemed Plutarch highly and were much taken with Lucian's wit and with his pleasant way of thinking as for the poets they have Aristophanes, Homer Euripides and Sophocles of Aldous's edition and for historians Thucydides Herodotus and Herodian one of my companions Thricius Appinatus happened to carry with him some of Hippocrates' works and Galen's micro-techny which they hold in great estimation for though there is no nation in the world that needs physics so little as they do that there is not any that honors it so much they reckon the knowledge of it one of the pleasantest and most profitable parts of philosophy by which as they search into the secrets of nature so they not only find this study highly agreeable but think that such inquiries are very acceptable to the author of nature and imagine that as he ventures of curious engines amongst mankind has exposed this great machine of the universe to the view of the only creatures capable of contemplating it so an exact and curious observer who admires his workmanship is much more acceptable to him than one of the herd who like a beast incapable of reason looks on this glorious scene with the eyes of a dull and unconcerned spectator the minds of the utopians when fenced with a love for learning are very ingenious in discovering all such arts as are necessary to carry it to perfection two things they owe to us the manufacture of paper and the art of printing yet they are not so entirely indebted to us for these discoveries but that a great part of the invention was their own we showed them some books printed by Aldis we explained to them the way of making paper and the mystery of printing but as we had never practiced these arts we described them in a crude and superficial manner they seized the hints we gave them and though at first they could not arrive at perfection yet by making many essays they at last found out and corrected all their errors and conquered every difficulty before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds or on the barks of trees but now they have established the manufacturers of paper and set up printing presses so that if they had but a good number of greek authors they would be quickly supplied with many copies of them at present though they have no more than those I have mentioned yet by several impressions they have multiplied them into many thousands if any man was to go among them that had some extraordinary talent or that by much traveling had observed the customs of many nations which made us to be so well received he would receive a hearty welcome for they are very desirous to know the state of the whole world very few go among them on the account of traffic for what can a man carry to them but iron or gold or silver which merchants desire rather to export than import to a strange country and as for their exportation they think it better to manage that themselves than to leave it to foreigners for by this means as they understand the state of the neighboring countries better so they keep up the art of navigation which cannot be maintained but by much practice end of of their slaves and of their marriages from utopia this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by generally utopia by saint thomas more of their slaves and of their marriages they do not make slaves of prisoners of war except those that are taken in battle nor of the sons of their slaves nor of those of other nations the slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of life for the commission of some crime or which is more common such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade when they sometimes redeem at low rates and in other places have them for nothing they are kept at perpetual labor and are always chained but with this difference that their own natives are treated much worse than others they are considered as more profligate than the rest and since they could not be restrained by the advantages of so excellent in education are judged worthy of harder usage another sort of slaves are the poor of the neighboring countries who offer of their own accord to come and serve them they treat these better and use them in all other respects as well as their own countrymen except they're imposing more labor upon them which is no hard task to those that have been accustomed to it and if any of these have a mind to go back to their own country which indeed falls out but seldom as they do not force them to stay so they do not send them away empty handed I have already told you with what care they look after their sick so that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their case or health and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable diseases they use all possible ways to cherish them and to make their lives as comfortable as possible they visit them often and take great pains to make their time pass off easily but when any is taken with a torturing and lingering pain so that there is no hope either of recovery or ease the priests and magistrates come and exhort them that since they are now unable to go on with the business of life are become a burden to themselves and to all about them and they have really outlived themselves they should no longer nourish such a rooted distemper but choose rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery being assured that if they thus deliver themselves from torture or are willing that others should do it they shall be happy after death since by their acting thus they lose none of the pleasures but only the troubles of life they think they behave not only reasonably but in a manner consistent with religion and piety because they follow the advice given them by their priests who are the expounders of the will of God such as are wrought on by these persuasions either starve themselves of their own accord or take opium and by that means die without pain but no man is forced on this way of ending his life and if they cannot be persuaded to it this does not induce them to fail in their attendance and care of them but as they believe that a voluntary death when it is chosen upon such an authority is very honorable so if any man takes away his own life without the approbation of the priests and the senate they give him none of the honors of a decent funeral but throw his body into a ditch their women are not married before 18 nor their men before 2 and 20 and if any of them run into forbidden embraces before marriage they are severely punished and the privilege of marriage is denied them unless they can obtain a special warrant from the prince such disorders a great reproach upon the master and mistress of the family in which they happen or it is supposed that they have failed in their duty the reason of punishing this so severely is because they think that if they were not strictly restrained from all vagrant appetites very few would engage in a state in which they venture the quiet of their whole lives by being confined to one person and are obliged to endure all the inconveniences with which it is accompanied between their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous but it is constantly observed among them and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom before marriage some grave matron presents the bride naked whether she is a virgin or a widow to the bridegroom and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom naked to the bride we indeed both laughed at this and condemned it as very indecent but they on the other hand wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations who if they are but to buy a horse of a small value are so cautious that they will see every part of him and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them and that yet in the choice of a wife on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life a man should venture upon trust and only see about a hands breath of the face all the rest of the body being covered under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome all men are not so wise as to choose a woman only for her good qualities and even wise men consider the body is that which adds not a little to the mind and it is certain there may be some such deformity covered with clothes as may totally alienate a man from his wife when it is too late to part with her if such a thing is discovered after marriage a man has no remedy but patience they therefore think it is reasonable that there should be good provision made against such mischievous frauds there was so much the more reason for them to make a regulation in this matter because they are the only people of those parts that neither allow of polygamy nor of divorces except in the case of adultery or insufferable perverseness for in these cases the senate dissolves the marriage and grants the injured person leave to marry again and the cruelty are made infamous and are never allowed the privilege of a second marriage none are suffered to put away their wives against their wills from any great calamity that may have fallen on their persons for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of the married persons when they need most to tend to care of their consort and that chiefly in the case of old age which as it carries many diseases along with it so it is but it frequently falls out that when a married couple do not well agree they by mutual consent separate and find out other persons with whom they hope they may live more happily yet this is not done without obtaining leave of the senate which never admits of a divorce but upon a strict inquiry made both by the senators and their wives into the grounds upon which it is desired and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons that they go on but slowly for they imagine that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very much shake the kindness of married people they punish severely those that defile the marriage bed if both parties are married they are divorced and the injured persons may marry one another or whom they please but the adulterers and the adulterers are condemned to slavery yet if either of the injured persons cannot shake off the love of the married they may live with them still in that state but they must follow them to that labor to which the slaves are condemned and sometimes the repentance of the condemned together with the unshaken kindness of the innocent and injured person has prevailed so far with the prince that he has taken off the sentence but those that relapse after they are once pardoned are punished with death their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes but that is left to the senate to temper it according to the circumstances of the fact husbands have power to correct their wives and parents to chastise their children unless the fault is so great that a public punishment is not necessary for striking terrors into others for the most part slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes for as that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death so they think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the interests of the commonwealth than killing them since as their labor is a greater benefit to the public than their death could be so the sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men than that which would be given by their death if their slaves rebel and will not bear their yoke and submit to the labor that has enjoined them they are treated as wild beasts that cannot be kept in order neither by a prison nor by their chains and are at last put to death but those who bear their punishment patiently and are so much wrought on by that pressure that lies so hard on them that it appears they are really more troubled for the crimes they have committed than for the miseries they suffer are not out of hope but that at last either the prince will by his prerogative or the people by their intercession restore them again to their liberty or at least very much mitigate their slavery he that tempts a married woman to adultery is no less severely punished than he that commits it for they believe that a deliberate design to commit a crime is equal to the fact itself since it's not taking effect does not make the person that miscarried in his attempt at all the less guilty they take great pleasure in fools and as it is thought a base an unbecoming thing to use them ill so they do not think at a miss for people to divert themselves with their folly and in their opinion this is a great advantage to the fools themselves for if men were so sullen and severe as not at all to please themselves with their ridiculous behavior and foolish sayings which is all that they can do to recommend themselves to others it could not be expected that they would be so well provided for nor so tenderly used as they must otherwise be if any man should reproach another for his being misshaped or imperfect in any part of his body not at all be thought a reflection on the person so treated but it would be accounted scandalous in him that had upgraded another with what he could not help it is thought a sign of a sluggish and sordid mind not to preserve carefully one's natural beauty but it is likewise infamous among them to use paint they all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience for as some few are caught and held only by beauty so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world as they fright men from committing crimes by punishments so they invite them to the love of virtue by public honors therefore they erect statues to the memories of such worthy men as have deserved well of their country and set these in their market places both to perpetuate the remembrance of their actions and to be an incitement to their posterity to follow their example if any man aspires to any office he is sure never to compass it they all live easily together for none of the magistrates are either insolent or cruel to the people they effect rather to be called fathers and by being really so they well deserve the name and the people pay them all the marks of honor the more freely because none are exacted from them the prince himself has no distinction of a crown but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him as the high priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light they have but few laws and such is their constitution that they need not many they very much condemn other nations whose laws together with the commentaries on them swell up to so many volumes for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects they have no lawyers among them for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to rest the laws and therefore they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause and trust it to the judge as in other places the client trusts it to a counselor by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truths more certainly for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest the judge examines the whole matter and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labor under a vast load of laws every one of them is skilled in their law for as it is a very short study so the plainest meaning of which words are capable is always the sense of their laws and they argue thus all laws are promulgated for this and that every man may know his duty and therefore the plainest and most obvious sense of the words is that which ought to be put upon them since a more refined exposition cannot be easily comprehended and would only serve to make the laws become useless to the greater part of mankind and especially to those who need most the direction of them for it is all one not to make a law at all or to couch it in such terms that without a quick apprehension and much study a man cannot find out the true meaning of it since the generality of mankind are both so dull and so much employed in their several trades that they have neither the leisure nor the capacity requisite for such an inquiry some of their neighbors who are masters of their own liberties having long ago by the assistance of the utopians shaken off the yoke of tyranny and being much taken with those virtues which they observe among them have come to desire that they would send magistrates to govern them some changing them every year and others every five years at the end of their government they bring them back to utopia with great expressions of honor and esteem and no way others to govern in their stead in this they seem to have fallen upon a very good expedient for their own happiness and safety for since the good or ill condition of a nation depends so much upon their magistrates they could not have made a better choice than by pitching on men whom no advantages can bias for wealth is of no use to them since they must so soon go back to their own country and they being strangers among them are not engaged in any of their heats or animosities and it is certain that when public judicators are swayed either by avarice or partial affections there must follow a dissolution of justice the chief sinew of society the utopians call those nations that come and ask magistrates from them neighbors but those to whom they have been of more particular service friends and as all other nations either making leagues or breaking them they never enter into an alliance with any state they think leagues are useless things and believe that if the common ties of humanity do not knit men together the faith of promises will have no great effect and they are the more confirmed in this by what they see among the nations round about them who are no strict observers of leagues and treaties we know how religiously they are observed in Europe particularly where the Christian doctrine is received among whom they are sacred and inviolable which is partly owing to the justice and goodness of the princes themselves and partly to the reverence they pay to the popes who as they are the most religious observers of their own promises so they exhort all other princes to perform theirs and when fainter methods do not prevail they compel them to it by the severity of the pastoral censure and think that it would be the most indecent thing possible if men who are particularly distinguished by the title of the faithful should not religiously keep the faith of their treaties but in that newfound world which is not more distant from us in situation than the people are in their manners in course of life there is no trusting to leagues even though they were made with all the pomp of the most sacred ceremonies on the contrary they are on this account the sooner broken some slight pretense being found in the words of the treaties which are purposely couched in such ambiguous terms that they can never be so strictly bound but they will always find some loophole to escape at and thus they break both their leagues and their faith and this is done with such impudence that those very men who value themselves on having suggested these expedience to their princes would with a haughty scorn declaim against such craft or to speak plainer such fraud and deceit if they found private men make use of it in their bargains and would readily say that they deserved to be hanged by this means it is that all sort of justice passes in the world for a low-spirited and bolder virtue far below the dignity of royal greatness or at least there are set up two sorts of justice the one is mean and creeps on the ground and therefore becomes none but the lower part of mankind and so must be kept in severely by many restraints that it may not break out beyond the bounds that are set to it the other is the peculiar virtue of princes which as it is more majestic than that which becomes the rabble so takes a freer compass and thus lawful and unlawful are only measured by pleasure and interest these practices of the princes that lie about utopia who make so little account of their faith seem to be the reasons that determine them to engage in no confederacy perhaps they would change their mind if they lived among us but yet though treaties were more religiously observed they would still dislike the custom of making them since the world has taken up a false maxim upon it as if there were no tie of nature uniting one nation to another only separated perhaps by a mountain or a river and that all were born in a state of hostility and so might lawfully do all that mischief against which there is no provision made by treaties and that when treaties are made they do not cut off the enmity or restrain the license of praying upon each other if by the unskillfulness of wording them there are not effectual provisions made against them they on the other hand judge that no man is to be esteemed our enemy that has never injured us and that the partnership of human nature is instead of a league and that kindness and good nature can unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements whatsoever since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words and of their slaves and of their marriages of their military discipline from utopia this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer for more information on LibriVox.org recording by generally utopia by St. Thomas More of their military discipline they detest war as a very brutal thing in which to the reproach of human nature is more practiced by men than by any sort of beasts they in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war and therefore though they accustom themselves daily to the exercises and the discipline of war in which not only their men but their women likewise are trained up that in cases of necessity they may not be quite useless yet they do not rashly engage in war unless it be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust aggressors or out of good nature or in compassion assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny they indeed help their friends not only in defensive but also in defensive wars but they never do that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made and being satisfied with the grounds on which they went they had found that all demands of reparation were rejected so that a war was unavoidable this they think to be not only just when one neighbor makes an in-road on another by public order and carries away the spoils but when the merchants of one country are oppressed in another either under pretense of some unjust laws or perverse resting of good ones this they count a juster cause of war than the other because those injuries are done under some color of laws this was the only ground of that war in which they engaged with the nefelogites against the aliopolitanes a little before our time for the merchants of the former having as they thought met with great injustice among the latter which whether it was in itself right or wrong drew on a terrible war in which many of their neighbors were engaged and their keenness in carrying it on being supported by their strength in maintaining it it not only shook some very flourishing states and very much afflicted others but after a series of much mischief ended in the entire conquest and slavery of the aliopolitanes who though before the war they were in all respects much superior to the nefelogites were yet subdued but though the utopians had assisted them in the war yet they pretended to be no share of the spoil but though they so vigorously assist their friends in obtaining reparation for the injuries they have received in affairs of this nature yet if any such frauds were committed against themselves provided no violence was done to their persons they would only on their being refused satisfaction for bear trading with such a people this is not because they consider their neighbors more than their own citizens but since their neighbors own stock fraud is a more sensible injury to them than it is to the utopians among whom the public in such a case only suffers as they expect no thing in return for the merchandise they export but that in which they so much abound and is of so little use to them the loss does not much affect them they think therefore it would be too severe to revenge a loss attended with so little inconvenience either to their lives or their subsistence with the death of many persons but if any of their people are either killed or wounded wrongfully whether it be done by public authority or only by private men as soon as they hear of it they send ambassadors and demand that the guilty persons may be delivered up to them and if that is denied they declare war but if it be complied with the offenders are condemned either to death or slavery they would be both troubled and ashamed of a bloody victory over their enemies and think it would be as foolish a purchase as to buy the most valuable goods at too high a rate and in no victory do they glory so much as in that which is gained by dexterity and good conduct without bloodshed in such cases they appoint public triumphs and erect trophies to the honor of those who have succeeded for then do they reckon that a man acts suitably to his nature when he conquers his enemy in such a way as that no other creature but a man could be capable of that is by the strength of his understanding bears, lions, boars wolves and dogs and all other animals employ their bodily force one against another in which as many of them are superior to men both in strength and fierceness so they are all subdued by his reason and understanding the only design of the utopians in war is to obtain that by force which if it had been granted them in time would have prevented the war that cannot be done to take so severe a revenge on those that have injured them that they may be terrified from doing the like for the time to come by these ends they measure all their designs and manage them so that it is visible that the appetite of fame or vain glory does not work so much on there as a just care of their own security as soon as they declare war they take care to have a great many schedules that are sealed with their common seal fixed in the most conspicuous places of their enemy's country this is carried secretly and done in many places all at once in these they promise great rewards to such as shall kill the prince and lesser in proportion to such as shall kill any other persons who are those on whom next to the prince himself they cast the chief balance of the war and they double the sum to him that instead of killing the person so marked out shall take him alive and put him in their hands they offer not only indemnity but rewards to such of the persons themselves that are so marked if they will act against their countrymen but this means those that are named in their schedules become not only distrustful of their fellow citizens but are jealous of one another and are much distracted by fear and danger for it has often fallen out that many of them and even the prince himself have been betrayed by those in whom they have trusted most for the rewards that the utopians offer are so immeasurably great that there is no sort of crime to which men cannot be drawn by them they consider the risk that those run who undertake such services and offer a recompense proportion to the danger not only a vast deal of gold but great revenues and lands that lie among other nations that are their friends where they may go and enjoy them very securely and they observe the promises they make of their kind most religiously they very much approve of this way of corrupting their enemies though it appears to others to be base and cruel but they look on it as a wise course to make an end of what would be otherwise a long war without so much as hazarding one battle to decide it they think it likewise an act of mercy and love to mankind to prevent the great slaughter of those that must otherwise be killed in the progress of the war both on their own side and on that of their enemies they do that are most guilty and that in so doing they are kind even to their enemies and pity them no less than their own people as knowing that the greater part of them do not engage in the war of their own accord but are driven into it by the passions of their prince if this method does not succeed with them then they sow seeds of contention among their enemies and animate the prince's brother or some of the nobility to aspire to the crown if they cannot then they engage their neighbors against them and make them set on foot some old pretensions which are never wanting to princes when they have occasion for them these they plentifully supply with money though but very sparingly with any auxiliary troops for they are so tender of their own people that they would not willingly exchange one of them even with the prince of their enemies country but as they keep their gold and silver only for such an occasion so when that offers itself they easily part with it since it would be no convenience to them though they should reserve nothing of it to themselves for besides the wealth that they have among them at home they have a vast treasure abroad many nations round about them being deep in their debt so that they hire soldiers from all places for carrying on their wars but chiefly from the zappalettes who live 500 miles east of utopia they are a rude wild and fierce nation who delight in the woods and rocks among which they were born and bred up they are hardened both against heat cold and labor and know nothing of the delicacies of life they do not apply themselves to agriculture nor do they care either for their houses or their clothes cattle is all that they look after and for the greatest part they live either by hunting or upon repine and are made as it were only for war they watch all opportunities of engaging in it and very readily embrace such as are offered them great numbers of them will frequently go out and offer themselves for a very low pay to serve any that will employ them they know none of the arts of life but those that lead to the taking it away they serve those that hire them both with much courage and great fidelity but will not engage to serve for any determined time and agree upon such terms that the next day they may go over to the enemies of those whom they serve for them a greater encouragement and will perhaps return to them the day after that upon a higher advance of their pay there are few wars in which they make not a considerable part of the armies of both sides so it often falls out that they who are related and were hired in the same country and so have lived long and familiarly together forgetting both their relations and former friendship kill one another upon no other consideration than that of being hired to it for a little money by princes of different interests and such a regard have they for money that they are easily wrought on by the difference of one penny a day to change sides so entirely does their avarice influence them and yet this money which they value so highly is of little use to them for what they purchase thus with their blood they quickly waste on luxury which among them is but of a poor and miserable form this nation serves the utopians against all people for they pay higher than any other the utopians hold this for a maxim that as they seek out the best sort of men for their own use at home so they make use of this worst sort of men for the consumption of war and therefore they hire them with the offers of vast rewards to expose themselves to all sorts of hazards out of which the greater part never returns to claim their promises yet they make them good most religiously to such as escape this animates them to adventure again whenever there is occasion for it for the utopians are not at all troubled how many of these happen to be killed and reckon it a service done to mankind if they could be a means to deliver the world from such a lewd and vicious sort of people that seem to have run together as to the drain of human nature next to these they are served in their wars with those upon whose account they undertake them and with the auxiliary troops of their other friends to whom they join a few of their own people and send some man of eminent and approved virtue to command and chief there are two sent with him who during his command are but private men but the first is to succeed him if he should happen to be either killed or taken and in case of the like misfortune to him the third comes in his place and thus they provide against all events that such accidents as may befall their generals may not endanger their armies when they draw out troops of their own people they take such out of every city as freely offer themselves for none are forced to go against their wills since they think that if any man is pressed that wants courage he will not only act faintly but by his cowardice disheartened others but if an invasion is made on their country they will make use of such men if they have good bodies though they are not brave and either put them aboard their ships or place them on the walls of their towns if they are so posted they may find no opportunity of flying away and thus either shame the heat of action or the impossibility of flying bears down their cowardice they often make a virtue of necessity and behave themselves well because nothing else has left them but as they force no man to go into any foreign war against his will so they do not hinder those women who are willing to go along with their husbands on the contrary they encourage and they stand often next to their husbands in the front of the army they also place together those who are related parents and children kindred and those that are mutually allied near one another that those whom nature has inspired with the greatest zeal for assisting one another may be the nearest and readiness to do it and it is matter of great reproach if husband or wife survive one another or if a child survives his parent and therefore when they come to be engaged in action they continue to fight to the last man if their enemies stand before them and as they use all prudent methods to avoid the endangering their own men and if it is possible let all the action and danger fall upon the troops that they hire so if it becomes necessary for themselves to engage they then charge with as much courage as they avoided it before with prudence nor is it a fierce charge at first but it increases by degrees and if they continue in action they grow more obstinate and press harder upon the enemy and so much that they will much sooner die than give ground for the certainty that their children will be well looked after when they are dead frees them from all that anxiety concerning them which often masters men of great courage and thus they are animated by a noble and invincible resolution their skill in military affairs increases their courage and the skills of their country are instilled into them in their education give additional vigor to their minds for as they do not undervalue life so as prodigally to throw it away they are not so indecently fond of it as to preserve it by base and unbecoming methods and the greatest heat of action the bravest of their youth who have devoted themselves to that service single out the general of their enemies set on him either openly or by ambuscade where and when spent and wearied out are relieved by others who never give over the pursuit either attacking him with close weapons when they can get near him or with those which wounded at distance when others get in between them so that unless he secures himself by flight they seldom fail at last to kill or to take him prisoner when they have obtained a victory they kill as few as possible and are much more bent on taking many prisoners than on killing those that fly before them nor do they ever let their men so loose in the pursuit of their enemies as not to retain an entire body still in order so that if they have been forced to engage the last of their battalions before they could gain the day they will rather let their enemies all escape and pursue them when their own army is in disorder remembering well what has often fallen out to themselves that when the main body of their army has been quite defeated and broken when their enemies imagining the victory obtained have let themselves loose into an irregular pursuit a few of them that lay for a reserve waiting a fit opportunity have fallen on them in their chase and when straggling in disorder and apprehensive of no danger but counting the day their own have turned the whole action and resting out of their hands a victory that seemed certain and undoubted while the vanquished have suddenly become victorious it is hard to tell whether they are more dexterous in fighting or avoiding ambushes they sometimes seem to fly when it is far from their thoughts and when they intend to give ground they do it so that it is very hard to find out their design if they see they are ill-posted or like to be overpowered by numbers they then either march off in the night with great silence or by some stratagem delude their enemies if they retire in the daytime they do it in such order that it is no less dangerous than to march they fortify their camps with a deep and large trench and throw up the earth that is dug out of it for a wall nor do they employ only their slaves in this but the whole army works at it except those that are then upon the guard so that when so many hands are at work a great line and a strong fortification is finished in so short a time that it is scarce credible their armor is very strong for defense and yet is not so heavy that if they have some uneasy in their marches they can even swim with it all that are trained up to war practice swimming both horse and foot make great use of arrows and are very expert they have no swords but fight with a pole axe that is both sharp and heavy by which they thrust or strike down an enemy they are very good at finding out war-like machines and disguise them so well that the enemy does not perceive them till he feels the use of them to repair such a defense as would render them useless the chief consideration had in the making them is that they may be easily carried and managed if they agreed to a truce they observe it so religiously that no provocations will make them break it they never lay their enemies country waste nor burn their corn and even in their marches they take all possible care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down for they do not know but that they may have use for it themselves they hurt no man whom they find disarmed unless he is a spy when a town is surrendered to them they take it into their protection and when they carry a place by storm they never plunder it but put those only to the sword that oppose the rendering of it up and make the rest of the garrison slaves but for the other inhabitants they do them no hurt and if any of them had advised a surrender they give them good rewards out of the estates of those that they condemn and put the rest among their auxiliary troops but they themselves take no share of the spoil when a war is ended they do not oblige their friends to reimburse their expenses but they obtain them of the conquered either in money which they keep for the next occasion or in lands out of which a constant revenue is to be paid them by many increases the revenue which they draw out from several countries on such occasions is now risen to above 700,000 dookits every year they send some of their own people to receive these revenues who have orders to live magnificently and like princes by which means they consume much of it upon the place and either bring over the rest to utopia or lend it to that nation in which it lies this they most commonly do unless some great occasion which falls out but very seldom should oblige them to call for it all it is out of these lands there is no courage to adventure on desperate attempts if any prince that engages in war with them is making preparations for invading their country they prevent him and make his country the seat of the war for they do not willingly suffer any war to break in upon their island and if that should happen they would only defend themselves by their own people but would not call for auxiliary troops to their assistance end of the war