CHAP. V.
How such Cities and Principalities are to be Govern'd, who lived under their own Laws, before they were subdued.
WHen States that are newly conquered, have been accustomed to their liberty, and lived under their own Laws, to keep them, three ways are to be observed: The first is utterly to ruine them; the second to live personally among them; the third is (con∣tenting your self with a Pension from them) to permit them to enjoy their old priviledges and Laws, erecting a kind of Council of State, to consist of a few, which may have a care of your interest, and keep the people in amity and obedience. And that Council being set up by you, and knowing that it subsists only by your favour and authority, will not omit any thing that may propagate and inlarge them. A Town that has been anciently free, cannot more easily be kept in subjection, than by employing its own Citizens, as may be seen by the Example of the Spartans, and Romans. The Spartans had got possession of Athens, and Thebes, and setled an Oligarchie according to their fancy; and yet they lost them again. The Romans to keep Capua, Carthage, and Numantia, ordered them to be destroyed, and they kept them by that means. Thinking afterwards to preserve Greece, as the Spartans had done, by allowing them their liberty, and indulging their old Laws, they found them∣selves mistaken; so that they were forced to subvert many Cities in that Province, before they could keep it; and certainly that is the safest way which I know; for whoever conquers a free Town, and does not demolish it, commits a great error, and may expect to be ruin'd himself, because whenever the Citizens are disposed to a revolt, they betake them∣selves of course to that blessed name of Liberty, and the Laws of their Ancestors, which no length of time, nor kind usage whatever will be able to eradicate, and let all possible care and provision be made to the contrary, unless they be divided some way or other, or the Inhabitants dispersed, the thought of their old priviledges will never out of their heads, but upon all occasions they will endeavour to recover them, as Pisa did, after it had conti∣nued so many years in subjection to the Florentines; But it falls out quite contrary, where the Cities or Provinces have been us'd to a Prince whose race is extirpated and gone; for being on the one side accustomed to obey, and on the other, at a loss for their old Family,