When we contemplate the miseries incident to civil war in a remote age,
our views are fixed on the effects of discord, as visible in the
contentions of two great opposing parties; we do not consider either the
minor factions into which each body is split, or the distracted counsels
and inefficient measures which constantly occur, when it is known that
the restraint of prescriptive authority is necessarily relaxed, and that
he who ought to govern and reward, is compelled to submit to controul
and to sue for favour. When the head of a community is humbled, every
member thinks he has a right to pre-eminence; and thus a war, begun
under the pretence of subduing a tyrant, eventually creates multitudes
of petty despots, only contemptible, because their sphere of oppression
is small. In the King's council, the wisdom of Southampton, the
moderation of Falkland, and the integrity of Hyde, had to contend with
the pride and petulance of those who would not lower their own
pretensions in deference to the public good, or forgive a private wrong
for the sake of that unity which alone could secure the whole.
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