y hopes by my lord's last
assertion of impossibility, that the root from whence we imagine these
fruits should be planted or thrive in this soil. And why? Because of the
mixture of estates and variety of tenures. Nevertheless, there is yet
extant in the Exchequer an old survey of the whole nation; wherefore
such a thing is not impossible. Now if a new survey were taken at the
present rates, and the law made that no man should hold hereafter above
so much land as is valued therein at L2,000 a year, it would amount to
a good and sufficient agrarian. It is true that there would remain
some difficulty in the different kind of rents, and that it is a matter
requiring not only more leisure than we have, but an authority which
may be better able to bow men to a more general consent than is to be
wrought out of them by such as are in our capacity. Wherefore as to the
manner, it is necessary that we refer it to the Parliament; but as to
the matter, they cannot otherwise fix their government upon the right
balance.

"I shall conclude with a few words to some parts of the order, which
my lord has omitted. As first to the consequences of the agrarian to be
settled in Marpesia, which irreparably breaks the aristocracy of that
nation; being of such a nature, as standing, it is not possible that you
should govern. For while the people of that country are little better
than the cattle of the nobility, you must not wonder if, according as
these can make their markets with foreign princes, you find those to be
driven upon your grounds. And if you be so tender, now you have it
in your power, as not to hold a hand upon them that may prevent the
slaughter which must otherwise ensue in like cases, the blood will lie
at your door. But in holding such a hand upon them, you may settle the
agrarian; and in settling the agrarian, you give that people not only
liberty, but lands; which makes your protection necessary to their
security; and their contribution due to your protection, as to their own
safety.

"For the agrarian of Panopea, it allowing such proportions of so good
land, men that conceive themselves straitened by this in Oceana, will
begin there to let themselves forth, where every citizen will in time
have his villa. And there is no question, but the improvement of that
country by this means must be far greater than it has been in the best
of former times. I have no more to say, but that in those ancient and
heroic ages (when men thou