A BRIEF ADMONITION OF Some of the INCONVENIENCES Of all the three most Famous GOVERNMENTS known to the World: With their Comparisons together.  
London Printed, 1659.   

To all honest disinteressed commonwealths-men.  
Gentlemen,  
I Know many of you will red this Pamphlet with prejudicate Opinions: but I think myself as free from that, in writing of it, as I am from any design, but the recalling passionate men to a temper, tending to a settlement of our country, and to that end, I have as much as I could forborn the distracting names, of King, Common wealth, Artistocrasie, and Democracy, which so charm us with their sounds, that we loose in our passions the consideration of the things themselves. I know I might have said much more to this purpose, then I have done, and yet have come short of the more Ingenious, and Learned Pieces lately put out upon this Subject: But this is for vulgar capacities, and brief enough for all mens leisures, to red it, and forgive me for troubling them, but a little. I am not so capable of mending faults in Government, as of finding of them, I shall leave that to the wise, but think it a Task onely for a truly free Parliament, without controllers. In the mean time, if these few lines were capable of staying any of my country men from being further misled, it would be an unexpressible satisfaction to  
Gentlemen, Your hearty humble Servant, J. H.   

Whether it be better to be Governed by a single Person, or by any number not exceeding one hundred and six, or by one thousand, or by a mixture of these, as distinct Courts, with their Limitations of Time and Power.  
THat one of these is necessary, principally, for the prevention of foreign invasions, and intestine dissensions destructive to all mens properties; there is no man of any capacity will deny, and as a secondary end of Government for the due distribution of Justice between particular Persons, a people is next obliged to one of them, and those p●eceeding Grand Concernments being first provided for: The last care of a Nation is to secure itself against the avarice and cruelty of their own Trustees, and to choose that Government which most secures them from the last of these dangers, if it be not destructive to the afore mentioned ends of Government.  
Now for the first of the●e, I mean the Protection of a Nation in danger, it is evident that a single person well chosen is the fittest, by reason that his councils are most secret and sudden for the prevention of eminent danger, and this hath been verified by the experience of Common-wealths, continually choosing single persons in such exigencies, and particularly the Romans, who though they had placed the Consular power in two, were compelled to choose a dictatory, and give him an absolute unlimited power at such times; and at other ordinary times did( like other Common-wealths) trust their Armies to single persons. And if a single person hath this advantage against foreigners, he hath the same against Seditions, and is better qualitifed for Conquests, as appears by the slow growth of the Roman power under a Common-wealth, and the quick progress of the Assyrian, Persian, graecian, and Turkish Monarchies under their several Emperors: And we may observe out of Six Walter Raleighs History of the world, that Hannibal, after he had by his many victories, made Rome almost stoop to Carthage, was compelled,( for want of power to command speedy supplies) to quit the fruits of his victories, and see his country ruined by the tedious and factious Debates of an ill affencted party to him in the Senate. And if we cast our eyes upon the two great Factions of the Presbyterians, and independents in our Parliament in 1648. and remember how certainly they had brought us to a war but for the prevention of the Army, we may conclude the question in point of security for a single person against any great Assembly, which will always be subdivided, into Anabaptists, independents, Quakers, &c. and be easily misled by ambitious crafty ill men into destructive confusions, if they be unlimited in power, and time of sitting.  
As for the Government of a smaller number the inconveniencies will be the same in any number under a hundred, though not so frequent as in greater Assemblies, but an unlimited power amongst equals will divide them like petty Princes, through ambition and interest into factions, and confederacies, if they be not kept at unity by their apprehensions of their mighty neighbours, as the Venetians and Hollanders have always been, and as the Romans hardly were, till they had mastered their greatest opposites, and then grew liable to seditions, and usurpations among themselves so that either of th' afore mentioned numbers must give place to the single person for securing a Nation.  
As for the distribution of Justice, there is little to be said to that, but that a single person is more like to make quick dispatches, then where there is a number of equals to oppose, and debate, and he is more like to do justice as having a greater concernment of his own, and more eyes upon him then a number, who may lay the faults upon each other, and where the worst sort do commonly confederate to surprise the honest men with their prepared speeches for their own corrupt ends.  
But to the last question: which of all these a people may best secure themselves against: I must give a divided answer, for the Armies of supreme Governours are the effects of avarice, or cruelty and all the three Governments, as they are single, and unlimited may practise both, but the single person if he be cruel, ungodly, or a fool, is like to commit rash acts of Tyranny to the destruction of those few that displease him, which the number of Governours commonly doth by the formality of a high Court of injustice, or by a martiall Law; but for the rapine of Governours, as we measure the generality of men by their interest, there must needs be more avarice, and more interests to maintain at the charge of a Nation amongst a multitude of Governours then in a single person; and more Masters to please or displease must necessary be more troublesone then one, when every one hath power to prejudice the poor that want friends, but they must most of them strive to redress a grievance, which is very slowly effected, if at all, against a member of an Assembly, that hath prepossessed his friends,( where his adversary cannot be heard) and who would unwillingly punish one of their own, if his adversary could be admitted to speak for himself, in their Assembly.  
To conclude, a perpetual representative appears to be more oppressive, and inconvenience, then any mortal Tyrant can be: But, whether there be any security from all usurpation in a mixed or balancing power, is next to be inquired.  
That a great Assembly will endeavour to perpetuate itself, is as certain, as it is, that all men naturally love the power to oblige, or punish; and this experience hath confirmed unto us, and it is as clear that they will never want pretences for it from real or pretended dangers, at home, or abroad, or from businesses depending before them, which they will take to themselves as they are the supreme judicature, either upon appeals from inferior Courts, or out of their natural love to power, or the avarice of many amongst them, and neither a coordinate smaller number called a Senate, or what you please, nor any endeavours of the scattered multitude, divided by their ignorance, interest, or the influence of those in power, can hinder them from falling upon tedious debates to the obstruction of all justice, nor is their Tyranny like to have other period, but from their forementioned confusions, which a coordinate equal power will as certainly increase, as if two single persons were to reign at once: And if it be an inferior power, it will be but a new delay of justice, without preventing the aforementioned inconveniencies, for the supreme will have the last appeals of every dissatisfied person, besides all the complaints that shall be immediately addressed to them by any of their friends, and though all the supreme Assembly or but a part of the members should submit to a new annual Election, what a perpetual confusion or delay would there be in Causes long depending that either the new members must either vote in by chance, or hear the whole business over again besides the distraction of foreign intelligence by their change: But some Commonwealths-men propose that the lesser Assembly should onely debate, and the supreme should onely judge, but I ask who shall stop the mouths of the supreme power from debating before they give sentence, or if it were possible what blind judgments must they give, without the liberty of expressing, and clearing their doubts.  
As for the numbers of 100, or 60, or what you please, it is presumed there will be some covetous, crafty ill men amongst them, who seeing they have no power to determine controversies, have no other way to get money, but by delaying every mans business, till they are quickened with bribes, and how easily this is done by Objections, raising Debates amongst Confederates( who when other Arts fail, can put off one business with another where many are depending) is not unknown to any knowing person that ever was a Member of any great Assembly.  
By which I conclude, that two Assemblies, whether equal or subordinate, are more burdensome then one, and always dangerous, without an Umpire, or Negative, in a third estate to the unlimited Power of either, and if there be no security in that mixture, We are not to hope it in any.  
For example, Two interested contentious persons have seldom been known to decide a private Difference themselves, but, if they engage their whole Estates to submit to an Arbitrator, they must then agree for a part, rather then lose the whole. If then it be granted that all persons that acquired power, will keep it as long as they can, and extend it as far as they dare, and that the greatest Assemblies are most incontroulable in this our present Modellers of Common-wealths, can never hope to see their Dictates of Rotation, and mixture observed by one or two Estates, if they were the best, since there will always be some Knaves in power, and many fools to be seduced by their specious pretences against their true Interests, and therefore they had as good trust the Nation with its own Liberty now, as be forced to it hereafter, since that is not best for a Nation that is so in itself, but what they are most agreed on: And those that oppose that, are invaders of all mens Liberties, and Properties, according to Common-wealth Principles, and to Christs also, who hath said. That a kingdom divided in itself cannot stand.  
Therefore, if our Nation be more like to agree upon mending the Old fabric then erecting a New. I presume all good Christians and true English men would consent to it, though they denied all former Contracts.   
FINIS.