ng this proportion, exceed not
300, with what brow can the interest of so few be balanced with that of
the whole nation? or rather, what interest have they to put in such a
balance? they would live as they had been accustomed to do; who hinders
them? they would enjoy their estates; who touches them? they would
dispose of what they have according to the interest of their families;
it is that which we desire. A man has one son, let him be called; would
he enjoy his father's estate? it is his, his son's, and his son's son's
after him. A man has five sons, let them be called; would they enjoy
their father's estate? It is divided among them; for we have four votes
for one in the same family, and therefore this must be the interest of
the family, or the family knows not its own interest. If a man shall
dispute otherwise, he must draw his arguments from custom and from
greatness, which was the interest of the monarchy, not of the family;
and we are now a commonwealth. If the monarchy could not bear with
such divisions because they tendered to a commonwealth, neither can
a commonwealth connive at such accumulations because they tend to a
monarchy. If the monarchy might make bold with so many for the good of
one, we may make bold with one for the good of so many, nay, for the
good of all.

"My lords, it comes into my mind, that which upon occasion of the
variety of parties enumerated in our late civil wars, was said by a
friend of mine coming home from his travels, about the latter end
of these troubles; that he admired how it came to pass, that younger
brothers, especially being so many more in number than their elder did
not unite as one man against a tyranny, the like whereof has not been
exercised in any other nation. And truly, when I consider that our
countrymen are none of the worst-natured, I must confess I marvel
much how it comes to pass that we should use our children as we do our
puppies--take one, lay it in the lap, feed it with every good bit, and
drown five; nay, yet worse, forasmuch as the puppies are once drowned,
whereas the children are left perpetually drowning. Really, my lords,
it is a flinty custom! and all this for his cruel ambition, that would
raise himself a pillar a golden pillar for his monument, though he has
children, his own reviving flesh, and a kind of immortality. And this is
that interest of a family, for which we are to think ill of a government
that will not endure it. But quiet ourselves; t