The thirtieth order. “‘When thou goest to battle against thy enemies,
and seest horses and chariots, and a people more than thou, be not
afraid of them, for the Lord thy God is he that goes with thee to fight
for thee against thy enemies. And when thou dividest the spoil, it shall
be as a statute and an ordinance to thee, that as his part is that goes
down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarries by the stuff;
that is (as to the commonwealth of Oceana) the spoil takin of the enemy
(except clothes, arms, horses, ammunition, and victuals, to be divided
to the soldiery by the strategus and the polemarchs upon the place
according to their discretion) shall be delivered to four commissaries
of the spoils elected and sworn by the Council of War, which
commissaries shall be allowed shipping by the State, and convoys
according as occasion shall require by the strategus, to the end that
having a bill of lading signed by three or more of the polemarchs,
they may ship and bring, or cause such spoils to be brought to the
prize-office in Oceana, where they shall be sold, and the profit arising
by such spoils shall be divided into three parts, whereof one shall go
to the Treasury, another shall be paid to the soldiery of this nation,
and a third to the auxiliaries at their return from their service,
provided that the said auxiliaries be equal in number to the proper
forces of this nation, otherwise their share shall be so much less as
they themselves are fewer in number; the rest of the two-thirds to go
to the officers and soldiers of the proper forces. And the spoils so
divided to the proper forces, shall be subdivided into three equal
parts, whereof one shall go to the officers, and two to the common
soldiers, the like for the auxiliaries. And the share allotted the
officers shall be divided into four equal parts, whereof one shall go to
the strategus, another to the polemarchs, a third to the colonels, and a
fourth to the captains, cornets, ensigns, and under-officers,
receiving their share of the spoil as common soldiers, the like for the
auxiliaries. And this upon pain, in the case of failure, of what the
people of Oceana (to whom the cognizance of peculation or crimes of this
nature is properly appertaining) shall adjudge or decree.”
Upon these three last orders the Archon seemed to be haranguing at the
head of his army in this manner:
“MY DEAR LORDS AND EXCELLENT PATRIOTS:
“A government of this make is a commonwealth for increase. Of those for
preservation, the inconveniences and frailties have been shown: their
roots are narrow, such as do not run, have no fibres; their tops weak
and dangerously exposed to the weather, except you chance to find
one, as Venice, planted in a flower-pot, and if she grows, she grows
topheavy, and falls, too. But you cannot plant an oak in a flowerpot;
she must have earth for her root, and heaven for her branches.
“‘Imperium Oceano, famam quoe terminet astris.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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