The Archon made answer, that he ever expected this would be the sense of the Senate and the people; and this being their sense, he should have been sorry they had made choice of any other than himself for a standing general; first, because it could not have been more to their own safety, and secondly because so long as they should have need of a standing army, ‘his work was, not done, that he would not dispute against the judgment of the Senate and the people, nor ought that to be. Nevertheless, he made little doubt but experience would show every party their own interest in this government, and that better improved than they could expect from any other; that men’s animosities should overbalance their interest for any time was impossible, that humor could never be lasting, nor through the constitution of the government of any effect at the first charge. For supposing the worst, and that the people had chosen no other into the Senate and the prerogative than royalists, a matter of 1,400 men must have taken their oaths at their election, with an intention to go quite contrary not only to their oaths so taken, but to their own interest; for being estated in the sovereign power, they must have decreed it from themselves (such an example for which there was never any experience, nor can there be any reason), or holding it, it must have done in their hands as well every wit as in any other. Furthermore, they must have removed the government from a foundation that apparently would hold, to set it upon another which apparently would not hold; which things if they could not come to pass, the Senate and the people consisting wholly of royalists, much less by a parcel of them elected. But if the fear of the Senate and of the people derived from a party without, such a one as would not be elected, nor engage themselves to the commonwealth by an oath; this again must be so large, as would go quite contrary to their own interest, they being as free and as fully estated in their liberty as any other, or so narrow that they could do no hurt, while the people being in arms, and at the beck of the strategus, every tribe would at any time make a better army than such a party; and there being no parties at home, fears from abroad would vanish. But seeing it was otherwise determined by the Senate and the people, the best course was to take that which they held the safest, in which, with his humble thanks for their great bounty, he was resolved to serve them with all duty and obedience. A very short time after the royalists, now equal citizens, made good the Archon’s judgment, there being no other that found anything near so great a sweet in the government. For he who has not been acquainted with affliction, says Seneca, knows but half the things of this world.