The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11) — Thomas Hobbes — John Shaqi
The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 04 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
Do you think, when a battle is lost, and you at the mercy of an
enemy, it is unlawful to receive quarter with condition of
obedience? Or if you receive it on that condition, do you think it
honesty to break promise, and treacherously murder him that gave you
your life? If that were good doctrine, he were a foolish enemy that
would give quarter to any man.
You see, then, that this submission to Oliver, or to your then
masters, is allowed by Mr. Hobbes his doctrine only to the King’s
faithful party, and not to any that fought against him, howsoever
they coloured it, by saying they fought for the King and Parliament;
nor to any that writ or preached against his cause, or encouraged
his adversaries; nor to any that betrayed his counsels, or that
intercepted or deciphered any letters of his, or of his officers, or
of any of his party; nor to any that by any way had contributed to
the diminution of his Majesty’s power, ecclesiastical or civil; nor
does it absolve any of them from their allegiance. You that make it
so heinous a crime for a man to save himself from violent death, by
a forced submission to a usurper, should have considered what crime
it was to submit voluntarily to the usurping Parliament.
I can tell you besides, why those words were put into his last
chapter, which he calls the review. It happened at that time that
there were many honourable persons, that having been faithful and
unblemished servants to the King, and soldiers in his army, had
their estates then sequestered; of whom some were fled, but the
fortunes of them all were at the mercy, not of Oliver, but of the
Parliament. Some of these were admitted to composition, some not.
They that compounded, though they helped the Parliament less by
their composition, than they should have done, if they had stood
out, by their confiscation, yet they were ill-spoken of, especially
by those that had no estates to lose, nor hope to compound. And it
was for this that he added to what he had written before, this
caution, that if they would compound, they were to do it _bona
fide_, without intention of treachery. Wherein he justified their
submission by their former obedience, and present necessity; but
condemned treachery. Whereas you that pretend to abhor atheism,
condemn that which was done upon necessity, and justify the
treachery: and you had reason for it, that cannot otherwise justify
yourselves. Those strugglings which happened afterwards, lost his
Majesty many a good and able subject, and strengthened Oliver with
the confiscation of their estates; which if they had attended the
discord of their enemies, might have been saved.