Those who assert that the balance of our government inclines towards
absolute monarchy, may support their opinion by the following reasons:
That property has a great influence on power cannot possibly be denied;
but yet the general maxim, _that the balance of the one depends on the
balance of the other_, must be received with several limitations. It is
evident, that much less property in a single hand will be able to
counterbalance a greater property in several; not only because it is
difficult to make many persons combine in the same views and measures,
but because property, when united, causes much greater dependence than
the same property when dispersed. A hundred persons of £1,000 a year
apiece, can consume all their income, and nobody shall ever be the
better for them, except their servants and tradesmen, who justly regard
their profits as the product of their own labour. But a man possessed of
£100,000 a year, if he has either any generosity or any cunning, may
create a great dependence by obligations, and still a greater by
expectations. Hence we may observe, that, in all free governments, any
subject exorbitantly rich has always created jealousy, even though his
riches bore no proportion to those of the state. Crassus's fortune, if I
remember well, amounted only to about two millions and a half of our
money; yet we find, that though his genius was nothing extraordinary,
he was able, by means of his riches alone, to counterbalance, during his
lifetime, the power of Pompey, as well as that of Cæsar, who afterwards
became master of the world. The wealth of the Medici made them masters
of Florence, though it is probable it was not considerable, compared to
the united property of that opulent republic.