historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 9. The working of politics. The Disquisitiones politicae
By applying the well-being of the commonwealth as the yardstick to measure
what is right and what is wrong Boxhorn almost comes to Mandevillian
conclusions. In the last case study, for example, Boxhorn advises to install certain
taxes ‘not so much under the pretext of public necessity, as under the pretext
of correcting manners that are corrupt’. 40 In the preceding years, Boxhorn
tells us, there was a discussion in the States of Holland, who were in desperate
need of funds, about imposing a new tax ‘upon those who were litigious
and apt to go to Law for every Trifle; under the Denomination of reforming
Men’s Manners, seeing there were so many litigious Suits and Causes daily
brought before their Magistrates and Courts of Justice’. 41 The new tax was to
be imposed as an extra fine on people who had lost their lawsuit. The new
tax, it was argued, would kill two birds with one stone: it would ensure a
new source of income for the States of Holland and it would function as a
scare tactic to prevent people to go to court ‘for every Trifle’; in this way, it
would also combat corrupt manners. Despite some opposition the proposal
was approved and the new tax imposed. 42 The outcome (eventus) reads: ‘In
such an abundance of lawsuits these [taxes] were imposed as punishments
for those who rashly go to court, although in such an unfairness of men manners
can hardly be corrected. However, the commonwealth’s treasury profits
greatly [from these taxes]. That is to say, although both ends are not obtained,
at least one of them is. And perhaps it is in the interest of obtaining the one
to not obtain the other.’ 43 That is, it is ‘perhaps’ not in the interest of the public
treasury that men’s corrupt manners are reformed. The reason is obvious
enough: if men’s corrupt manners are indeed reformed, the result will be less
lawsuits, which, on its turn, will mean that the commonwealth will lose a
be punished, when any one prosecutes the same to the detriment of the Government.’ Louis XIII had
personally attended the siege of La Rochelle. His decision not to grant the rebellious soldiers forgiveness
contrasts sharply with his decision to grand it to the equally rebellious citizens of La Rochelle. Alonson
Lloyd Moote, Louis XIII, the Just (University of California Press; Berkeley, 1989), pp. 194-98.
40 Ibidem, LX, p. 296. ‘Quomodo imprimis probanda sint & facile admittantur ea vectigalia, quae
non tam titulo Necessitatis publicae quam emendandorum, qui corrupti sunt, morum imponuntur.’
41 Boxhorn, Arcana Imperii Detecta, LXVIII, p. 356. Idem, Disquisitiones politicae, LX, pp. 296-97.
‘Vrgente publica necessitate de novis vectigalibus constituendis superioribus annis est cogitatum. Inter
alia quaesitum: An non in tanta multitudine litium & causarum quae vel Magistratibus Vrbanis vel
Curiis offeruntur vectigal aliquod à temere litigantbus, titulò corrigendi corrupti Moris, exigendum
videretur?’
42 These taxes were levied as early as 1596. Ordonnantie vanden Staten van Hollant ende West-Vrieslant,
inhondende[!] sekere peynen ofte impositie tot laste vanden gheenen die eenighe onghefondeerde processen
jnstitueren ofte vervolghen (Aelbrecht Hendrickszoon; The Hague, 1596). In the seventeenth century the
States of Holland frequently sold the right to levy these taxes by auction.
43 Boxhorn, Disquistiones politicae, LX, p. 300. ‘In tanta litium frequentia haec veluti poena temere
litigantibus imposita, licet in tanta hominum iniquitate vix corrigantur mores: admodum tamen Reipublicae
aerium adjuvatur. Licet enim non uterque finis, alter saltem obtinetur; & alterius obtinendi forsan
interest, alterum non obtineri.’