§ 1. Since the zeal for acquisition is natural, and many princes are more readily found who fall into avarice and cupidity than those who incline toward liberality—even those who desire to be considered liberal and magnificent, for such men exact more importunately what they do not bestow well—it is nevertheless wonderful that it frequently happens that the greatest empires lack money. Perpetual complaints are read concerning the straits of the Roman treasury. Amid mountains of gold the kings of the Persians lacked money in the war against the Greeks; and in the one thing in which they were superior, in that one thing they were conquered. In our time too we see the same thing happen to the very wealthy kings of the Spains: many opportunities lost, many defeats received, and various mutinies of soldiers because their stipends were delayed or unpaid, while meanwhile the States of Holland generally kept their soldiers at their duty.
In the Roman Empire also we have learned by experience that certain princes, although ruling no great territories, gathered treasures, while others whose dominions were many times broader struggled with perpetual want. Let the deeds of two distinguished German prelates and princes be considered: Julius of Würzburg and Theodore of Paderborn. Each erected citadels, academies, and a church; furnished his treasury with money and storehouses with provisions; recovered mortgaged possessions and added new ones. For the increases of each bishopric are so great that another prince could be maintained from what they added. Meanwhile, others, neither exceeding them in greater splendor of court nor oppressed by war, burdened richer dominions with debt.
It is greatly to be marveled at that around the year of Christ 800, when the Eastern Empire was already considerably diminished and Basil was reigning, nevertheless there were riches so great that they were scarcely found in the whole Roman Empire except when it flourished greatly. Zonaras relates that he filled the whole treasury, and even its approaches and passages, with money heaped densely together. “He had,” he says, “in the treasuries two hundred thousand talents of gold. For the sum of the other money could not be reckoned, so that he buried it in the earth, the treasuries or repositories being everywhere filled. Indeed, he also had small chests full of precious stones and gems, among them those which shine and which we properly call pearls.” What do those two hundred thousand talents of gold amount to? Precisely twelve hundred million. If any king now possessed twelve hundred million, he would easily obtain command of the world if he wished to use it.
Benjamin the Jew saw Constantinople around the year 1200 and relates: “In that city,” he says, “I saw things and resources beyond telling. For tributes are brought annually into the Prince’s palace, with which towers are filled with scarlet and purple clothing and with gold, so that nowhere upon earth can a comparable example of accumulated money be found.” It is even affirmed that the tax of that city alone, collected from markets of merchandise for sale, the harbor, and the dues of merchants, amounted to twenty thousand gold pieces every day. Considering these things, it is my intention to transmit a method of χρηματοποιΐας, the production of wealth—not because the treasurers and counselors of princes know no more methods, but because they know no better ones. For while they hasten to enrich the treasury and themselves, they disarm the state. For since the expenditures are great, and since the state needs very great support, just as a vast body needs abundant nourishment, they seek to accelerate this and, by their voracity and gluttony, produce diseases far more dangerous than those arising from abstinence and thrift. The tenth penny was the occasion of rebellion in Belgium; and now, if you ask the Confederates about the tenth penny, they will answer truly that it is well with them if they retain the tenth penny.
§ 2. A method of increasing the treasury is either honorable or dishonorable. The honorable is likewise threefold: honorable and burdensome to subjects, as tribute; honorable and not burdensome to subjects, as an accurate account of receipts and expenditures; honorable and useful to subjects, as sumptuary laws, agriculture, and lending. A wicked and fraudulent χρηματιστικήν, art of acquiring money, is likewise threefold. One kind is openly unjust and public theft, such as usury and unjust oppressions. Another is not indeed unjust, yet is hateful and unbecoming to a prince: as if you should enact a law that no one should wear a silk garment, and then dissemble until the law begins freely to be violated, meanwhile punishing the transgressors with a fine through informers whom you have assigned. Another kind is neither unjust nor hateful, but sordid and productive of contempt, as when Vespasian collected a tax upon urine. In an honorable tribute and in other measures there can also intervene some things which introduce injustice; indeed, even in measures which are not burdensome and are useful, certain hateful things can occur and appear, as it were, sordid.
Hence general rules must be observed by the prince. First, never is even a three-ounce coin to be exacted from subjects by injustice, for both the prince and the counselors who advised it are bound to restitution. Second, when money is justly exacted, but in a hateful manner and with infamy and some mark of disgrace, that method must be used only from necessity; for more harm is done by hatred than advantage gained by profit. Third, when a gain is sordid, let a moderate necessity make it honorable. For why should you not sell urine so that a subject may be defended and a poor man not die? Fourth, among the honorable kinds of enriching the treasury, that must be embraced first which benefits publicly and privately, so that by the same operation the prince and subjects become rich. Fifth, secondly, that method must be embraced which benefits the state and harms no private person, such as that concerning the auditing of accounts. Sixth, only at the last must one come to this: that even subjects be burdened, lest the state suffer loss, but in such a way that all recognize that the money is expended, not upon the prince’s kindred or his pleasures, but upon the advantages of each person. Barnevelt advised the gravest exactions in Holland when he said, “It is better that the fatherland be burdened than lost,” as he admits in his Apology, although amid and from those burdens both he and others gathered immense resources. But let us now examine each kind.