Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/97

enemy, accompliſhed this revolution. The new doge was to conſult only ſuch citizens as he ſhould judge proper: this, inſtead of giving him a conſtitutional council, made him the maſter; he however ſent polite meſſages to thoſe he liked beſt, praying that they would come and adviſe him. Theſe were ſoon called pregadi, as the doge's council is ſtill called, though they are now independent enough of him. The firſt and ſecond doge governed mildly; but the third made the people repent of their confidence: after ſerving the ſtate by his warlike abilities, he enſlaved it; and the people, having no conſtitutional means to reſtrain him, put him to death in his palace, and reſolved to aboliſh the office. Hating alike the name of tribune and of doge, they would have a maſter of the militia, and he ſhould be annually eligible. Factions too violent for this tranſient authority aroſe; and, only five years after, the people aboliſhed this office, and reſtored the power of the doge, in the perſon of the ſon of him whom in their fury they had aſſaſſinated, For a long courſe of years after this, the Venetian hiſtory diſcloſes ſcenes of tyranny, revolt, cruelty, and aſſaſſination, which excite horror. Doges, endeavouring to make their power hereditary, aſſociating their eldeſt ſons with them in office, and both together oppreſſing the people; theſe riſing, and murdering them, or driving them into baniſhment, never once thinking of introducing a third order, between them and their firſt magiſtrate, nor any other form of government by which his power or theirs might be limited. In the tenth century, a ſon of their doge took arms againſt his father, but was, defeated, baniſhed, and declared incapable of ever being doge; yet no ſooner was the father dead, than this worthleſs

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