Page:John Adams - A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America Vol. I. (1787).djvu/100

62 and to be called the pregadi: this too was approved. The grand council of four hundred and eventy, the enate of ixty, the ix counellors, and eleven electors, were accordingly all choen, and the lat were worn to chooe a doge, without partiality, favour, or affection: and the new-choen doge, having taken care to ditribute money among the multitude, was received with univeral acclamations. In his reign was intituted, by permiion of the pope, the curious ceremony of wedding the ea, by a ring cat into it, in ignum veri et perpetui imperii. Under the next doge the avogadors were intituted, to ee that the laws were fully executed.

In the thirteenth century, ix new magitrates, called correctors, were created by the enate, to enquire into all abues during the reign of a deceaed doge, and report them to the enate; and it was enacted, that the fortune of the doge gould indemnify the tate for whatever damage it had uffered during his adminitration: and thee correctors have been appointed, at the deceae of every doge ince that time. In the next reign, a new tribunal of forty was erected, for the trial of civil caues. In the thirteenth century, a new method of appointing the doge, by the famous ballot of Venice, a complicated mixture of choice and chance, was adopted.

Each of the grand counellors, now augmented to forty-one to avoid the inconvenience of an equal diviion, draws a ball out of a box, containing thirty gilt, and the ret white; thoe who draw the gilt ones go into another room, where is a box with thirty balls, nine of which are gilt; draw again, and thoe who obtain the gilt balls are the firt electors; who chooe forty, comprehending themelves in that number; the forty, by