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

Rh enemy, accomplihed this revolution. The new doge was to conult only uch citizens as he hould judge proper: this, intead of giving him a contitutional council, made him the mater; he however ent polite meages to thoe he liked bet, praying that they would come and advie him. Thee were oon called pregadi, as the doge's council is till called, though they are now independent enough of him. The firt and econd doge governed mildly; but the third made the people repent of their confidence: after erving the tate by his warlike abilities, he enlaved it; and the people, having no contitutional means to retrain him, put him to death in his palace, and reolved to abolih the office. Hating alike the name of tribune and of doge, they would have a mater of the militia, and he hould be annually eligible. Factions too violent for this tranient authority aroe; and, only five years after, the people abolihed this office, and retored the power of the doge, in the peron of the on of him whom in their fury they had aainated, For a long coure of years after this, the Venetian hitory dicloes cenes of tyranny, revolt, cruelty, and aaination, which excite horror. Doges, endeavouring to make their power hereditary, aociating their eldet ons with them in office, and both together oppreing the people; thee riing, and murdering them, or driving them into banihment, never once thinking of introducing a third order, between them and their firt magitrate, nor any other form of government by which his power or theirs might be limited. In the tenth century, a on of their doge took arms againt his father, but was, defeated, banihed, and declared incapable of ever being doge; yet no ooner was the father dead, than this worthles on