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12 his name: the new subjects enjoy the consoling advantage of free and speedy access to the prince; they have more reason to love him if he acts with lenity and tenderness towards them, of to fear him if he act otherwise. Foreign princes would also be deterred from attacking such a state, from the imminent difficulty which always attends the attempt to dispossess a sovereign of a country in which he personally resides.

Another excellent method is to send colonies to those places which are considered as the keys of the province. This measure must either be adopted, or a military force maintained in it. These colonies cost the prince but little. They only injure those, whom he wishes to punish, or those whom he dreads, and from whom he has taken their lands and their houses to give them tơ the new comers; and as their numbers are inferior, and they are dispersed and impoverished, they can never do any harm. On the other hand, all those to whom no wrong nor injury has been done, are naturally inclined for repose and quiet; dreading, should they stir, the fate of those already despoiled. From whence I conclude that those colonies cost but little are extremely faithful to the prince, and injure only a small number of individuals, who being, as I have said before, reduced to beggary and dispersed, have it not in their power to disturb the tranquitlity of the state; for we must