should. * The agents of a prince regard the wealth of their master as inexhaustible; * are careless at what price they buy; * are careless at what price they sell; * are careless at what expense they transport his goods from one place to another. Those agents frequently live with the profusion of princes, and sometimes too, in spite of that profusion, and by a proper method of making up their accounts, acquire the fortunes of princes. > It was thus, as we are told by Machiavel, that the agents of Lorenzo of Medicis, not a prince of mean abilities, carried on his trade. The republic of Florence was several times obliged to pay the debt into which their extravagance had involved him. He found it convenient, accordingly, to give up the business of merchant, the business to which his family had originally owed their fortune, and in the latter part of his life to employ both what remained of that fortune, and the revenue of the state of which he had the disposal, in projects and expenses
No hay dos caracteres que parezcan más incompatibles que los de comerciante y soberano. Si el espíritu comercial de la Compañía Inglesa de las Indias Orientales los convierte en pésimos soberanos, el espíritu de soberanía parece haberlos convertido en comerciantes igualmente malos. * Mientras fueron solo comerciantes, administraron su comercio con éxito y pudieron pagar a partir de sus beneficios un dividendo moderado a los propietarios de sus acciones. * Desde que se convirtieron en soberanos, con unos ingresos que, según se dice, superaban originalmente los tres millones