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61

COLLOQUY IV.

FEUDAL SLAVERY.-GROWTH OF PAUPERISM.

THE last conversation had left a weight upon me, which was not lessened when I contemplated the question in solitude. I called to mind the melancholy view which Young has taken of the world in his unhappy poem:

A part how small of the terraqueous globe
Is tenanted by man! the rest a waste,

Rocks, deserts, frozen seas and burning sands,
Wild haunts of monsters, poisons, stings and death.
Such is earth's melancholy map! But, far
More sad, this earth is a true map of man.

Sad as this representation is, I could not but acknowledge that the moral and intellectual view is not more consolatory than the poet felt it to be; and it was a less sorrowful consideration to think how large a portion of the habitable earth is possessed by savages, or by nations whom inhuman despotisms and monstrous superstitions have degraded in some respects

below the savage state, than to observe how small a part of what is called the civilized world is truly civilized; and in the most civilized parts to how small a portion of the inhabitants the real blessings of civilization are confined. In this mood how heartily should I have accorded with Owen of Lanark, if I could have agreed with that happiest and most beneficent and most practical of all enthusiasts, as well concerning the remedy as the disease!

Well, Montesinos, said the Spirit, when he visited me next, have you recollected or found any solid arguments for maintaining that the labouring classes, who form the great bulk of the population, are in a happier condition, physical, moral, or intellectual, in these times, than they were in mine?

MONTESINOS.

Perhaps, Sir Thomas, their condition was better precisely during your age, than it ever has been either before or since. The feudal system had well nigh lost all its inhuman parts, and the worse inhumanity of the commercial system had not yet shown itself.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

It was, indeed, a most important age in English history, and till the Reformation so

fearfully disturbed it, in many respects a happy and an enviable one. But the process was then beginning, which is not yet completed. As the feudal system relaxed and tended to dissolution, the condition of the multitude was changed. Let us trace it from earlier times! In what state do you suppose the people of this island to have been, when they were invaded by the Romans?

MONTESINOS.

Something worse than the Greeks of the Homeric age: something better than the Sandwich or Tonga islanders when they were visited by Captain Cook. Inferior to the former in arts, in polity, and, above all, in their domestic institutions superior to the latter as having the use of cattle and being under a superstition in which, amid many abominations, some patriarchal truths were preserved. Less fortunate in physical circumstances than either, because of the climate.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

A viler state of morals than their polyandrian system must have produced, can scarcely be imagined; and the ferocity of their manners, little as is otherwise known of them, is sufficiently shown by their scythed war-chariots, and the fact that in the open country the path

from one town to another was by a covered

*

way. But in what condition were the labouring classes?

MONTESINOS.

In slavery, I suppose. When the Romans first attacked the island, it was believed at Rome, that slaves were the only booty which Britain could afford; and slaves, no doubt, must have been the staple commodity for which its ports were visited. Different tribes had at different times established themselves here by conquest, and wherever settlements are thus made, slavery is the natural consequence. It was a part of the Roman economy; and when

It is to Sir Richard Hoare that we are indebted for this curious fact. In the course of those researches, which he has pursued so zealously and successfully, with the aid of that remarkable person, Mr. Cunnington, he ascertained the existence of "covered-ways or lines of communication from one British town to another. Their formation is totally different from that of the ramparts constructed for boundaries, and evidently has not been raised for barriers of defence; the bank being of an equal height on each side, and the area of the ditch broader in proportion and flatter. The frequent occurrence of these on our downs has opened a wide field for reflection and conjecture; much time was spent in doubt and uncertainty; till at length their connexion with the British towns became apparent, and ascertained most clearly the original cause of their formation and destination."-Ancient Wiltshire, 19.

the Saxons carved out their kingdoms with the sword, the slaves, and their masters too, if any survived, became the property of the new lords of the land, like the cattle who pastured upon it. It is not likely even that the Saxons should have brought artificers of any kind with them, smiths perhaps alone excepted. Trades of every description † must have been practised by the

* Canciani supposes that the Liberi Barones were the old freemen of the barbarous nations, who thus distinguished themselves from those who were newly incorporated or manumitted, and this he thinks is the origin of nobility; for the Adelings were of princely blood. It was the policy of the Lombards in particular, to augment their numbers by taking in slaves and making them free.-Præf. ad Barb. Leges. Ant. xii.

+ Fuller observes, that, though there is no mention of tradesmen in the Roll of Battle Abbey, such persons nevertheless came over with the Normans. "For," he says, 66 soon would the head of the best Mounsieur ake without a capper; hands be tanned without a glover; feet be foundred without a tanner, currier, shoemaker; whole body be starved, cold, without weaver, fuller, tailor; hungry, without baker, brewer, cook; harbourless without mason, smith and carpenter. Say not, it was beneath the French gallantry to stoop to such mean employments, who found all these trades here amongst the English their vassals. For besides that nothing is base which is honest, and necessary for human society, such as are acquainted with the French, both ancient and modern, finicall humour, know they account our tailors, butchers, shoemakers, coblers, cooks,

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