IV.

the operations of merchants were in this way, CHAP. than those of mere country gentlemen. The habits, befides, of order, ceconomy and attention, to which mercantile bufinefs naturally forms a merchant, render him much fitter to execute, with profit and fuccefs, any project of improvement.

THIRDLY, and laftly, commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and fecurity of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived almost in a continual state of war with their neighbours, and of fervile dependency upon their fuperiors. This, though it has been the least observed, is by far the most important of all their effects. Mr. Hume is the only writer who, fo far as I know, has hitherto taken notice of it.

In a country which has neither foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a great proprietor, having nothing for which he can exchange the greater part of the produce of his lands which is over and above the maintenance of the cultivators, confumes the whole in rustic hofpitality at home. If this furplus produce is fufficient to maintain a hundred or a thousand men, he can make ufe of it in no other way than by maintaining a hundred or a thousand men. He is at all times, therefore, furrounded with a multitude of retainers and dependants, who having no equivalent to give in return for their maintenance, but being fed entirely by his bounty, must obey him, for the fame reafon that fol

III.

BOOK diers muft obey the prince who pays them. Before the extenfion of commerce and manufactures in Europe, the hospitality of the rich and the great, from the fovereign down to the fmallest baron, exceeded every thing which in the present times we can easily form a notion of. Weftminster hall was the dining-room of William Rufus, and might frequently, perhaps, not be too large for his company. It was reckoned a piece of magnificence in Thomas Becket, that he ftrowed the floor of his hall with clean hay or rushes in the season, in order that the knights and fquires, who could not get feats, might not fpoil their fine clothes when they fat down on the floor to eat their dinner. The great earl of Warwick is faid to have entertained every day at his different manors, thirty thoufand people; and though the number here may have been exaggerated, it muft, however, have been very great to admit of fuch exaggeration. A hofpitality nearly of the fame kind was exercised not many years ago in many different parts of the highlands of Scotland. It feems to be common in all nations to whom commerce and manufactures are little known. I have feen, fays Doctor Pocock, an Arabian chief dine in the streets of a town where he had come to fell his cattle, and invite all paffengers, even common beggars, to fit down with him and partake of his banquet.

THE Occupiers of land were in every respect as dependent upon the great proprietor as his retainers. Even fuch of them as were not in a state of villanage, were tenants at will, who paid

IV.

a rent in no respect equivalent to the fubfiftence CHAP which the land afforded them. A crown, half a crown, a sheep, a lamb, was fome years ago in the highlands of Scotland a common rent for lands which maintained a family. In fome places it is fo at this day; nor will money at present purchase a greater quantity of commodities there than in other places. In a country where the furplus produce of a large eftate must be confumed upon the estate itself, it will frequently be more convenient for the proprietor, that part of it be confumed at a distance from his own houfe, provided they who confume it are as dependent upon him as either his retainers or his menial fervants. He is thereby faved from the embarraffment of either too large a company or too large a family. A tenant at will, who poffeffes land fufficient to maintain his family for little more than a quit-rent, is as dependent upon the proprietor as any fervant or retainer whatever, and must obey him with as little referve. Such a proprietor, as he feeds his fervants and retainers at his own house, fo he feeds his tenants at their houses. The fubfiftence of both is derived from his bounty, and its continuance depends upon his good pleasure.

UPON the authority which the great proprietors neceffarily had in fuch a state of things over their tenants and retainers, was founded the power of the ancient barons. They neceffarily became the judges in peace, and the leaders in war, of all who dwelt upon their eftates. They could maintain order and execute the law within their

respective

BOOK refpective demefnes, because each of them could
III. there turn the whole force of all the inhabitants
against the injuftice of any one.
No other per-

fon had fufficient authority to do this. The king
in particular had not. In those ancient times he
was little more than the greatest proprietor in
his dominions, to whom, for the fake of common
defence against their common enemies, the other
great proprietors paid certain refpects. To have
enforced payment of a small debt within the lands
of a great proprietor, where all the inhabitants
were armed and accustomed to ftand by one ano-
ther, would have coft the king, had he attempt-
ed it by his own authority, almost the same
effort as to extinguish a civil war. He was,
therefore, obliged to abandon the adminiftration
of juftice through the greater part of the country,
to those who were capable of adminiftering it;
and for the fame reafon to leave the command of
the country militia to thofe whom that militia
would obey.

IT is a mistake to imagine that thofe territorial jurifdictions took their origin from the feudal law. Not only the highest jurisdictions both civil and criminal, but the power of levying troops, of coining money, and even that of making byelaws for the government of their own people, were all rights poffeffed allodially by the great proprietors of land feveral centuries before even the name of the feudal law was known in Europe. The authority and jurifdiction of the Saxon lords in England, appear to have been as great before the conqueft, as that of any of the Norman

lords

IV.

lords after it. But the feudal law is not fup- CHA P. pofed to have become the common law of England till after the conqueft. That the most extenfive authority and jurifdictions were poffeffed by the great lords in France allodially, long before the feudal law was introduced into that country, is a matter of fact that admits of no doubt. That authority and thofe jurifdictions all neceffarily flowed from the state of property and manners juft now defcribed, Without remounting to the remote antiquities of either the French or English monarchies, we may find in much later times many proofs that fuch effects muft always flow from fuch caufes. It is not thirty years ago fince Mr. Cameron of Lochiel, a gentleman of Lochabar in Scotland, without any legal warrant whatever, not being what was then called a lord of regality, nor even a tenant in chief, but a vaffal of the duke of Argyle, and without being fo much as a juftice of peace, used, notwithstanding, to exercife the highest criminal jurifdiction over his own people. He is faid to have done fo with great equity, though without any of the formalities of juftice; and it is not improbable that the ftate of that part of the country at that time made it neceffary for him to affume this authority in order to maintain the public peace. That gentleman, whofe rent never exceeded five hundred pounds a year, carried, in 1745, eight hundred of his own people into the rebellion with him.

THE