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THE introduction of the feudal law, fo far from extending, may be regarded as an attempt to moderate the authority of the great allodial lords. It eftablished a regular fubordination, accompanied with a long train of services and duties, from the king down to the smallest proprietor. During the minority of the proprietor, the rent, together with the management of his lands, fell into the hands of his immediate fuperior, and, confequently, thofe of all great proprietors into the hands of the king, who was charged with the maintenance and education of the pupil, and who, from his authority as guardian, was fuppofed to have a right of disposing of him in marriage, provided it was in a manner not unfuitable to his rank, But though this inftitutión neceffarily tended to ftrengthen the authority of the king, and to weaken that of the great proprietors, it could not do either fufficiently for establishing order and good government among the inhabitants of the country; because it could not alter fufficiently that state of property and manners from which the diforders. arofe. The authority of government still continued to be, as before, too weak in the head and too strong in the inferior inembers, and the exceffive ftrength of the inferior members was the caufe of the weakness of the head. After the institution of feudal fubordination, the king was as incapable of reftraining the violence of the great lords as before. They ftill continued to make war according to their own difcretion, al

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moft continually upon one another, and very cHAR frequently upon the king; and the open country ftill continued to be a fcene of violence, rapine, and disorder.

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But what all the violence of the feudal-inftic tutions could never have effected, the filent and infenfible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. These gra dually furnished the great proprietors with fome thing for which they could exchange the whole furplus produce of their lands, and which they could confume themselves without fharing it either with tenants or retainers. All for our felves, and nothing for other people, feems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. As foon, therefore, as they could find a method of con→ fuming the whole value of their rents themselves, they had no difpofition to fhare them with any other perfons. For a pair of diamond buckles perhaps, or for fomething as frivolous and ufelefs, they exchanged the maintenance, or what is the fame thing, the price of the maintenance of a thoufand men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them. The buckles, however, were to be all their own, and no other human creature was to have any fhare of them; whereas in the more ancient method of expence they must have shared with at least a thousand people. With the judges that were to determine the preference, this dif ference was perfectly decifive; and thus, for the gratification of the most childish, the meaneft and

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BOOK the most fordid of all vanities, they gradually bar tered their whole power and authority.

In a country where there is no foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a man of ten thousand a year cannot well employ his revenue in any other way than in maintaining, perhaps, a thoufand families, who are all of them neceffarily at his command. In the present state of Europe, a man of ten thousand a year can fpend his whole revenue, and he generally does fo, without directly maintaining twenty people, or being able to command more than ten footmen not worth the commanding. Indirectly, perhaps, he maintains as great or even a greater number of people than he could have done by the ancient method of expence. For though the quantity of precious productions for which he exchanges his whole revenue be very fmall, the number of workmen employed in collecting and preparing it, muft neceffarily have been very great. Its great price generally arifes from the wages of their labour, and the profits of all their immediate employers. By paying that price he indirectly pays all those wages and profits, and thus indirectly contributes to the maintenance of all the workmen and their employers. He ge-nerally contributes, however, but a very finall proportion to that of each, to very few perhaps a tenth, to many not a hundredth, and to fome not a thousandth, nor even a ten thousandth part of their whole annual maintenance. Though he contributes, therefore, to the maintenance of them all, they are all more or lefs independent

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of him, because generally they can all be main CHAP. tained without him.

WHEN the great proprietors of land fpend their rents in maintaining their, tenants, and retainers, each of them maintains entirely all his own tenants and all his own retainers. But when they spend them in maintaining tradesmen and artificers, they may, all of them taken together, perhaps, maintain as great, or, on account of the wafte which attends ruftic hofpitality, a greater number of people than before. Each of them, however, taken fingly, contributes often but a very small, fhare to the maintenance of any individual of this greater number. Each tradefinan or artificer derives his fubfiftence from the employment, not of one, but of a hundred or a thousand different customers. Though in fome measure obliged to them all, therefore, he is not abfolutely dependent upon any one of them.

THE perfonal expence of the great proprietors having in this manner gradually increased, it was impoffible that the number of their retainers fhould not as gradually diminish, till they were at laft difimiffed altogether. The fame caufe gradually led them to difmifs the unnecessary part of their tenants. Farms were enlarged, and the occupiers of land, notwithstanding the com plaints of depopulation, reduced to the number neceffary for cultivating it, according to the imperfect state of cultivation and improvement in those times. By the removal of the unneceffary mouths, and by exacting from the farmer the full value of the farm, a greater furplus, or what

BOOK is the fame thing, the price of a greater furplus, III. was obtained for the proprietor, which the mer

chants and manufacturers foon furnished him with a method of spending upon his own perfon in the fame manner as he had done the 'reft. The fame caufe continuing to operate, he was defirous to raise his rents above what his lands, in the actual state of their improvement, could afford. His tenants could agree to this úpon one condition only, that they fhould be fecured in their poffeffion, for fuch a term of years as might give them time to recover with profit whatever they fhould lay out in the further improvement of the land. The expensive vanity of the landlord made him willing to accept of this condition; and hence the origin of long leafes.

EVEN a tenant at will, who pays the full value of the land, is not altogether dependent upon the landlord. The pecuniary advantages which they receive from one another, are mutual and equal, and fuch a tenant will expofe neither his life nor his fortune in the fervice of the proprietor. But if he has a leafe for a long term of years, he is altogether independent; and his landlord muft not expect from him even the most trifling service beyond what is either expressly ftipulated in the lease, or impofed upon him by the common and known law of the country.

THE tenants having in this manner become independent, and the retainers being difmiffed, the great proprietors were no longer capable of interrupting the regular execution of justice, or

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