arising to us and our successors from their said servitude." The result, as might have been expected, was much honor to the royal munificence and justice, and but little amelioration to the serf.'

With very considerable abatement in rigor, the feudal system, and the consequent oppression of the peasant, continued in France until the revolution of 1789. "Fiefs and the feudal system," says M. Troplong, "had introduced in France a noblesse, the members of which have, even to the latest times, preserved privileges very onerous to the people, and unjust prerogatives very humiliating to the balance of the nation." One can almost excuse the horrors of the revolution, when it is remembered, to use the figure of Macaulay, that the Devil of Tyranny always tears and rends the body which it leaves. Certain it is, that a people unjustly enslaved by masters, in nowise their superiors, acquired thereby for the first time their enfranchisement. The great Napoleon, it is true, after the Empire, established a new and even an hereditary nobility. But he exhibited the sagacious wisdom of his master mind even in this; for while he rewarded the brave and virtuous, and stimulated the pride and emulation of their posterity, he withheld from the new noblesse those prerogatives and powers which oppressed the people. The French people objected not to the display and pageantry attendant upon a titled aristocracy; and when unaccompanied by oppression, they were not distasteful to them.

Sicily, Italy, and Venice, for many ages furnished marts to the slave-dealer. Venetian ships were engaged in the commerce long after Venetian laws had prohibited it; and never did the trade therein fully cease, until treading the deck of an argosy of Venice was declared by law to be itself freedom.3

'Guizot's History of Civilization, Lecture viii.

Droit civil français, Liv. I, Int. 195.

Bancroft's United States, i, 163, and authorities there cited.

Slavery continued in Poland so long as it remained an independent state; the slaves were mostly prædial, living upon their master's land, furnished by him with agricultural implements and cattle, and bound to labor for him a specified portion of their time. They were allowed, by their lords, to own and possess personal property, and thus acquired occasionally a comfortable competency.1

When Russia became master of most of her soil, the condition of the serfs was not improved, as the slavery of Russia is as arbitrary and oppressive as that of any portion of the world. It has existed there ever since the Muscovite Empire has been known, and has undergone, in the progress of time, but little amelioration. It includes the vast majority of the population of this extensive domain, and presents but little prospect of change or improvement. Besides yielding passive obedience, the Russian slave must uncover himself in the presence of his master; must succor him when attacked; must not marry without his permission; must make no complaint against his master, except under the severest penalties, if it be decided against him; and must submit to any labor or punishment which his master may inflict upon him. The master may dispose of his serf in any manner he pleases, sell or mortgage him, transfer him from one estate to another, or to his household, or transport him to Siberia. May inflict any punishment he pleases upon him. May seize all of his earnings, and appropriate to his own use. However, by the indulgence of their masters, some of the serfs acquire considerable

estates.

Emancipation is allowed by law; and one article provides, that "an emancipated serf can never again become a slave, but he may be compelled to serve as a soldier all his life." But emancipation is no blessing to the

'See Dickens's Household Words, i, 342.

Russian serf. There exists no intermediate grades between the nobles and the serfs. There is no opening for rewarding industry and probity; no stimulus for energy and integrity. The serf, bond or free, is still a serf, confined to the occupation of a serf, without hope of a better condition. As free, he is liable to starvation, while otherwise his master must provide food for him: and hunger and famine are realities among the Russian serfs. It is not surprising then, that they are contented with their lot and seek no change. They are indolent, constitutionally, and indulge it at their master's expense. They are mendacious, beyond the negro perhaps, and feel no shame at detection. Like him, too, they have no providence for the future, and no anxiety about it. They are filthy in their persons, and in their rude huts; exhibiting, in all their handiworks, the ignorance of a savage and the stupidity of a dolt.1

In Turkey, and wherever Islamism prevails, slavery is a part of the religion of the people. The slave-market at Constantinople is always crowded with both blacks and whites; and in the same stall may be seen the negro from Sennaar or Abyssinia, and the beautiful Circassian girl, sold by her parents to avoid poverty and misery. Except to the Christian slave, the Turk is not in practice a cruel master, though his power is almost absolute. It is said that other Europeans, residing in Turkey, are invariably more cruel masters than the Turks themselves. Young and promising boys are frequently purchased by the sovereign, to be reared and educated for officers of state; and the Circassian beauties usually find a home in the harem of a wealthy proprietor. The right of redemption, too, is strictly enjoined by the Koran; for all slaves who properly conduct themselves, a writing is

'In this description of Russian serfdom, I have followed, chiefly, the work of Germain de Ligny, "The Knout and the Russians," Art. viii, "Slavery."

given to them fixing their value, and when the sum is tendered, the master is bound to accept it.'

A few remarks as to the condition of the peasantry at the present time, will properly close our view of slavery on the continent of Europe. Except in Turkey and Russia, slavery in name does not exist at this day. In these we have already noticed the present condition of the servile classes. It is due to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia to say, that he emancipated many of his serfs, as an experiment to test the success of freedom granted to them. The present Emperor is seeking to extend the experiment. Without a radical change in the constitution of the state, offering greater inducements for effort on the part of the people; and perhaps also a change still more difficult to produce, that of the character of the serf himself, no bright hopes need be cherished of any material improvement in the condition of Russian slavery.

In Hungary and Transylvania, the serfs rise but little above a state of slavery. Involuntary and vile personal services to their lords are still enforced; corporal punishment, at the will of the lord, is still allowed in the latter country, and existed in the former till the year 1835. The Urbarium of Maria Theresa, the Magna Charta of the peasantry, with all its boasted reform, did not elevate them to the position of base villanage in England.

While slavery in name is extinct, slavery in fact exists on the continent, and must continue to exist, until enlightenment shall have driven intellectual darkness from the earth, and religion shall have changed so completely the heart of man, that every one shall be con

1

1 See Stephens's Travels in Greece, Turkey, &c., vol. i, ch. xiii; Copley's Hist. of Slavery, p. 92. For description of slave-market, see Byron's Don Juan, Canto iv and v.

2 For an interesting and graphic view of the peasantry of Hungary and Transylvania, see Paget's work, i, 178, et seq.; ii, 143, et seq.

tented to occupy that sphere for which his nature fits him.

The labor performed by the lower classes, is servile labor. In name, it is voluntary, in reality, it is involuntary, forced by a master more relentless than their feudal lords,-stern necessity. The female slavery described by Professor Silliman in his Second Visit to Europe, as witnessed by himself in Saxony,' had no parallel among the ancient Germans, whose slavery we have been examining. When population becomes dense, and the numbers depending upon their labor for their food increase, the price of labor can have but one standard, to which it of necessity comes: that is, the smallest possible amount upon which the laborer can feed and clothe himself and such of his family as are absolutely helpless. Another result is, that, as the price of labor decreases, the age at which the child shall be considered capable to toil for his own support correspondingly decreases; and the age at which the old shall be considered exempt. from labor, in the same ratio increases. Necessity, too, forces the laborer to submit to an amount of labor to which his physical frame is incompetent, and hence, laws are necessary to protect him from such exactions. Another result is, that, despairing of an honest support, or yielding to natural indolence, the number of paupers frightfully increases, and with it the number of thefts and offences of that character. Michaelis, a learned German writer, after considering the question, "whether it be better to have slavery or not?" sums up thus: "To strike a balance, then, between the advantages and disadvantages of slavery, is a difficult matter; but upon the whole, when I consider the severity of our numerous capital condemnations for thefts, and our insecurity after all against its artifices; when I consider that the punishment of our culprits only serves to make them a burden

1 Vol. ii, p. 341.