fbe EUROPEAN LEGISLATURES. 7 



BUT it is not enough to be affured, that the arrangements of 

 fociety among the conquerors were extremely {imple, or that an 

 independence, natural to rude men, ftill prevailed, and was 

 equally inconfiftent with defpotifm in chiefs, and with that fpi- 

 rit of fubordination, and Tyflematic ftrufture of laws, on which 

 civil liberty depends. We muft endeavour to learn rexacTly what 

 the flrudhire of fociety among the Gothic nations was, while 

 ftill remaining in their original feats ; and to afcertain the influ- 

 ence which fettlement, in the cultivated provinces of the em- 

 pire, where laws and government had been long eftablifhed, ne- 

 ceflarily produced on the political fituation of the conquerors. 



A VERY flight view of the hiftory of Europe points out 

 abundant materials for this extenfive enquiry. The nations of 

 this continent appear to have followed almoft the fame route to 

 civilization, advancing only with more or lefs celerity, in pro- 

 portion as they were fituated in countries more or lefs fruitful, 

 and more or lefs expofed to foreign intercourfe. At the com- 

 mencements of hiftory, we find the rifing republics in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Mediterranean poflefled of inftitutions and 

 traditions which indicate that they had recently emerged from 

 that fituation in which the more inland nations on the north 

 of them ftill remained. After a few centuries had elapfed, 

 Gaul and South Britain are found, at the invafion of C^SAR, a 

 tranfcript of Greece and Italy and Spain, when baniming their 

 kings and eftablifhing republics. Germany, more inland, re- 

 tained ftill her rude form, her extenfive confederacies, and dif- 

 pofition to emigration ; while Finland, Caledonia, and Scandi- 

 navia, were little different from a North American wildernefs. 

 Thefe countries, however, became formidable before the fall of 

 the weftern empire ; and Scandinavian tribes crofTed the Baltic, 



and 







Wherefore he adds, the leges vetujliffimx directed the farmer to have a houfe fj>r himfelf, 

 and trinas for the flaves, cattle and corn, he might carry about with him in his journey- 

 ings, to be put up when he fojourned in one place, " perinde ut fepes excepta tantum 

 " ea quae villam includeret," p. 295. 



