1 38 On the ORIGIN and STRUCTURE of 



large commons allotted for the promiscuous ufe of the inhabi- 

 tants of particular diftricts ; and the devaftations of the con- 

 queft left large tracts of land deflitute of proprietors. Now, 

 independently of the grants which the fubordinate chiefs might 

 fpare from their own large eftates, they muft evidently have 

 had great influence in the difpofal of fuch public, common or 

 wafle lands. PofTefTed of the prerogative of diflributing the 

 lots of the citizens ; inheriting, for the naoft part, a confider- 

 able family-intereft, which the wealth of the conqueft had con- 

 firmed ; entrufted, in the firft inftance, with the care of the 

 public treafure and the public fafety, and free from the jea,- 

 lous factions of an independent ftate, it muft foon 4iave be- 

 come a matter of courfe for them to make grants of fuch lands 

 to their favourites and retainers *". The conditions of ths 

 grants were, no doubt, various. Some, we know, were liks 

 the lots of the citizens conferred in full property ; but, among 

 people who had acquired wealth by conqueft, before either laws 

 or government were ripe to guard it, the natural and ordinary 

 terms of all fuch tranfactions muft have been military fervice, 

 yielded on the one hand, and lands and protection conferred in 

 return. Thefe grants were termed benefices, and the grantees 

 beneficiaries ; and, in this way, a great number of the more 

 enterprifing and better fort of people wcr.e not only diftinguifh- 

 ed, as before the conqueft, by their particular attachment and 

 fidelity to certain chiefs, but came to be fubjedted to the fpe* 

 cific obligation of yielding to the king, or to other great men> 

 an extent of military fervice,. much beyond what they owed to 

 their country, in common with the reft of the nation.. 



BUT however much this practice may have added to the 

 powers of the magiftracy, or whatever revolutions in government 

 it afterwards produced., there is no reafon to imagine, that, in 



early 



* IN Sweden, the towns, hundreds, and. provinces had/eac'oof them commons, bear r 

 ing refpe&ively the technical names of -lamfalt, haradzalmaining, and land almaining^ 

 grants of which tvcre obtained from the chief magiftf atcs, vix. lagman, hereda, <b"c. ; and 

 fuch public and common lands are natural appendages to all rude communities.. 



