The EUROPEAN LEGISLATURES. 31 



turn, to affift them in their wars. But, in every age, nations 

 find it expedient to arrange themfelves under the protection of 

 their more powerful neighbours ; and where an alliance on 

 equal terms is not to be obtained, the prote&ion muft be paid 

 for by a tribxite in money, or a contingent of troops, to be em- 

 ployed in executing the meafures of the more powerful ftate. 

 If fuch a flipulation is to be accounted a feudal contract, Athens 

 and Lacedemon were the feudal lords of Greece, and Rome the 

 feudal lord of half the known world. If there were any evi- 

 dence, that alliances of this fort had been formed by a fur- 

 render of the territory of the protected to the dominion of the 

 protector, or that territories were conceived to have been pledg- 

 ed in fecurity of thefe treaties, then, no doubt, a flriking re- 

 femblance between them and the feudal relation of modern- 

 times would be eftablifhed. But no fuch evidence has been pro- 

 duced ; and the fluctuating ftate of thefe alliances in Gaul, and 

 the little progrefs the Germans had made in municipal law, can 

 leave no doubt, that they were confidered as merely perfonal. 

 contracts, and, in truth, poflefled neither the folidity of a real 

 vaflalage, nor any connection with the fubtile diftinction be- 

 tween the dominium directum and dominium utile of land .*. 



Mr MILLAR has treated, with much ingenuity, the argu- 

 ment founded on the natural progrefs of rude nations f. He 

 fuppofes, that the chief will naturally, at the feparation of 

 farms, have very large domains afligned him, great part of which 

 he will employ in creating eftates at will for his retainers, who v 

 in return for this precarious poffemon, muft labour or fight for 



him 



* CSSAR. relates, lib. 6. c. ir. deEeli.Galh That the Sequani and JEdui were the. 

 heads of fa&ions in Gaul. The Sequani, by the aid of the Germans, fo got the better of 

 the .SLdui, " ut magnam partem clientium ab ^Eduis ad fe tranfducerent obfidefque, ab/ 

 " iis principum filios acciperint, et publiee jurare cogerent, Nidi/ fe contra Seyuano?- 

 " concilii moturos, et partem Jinitime^agri per vim occupatam poffiderunt." Things changedr 

 after CESAR'S arrival. The JEdai recovered their old clients, and they, .and CSSAR.'*. 

 other friends, the Remi, obtained many new ones. 



-) Origin of Ranks, p. 194. and 260, 



