78 



cute the most menial offices. Those mean employments were, ac- 

 cording to Ware and Ma Geoghegan, deemed a sufficient reason 

 for exclusion from military offices; but it seems more probable, 

 that the necessity of pursuing such, especially during war, pre- 

 cluded the possibility of engaging in other pursuits. 



The superior orders possessed slaves, and these, according to 

 their employments or circumstances connected with the loss of li- 

 berty, seem to have been subdivided into several varieties : otlier- 

 wise it would be difficult to account for tiie multiplied denomi- 

 nations, by which this rank of persons was designated in the Irish 

 language. '^^■ 



Jealousy, ambition, and revenge, acted, from the remotest aera 

 of our history, like so many secret springs, whose perennial direc- 

 tion silently led to the troubled fountain of war ; which produced 

 an abundant supply of captive slaves. From this low and degrad- 

 ed system of servitude, those vices incident to slavery must be 

 considered as inseparable; and it seems, that, in every age, even 

 down to the present time, a coincidence of causes has conspired 

 to transmit them in hereditary succession. On the other hand, 

 we should not omit to notice, from the catalogue of virtues, their 

 hospitality and good nature ; for which they have at all times 

 been eminently conspicuous. 



' The same rights of supremacy, which were possessed by the 

 king over the royal peasants, were equally enjoyed by the Uchel- 

 wyr over his own.''^^- The nativi liberi, or the common people, 

 who, as in Gaul and Britain, were considered pene servorum loco, 



198. I find the word slave expressed by 15 or 16 Irish names, as modh, davrara, Traill, 

 Dnigaire, &c. 



199. Hist, of Mane. v. 1. p. 352. 



