43 



was not so favourable to the advancement and perfection of 

 manufactures, as it seems to be, in these times. Manufac- 

 tures were then, in generai, carried on by slaves, Avho worked 

 for the emolument of their proprietors.* Such an enforced 

 exercise of trades could not have exhibited that energy 

 of industry, that unremitting and eager application, that 

 chearful activity and display of talent, that extraordinary 

 fertility of invention, followed up by an adequate degree 

 of labour, ready to execute, which characterize the works 

 of freemen. Yet most of the republics of ancient times 

 were commercial. Athens, Corinth, Rhodes, Tyre, Hera- 

 clea, Byzantium, Marseilles, and, above all, the state of 

 Carthage, possessed many ships, and carried on an exten- 

 sive commerce, which brought them in great riches. In 

 later times, the flourishing states of Venice, Genoa, Flo- 

 rence, Pisa and Lucca, Holland, the towns of the Han- 

 seatic League, Geneva; and, in our own days, the new re- 

 public of the United States of America: all concur, to 

 shew the intimate connexion between repubUcan freedom 

 and the commercial spirit; and the tendency of the for- 



^ 2 mer, 



* Demosthenes, the orator, was proprietor of a number of slaves, who 

 were employed in the business of armourers. Cornelius Nepos describes the 

 family of Atticus, {v. Att.) " usus est familia, si utilitate judicandum est, 

 " optima; si forma, vix raediocri: namque in ea erant pueri literatissimi ana. 

 " gnosti optimi, et plurimi librarii ut ne pene pedissequus quidem quisquam 

 " esset qui non utrumque horum pulchre facere posset. Pari modo artifices 

 " ceteri, quos cultus domesticus desiderat, apprime boni." The elder Pliny 

 tells us, that, till the year U. C. 580, there was .no profest public baker at 

 Rome. 



