78- extracts from Coxa's travels. "J^lv '8. 



in the mode of employing his vafsals. Ke is r^bsolute 

 master of their time and labour ; some he employs in agri- 

 c-ukure, a few he makes his menial servants, and fjom 

 others he exacts an annual payment. Some contribute four 

 or five (hillings a year,, others who are engaged in traflic ox 

 trade are afsefsed in proportion to their supposed profits. 

 I saw a mason who was rated at L. 6 per annum, a- smith at 

 L. 12, and othtrs as high L. 2o. Any capital which they 

 may have acquired by their industry, may be seized, and 

 there can be no redrefs ; as, according to the old feudal law, 

 which still exists, a slave cannot institute a procefs against 

 his master. Hence it occasionally liappcns that several 

 peasants who have gained a large capital, cannot purchase 

 their liberty for any sura, because they ate subject as long 

 as they continue slaves to be pillaged by their masters. 



" The vafsals who work for their masters genera'.lv re- 

 ceiving their maintenance, always enjoy in a sufficient 

 abundance the common necefsaries of life, and usually 

 spend any little money they are able to acquire- in clothes 

 or spirituous liquors. Those who, in contradiction to this 

 general rule, save the profits which they may have earned 

 by their labour or by trade, conceal as much as pofsible 

 any acquisition of fortune, and frequently bury their mo- 

 ney under ground, this is one of the causes of the scarcity 

 of silver currency. 



" By the new code of laws the enormous power of the- 

 lord over the persons of his vafsals, is reduced by restric- 

 tion;, mere consonant to the humane principles which dis- 

 tinguiO) all the regulations of the present emprefs ; and the 

 right of inflicting punilhinent is lodged, where it ever 

 ought to be, in the hands of the public magistrate ; abuses, 

 hovvevf r, still subsist, but must in time yield to the influ- 

 ence of such salutary institutions. 



" 1 am far from afserting, proceeds our author, that inhu- 

 manity is the general characteristic of the Rufsian nobili- 

 ty, or that there are not many persons who treat their 



