Chap. XI. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 225 



peafants, and offered to emancipate them all, and leave them to be 

 governed by themfelves; for the peafants, both in Poland and Ruffia, 

 are no better than flaves to their landlords, as they vi'ere in 

 Britain fome hundred years ago. The peafants of this nobleman 

 thanked him for his generous offer, but faid they would confider of 

 it, and return by fuch a day, and give him an anfwer. Accordingly, 

 they came back on the day they had appointed, and told him, that 

 they thought themfelves infinitely obliged to him for his generous 

 offer, but that they did not chufe to accept of it, being convinced that 

 they were happier under his government, than they would be un- 

 der their own. And I was acquainted with a Ruflian gentleman, 

 who told me, that the Ruflian peafants fhew very great affedion to 

 their mafters ; and he mentioned a fire which happened fome years 

 ago in the opera-houfe of Peterfburgh, when it was much crouded 

 with company, where feveral of the peafants loft their lives in en- 

 deavouring to fave their mafters. He told me alfo fome ftories of 

 peafants, who colleded money among themfelves, (for thefe pea- 

 fants, though flaves, have land, which they cultivate and reap the 

 fruits of), and moft generoufly advanced it to pay their mafters 

 debts, and fave him from the neceility of felling his landsj and fo 

 giving them another mafter ; for the peafants there go along with 

 the lands to the purchafer. 



Now, I think, v^e may fuppofe, that the Egyptians were not only 

 as wife as the Capadocians, and the peafants of the Polifti nobleman 

 above mentioned, fo as to know that they were happier under the 

 governors they had, than under their own government, but were 

 as much attached to their governors, as the Ruflian peafants are to 

 their mafters ; and, if fo, it is evident, that they were not govern- 

 ed as flaves, by terror and fear of puniftiment, but with their own 

 free will and confent, and with love and affection to their gover- 

 nors; and, that being the cafe, I think it is evident, that they were as 



Vol. IV. F f well 



