FREE LABOUR AND CONTRACT. 499 



occasional sales of lands, as well as irredeemable quit-rents. 

 These burdens and restraints pressed so heavily on the pea 

 sant-proprietor as often to make his portion of land not 

 worth cultivating ; so that before the Revolution large tracts 

 of France, made valueless partly in these ways and partly by 

 imperial taxation, had been abandoned and were covered 

 with w r ild vegetation. Of course there resulted a large addi 

 tion to the detached population. Though in England such 

 processes do not seem to have operated in large measure to in 

 crease the class of free labourers, yet they probably operated 

 in some measure. 



To these major causes must be added minor causes, some 

 of which have been at work from the earliest days. As soon 

 as there arises chieftainship there arise fugitives men who, 

 ill-used by one chief, escape and join some other. Among 

 the Abipones the subordination is very slight. &quot; 



&quot;Moreover, being lovers of liberty and roving, they choose to own 

 no law, and bind themselves to their cacique by no oaths of fidelity. 

 Without leave asked on their part, or displeasure evinced on his, 

 they remove with their families whithersoever it suits them, and join 

 some other cacique ; and when tired of the second, return with im 

 punity to the horde of the first.&quot; 



Similarly of the Patagonians we are told 



&quot;They are obliged to treat their vassals with great humanity and 

 mildness, and oftentimes to relieve their wants, or they will seek the 

 protection of some other cacique.&quot; 



And of the Bechuanas Livingstone says: 



&quot;Families frequently leave their own headman and flee to another 

 village, and sometimes a whole village decamps by night, leaving the 

 headman by himself.&quot; 



These actions, common in low social states, foreshadow some 

 that happen throughout all higher social stages. The same 

 motive which, throughout feudal days, led men-at-arms to 

 leave their native places and change their allegiance, or take 

 service abroad, of course operated on the lower ranks. In 

 Russia, for instance, serfs occasionally deserted one petty 

 prince or boyar for another whose treatment was not so hard ; 



