A. D. 1377. 585 



ed more of the money of his fubjeds (who, dazzled with the fplendour 

 of his fruitlefs vidories, generally gave it with good will) than any of 

 his predeceflbrs. The acquifition of the crown of France was the dar- 

 ling wifli of his heart, and the great objedl of all his politics. But, of 

 all that he had conquered in that kingdom, there remained fubjed to 

 him at his death only the fingle town of Calais, an ufelefs incumbrance 

 upon the treafury of England * : and, fortunately for Great Britain, his 

 attempt to conquer France deprived him of almofl all the territories in- 

 herited by him from his anceflors in that kingdom, except Bourdeaux, 

 Bayonne, and the iflands in the Channel. In his reign the integrity of 

 the fterling money was loft fight of, and permanent taxes became fami- 

 liar to the Englifli ; but that hardfhip was in fome degree alleviated by 

 the reprefentatives of the commons, the branch of the parliament moft 

 connefted with commerce, beginning to feel and aftert their own poli- 

 tical importance as an eflential part of the legiflative body, and truftees 

 for the purfes of their conftituents. If Edward had fet himfelf down 

 quietly (and there was nothing to hinder him) to mind the beft duty 

 of a king, and the beft interefts of his fubjeds, the Englifh might very 

 foon have become a great agricultural, manufaduring, and commercial, 

 people. 



November — Before the introdudion of manufadures created profit- 

 able employment for the people not neceflarily engaged in agriculture, 

 (for the population of Europe, though far ftiort of the numbers now 

 maintained in the more civilized parts of it, was more than fufficient 

 for cultivating the ground, as cultivation was then managed) the fuper- 

 fluous people attached themfelves to chiefs, by whom they were main- 

 tained in idlenefs in peaceable times, and whofe ftandard they followed 

 in battle, to defend the country, to convulfe it by civil war, or to at- 

 tack a neighbouring chief, juft as their lord commanded them. In this 

 ftate of fociety even the fmaller barons found it impoilible to live in 

 fafety in the neighbourhood of a great lord without conneding them- 

 felves with him by an obligation of military fervice on their part and a 

 promife of protedion on his. Thus was a kingdom, though nominally 

 united under one fovereign, adually divided into a number of inde- 

 pendent territories, the lords of which paid no more obedience to the 

 king or the laws than what their own inclinations or interefts prompted 

 them to : and thence we find the perfonal charader of the fovereign in 

 thofe ages have a much greater effed in exalting a kingdom to a tran- 

 fitory fuperiority, or finking it into a temporary decline, than ever ap- 

 pears in the better conftituted and confolidated governments of later 

 times. It appears, that fome people of fmall eftates in England, perhaps 

 defirous of imitating the condottieri, or leaders of the companions, who, 



* In the fecond year of King Richard 11 it was afieited in parliament, that Calais coft ^20,000 a- 

 year. {_Cotton^s Abridgement, ^. 174.J 



Vol. I. 4 E 



