MR. BRAMAn's address. l*? 



which took place in the political state of the countries, where 

 the system prevailed. But it was for a long period generally 

 one of most grievous exaction and oppression on the part of 

 those who had power to fix the terms. The condition of the 

 tenants was but a little improvement on that of slavery and 

 serfdom. Among the causes which prepared the way for the 

 first French revolution, are reckoned the immense burdens im- 

 posed upon the peasantry. The landholders, having no taste 

 for rural life and agricultural pursuits, repaired to the capital 

 for purposes of luxury and ambition. They regarded the 

 cultivators of their fields as an inferior class of beings, whose 

 business it was to labor for the subsistence and pleasure of 

 those above them. They subjected them the most severe re- 

 strictions and extortions. The game laws were a most ty- 

 rannical and destructive interference with agricultural labors. 

 In France such animals as deers and wild boai"s were suffered 

 to rove at their pleasure, and lay waste the fields of the tenants, 

 just to afford an opportunity to the higher classes for indul- 

 gence in the exercise of hunting. The nobility and gentry 

 had a taste for partridges. Hence the farming processes must 

 be conducted with reference to its gratification. Mowing the 

 grass must be suspended till the eggs of the bird were hatched. 

 Destroying the w«eds was interdicted until the young par- 

 tridges were out of danger from the hoe— and stubble must 

 be carefully preserved, to afford them a shelter from the weath- 

 er ; and no kind of manure was allowed to fertilize the soil, 

 that was thought injurious to their flavor. So that it would 

 seem in one point of view, to have been a prevalent idea at 

 that time, that th€ chief end of the world and man was the 

 partridge. The grass grew to protect the eggs, and the weeds 

 sprang up as a covert for the young, and the stubble was de- 

 signed as a shelter from inclement weather, and all the lower 

 classes were to conduct their toils with reference to its preser- 

 vation, and gentlemen were made to eat it. So far as the 

 agricultural laborer was concerned, France had made some 

 progress. The first measure was to make him a slave and 

 thing ; the next was to raise him into a tetiant and place him 

 a little lower than a partridge. The ruling orders found to 



