156 THE ROMAN CORNFIELD. 



Clive accomplished in British India, when he visited 

 that country for the last time. There was then an 

 end to that tyrant of prey who under the republic had 

 contrived in a few years to extort an enormous fortune 

 from his proconsulate, and who was often accompanied 

 by a wife more rapacious than himself ; who returned 

 to Rome with herds of slaves, and cargoes of bullion 

 and of works of art. Governors were appointed with 

 fixed salaries ; the Roman law was everywhere intro- 

 duced ; vast sums of money were expended on the 

 public works. 



Unhappily this did not last. Rome was devoured 

 by a population of mean whites, the result of foreign 

 slavery, which invariably degrades labour. This vast 

 rabble was maintained by the State ; rations of bread 

 and oil were served out to it every day. When the 

 evil time came, and the exchequer was exhausted, the 

 governors of Africa and Egypt were required to send 

 the usual quantity of grain all the same, and to obtain 

 their percentage as best they could. They were trans- 

 formed into satraps or pachas. The great land- 

 owners were accused of conspiracy, and their estates 

 escheated to the crown. The agriculturists were re- 

 duced to serfdom. There might be a scarcity of food 

 in Africa, but there must be none in Rome. Every 

 year were to be seen the huge ships lying in the har- 

 bours of Alexandria and Carthage, and mountains of 

 corn piled high upon the quays. When the seat of 

 empire was transferred to the Bosphorus, the evil 

 became greater still. Each province was forced to do 

 double work. There was now a populace in Constan- 

 tinople which was fed entirely by Egypt, and Africa 

 supported the populace of Rome. While the Egyp- 

 tian fellah and the Moorish peasant were labouring in 



