I. CHAP. ascendency; the one subversive of order and religion, the other dependent on the attachments which they had created. There is a difference between the circumstances of the two countries at the period when their respective revolutions took place, but not such as to make the contest in the one the foundation of a new distribution of property, and a different balance of power that in the other the chief means of maintaining the subsisting interests of 10. cause was. society, and the existing equilibrium in the world. The insurrection of slaves is the most dreadful of all What that commotions: the West India Negroes exterminate by fire and sword the property and lives of their masters. Universally the strength of the reaction is proportioned to the oppression of the weight which is thrown off; the recoil is most to be feared when the bow has been furthest bent from its natural form. Fear is the chief source of cruelty; men massacre others because they are apprehensive of death themselves. Property is set at nought where the aggressors have nothing to lose; it is respected when the gaining party have grown up under the influence of its attachments. Revolutions are comparatively bloodless when the influential classes guide the movements of the people, and sedulously abstain from exciting their passions; they are the most terrible of all contests, when property is arrayed on the one side and numbers on the other. The slaves of St Domingo exceeded the atrocities of the Parisian populace; the revolt of the United States departed but little from the usages of civilised war. These principles are universally recognised; the difficulty consists in discovering what causes brought the one set to operate in the English, the other in the French Revolution. These causes are to be found in the former history of the two countries and a rapid survey of their different circumstances will best show the different character which was stamped upon the two contests by the acquisitions or losses of preceding ages. I. 11. Degraded inhabitants of both Britain Romans. The vast extent of the Roman empire gave centuries CHAP. of repose to the inhabitants of its central provinces. Wars were carried on upon the frontiers alone; and the defensive forces, chiefly recruited by mercenary bands drawn state of the from the semi-barbarous states on the verge of the Imperial dominions, presented scarcely any resemblance to the Gaul and legions which had given to the republic the empire of under the the world. The later emperors, departing from the generous maxims of the republican government, which admitted the conquered states to the privileges of Roman citizens, oppressed the subject provinces by the most arbitrary exactions, and acted on the ruinous Eastern system. of making the inhabitants of each district responsible for the whole amount of its taxes, whatever the diminution in their number might be. The people of the provinces, long inured to protection, and unaccustomed to the use of arms, shrunk from the very idea of a contest with the ruthless barbarians of the North. The inhabitants of Italy and Gaul first sought an exemption from foot service, upon the ground that they could not bear the weight of armour, and at length obtained a practical liberation from military duties of every description. The empire was defended entirely by hiring one body of barbarians to combat another. The ignorance which universally prevailed among the working classes was almost as great as that of England in the time of Alfred, when not a clergyman to the south of the Thames could read. From the long continuance of these circumstances during many successive generations, the spirit of the people throughout the whole Roman empire was totally extinguished, and they became alike incapable of combating for their lives with the enemies of their country, or of Turner's contending for their liberties with the despots on the Anglo-Sax. throne. The pusillanimity with which its inhabitants, and ii. 6, 8. during a series of ages, submitted to the spoliation of i. 74, 77. barbarous enemies, and the exactions of unbridled tyrants, 72. would appear incredible,1 were it not only supported by 1 iii. 66, 67. i. 184, 188 Sism. Fran. Hume, i. ; I. CHAP. the concurring testimony of all historians, but found by experience to be the uniform result of a continued state of pacific enjoyment. 12. stration of after the fall of Rome. The Britons and the Gauls, at the period of the overTotal pro- throw of the empire, were alike sunk in this state of the Britons political degradation. The provinces to the south of the and Gauls wall of Severus were speedily overrun, upon the removal of the Roman legions, by the savages issuing from the recesses of Caledonia, and the British leaders bewailed in pathetic strains their inability to contend with an artless and contemptible enemy. Notwithstanding the extraordinary military talents of Aetius, the Gauls were soon subdued by their barbarous neighbours; and a small tribe, emerging from the centre of Germany, became permanent masters of the plains of France. The AngloSaxons gradually vanquished the helpless Britons, and gave to the future mistress of the waves its lasting appellation. These conquests in both countries were, as already noticed,* attended in the end by a complete and violent change of landed property, and an immediate prostration of a considerable part of the vanquished people to the rank of slaves on the estates of their forefathers. This last and greatest humiliation, consequent upon a long train of political and military oppressions, completed the ii. 27. Tur- apathy and dejection of the great body of the people, and ner's Anglo- might have finally extinguished, as in the dynasties of 37. Hume, the East, all desire of independence in their descendants, Sism. Hist. had not misfortunes arisen with their invigorating influence, and mankind regained in the school of adversity the spirit which they had lost in prosperous ages.1 1 Thierry, Saxons, i. i. 26, 29, 67. de France, i. 201. 13. The long and obstinate conflicts which the AngloEffects of Saxons had to maintain, first with the natives, and afterthe AngloSaxon con- Wards with each other, were the first circumstances which quests. in the British isles revived the energy of the people. These wars were not the transient result of ambition or the strife of kings, conducted by regular armies, but the * Ante, Introd. § 19. CHAP. fierce contests of one race with another, struggling for all that man holds dear-their lives, their religion, their language, and their possessions. For five long centuries the fields of England were incessantly drenched with blood; every county was in its turn the scene of mortal strife, and every tribe was successively driven by despair to manly exertion; until at length the effeminate character of the natives was completely changed, while their conquerors were, by their very misfortunes, prevented from sinking into the corruption which in general rapidly follows success in barbarous times. The small divisions of the Saxon kingdoms, by producing incessant domestic warfare, and bringing home the necessity for courage to every cottager, eminently contributed in this way to the formation of the national character. Milton has said that the wars of the Heptarchy were not more deserving of being Hume, i. recorded than the skirmishes of crows and kites. He Sism. would have been nearer the truth if he had said that they laid the foundation of the intrepid English character.1 1 42, 97. France, i. 400, 401. insular In this particular, as in many others, the insular situ- 14. ation of Britain eminently contributed to the formation Effect of the of the national character. The other provinces of the situation of Roman empire were overrun at once, because a vast and Britain. irresistible horde suddenly broke in upon them, which they had no means of resisting. The settlement of the Franks in Gaul, of the Visigoths in Spain, of the Vandals in Africa, and of the Goths, and afterwards the Lombards, in Italy, all took place in a single generation. But the seagirt shores of England could not be assailed by such a sudden and irresistible irruption of enemies. It was impossible in those times to find ships adequate for the sudden transportation of so great a number as was required to effect an immediate conquest. "The blue-eyed myriads from the Baltic coast" arrived by slow degrees, in squadrons and small fleets, none of which appear to have conveyed, at one time, above six or eight thousand men, most of them only one thousand or fifteen hundred. I. CHAP. These inconsiderable detachments could not at once conquer a whole country. Their devastation, equally with their power, was confined to a small district, seldom extending at first beyond the limits of a modern county. The people were encouraged to resist, by the inconsiderable number of enemies which made their appearance on any one occasion; and although fresh invaders incessantly appeared, yet they generally assailed different districts, in the hope of discovering fields of plunder hitherto untouched. The spirit of the nation was thus every where called forth, both by the variety of points which were assailed, and by the encouragement to local resistance which arose from the prospect, and frequently the achievement, of success and the northern inundation, instead of being a flood which at once overwhelmed the vanquished people, and for centuries extinguished their energy, produced Mackin- rather a perpetual strife, in the course of which the land, i. 30. warlike virtues were regained which had been lost amidst tosh's Eng 15. the tranquillity of the Roman sway. The exposure of the English to the piratical incursions And of the of the Danes perpetuated this martial spirit, after the cursions of union of the country into one monarchy might otherwise the Danes. have wrought its extinction; and, by compelling the piratical in government for many generations to put arms into the hands of the great body of the people, whether Saxons or Britons, spread an independent feeling over the whole population. To resist these merciless invaders, the whole strength of the kingdom was trained to the use of arms, and the earls of the counties summoned to their support every man within their bounds capable of wielding a halbert. By an ordinance of Alfred, a regular militia. was established throughout the realm; and it was enacted, that the entire male population should be registered and armed. That great monarch fought no less than fifty-six battles in person with the invaders, and established at the same time the main rudiments of the English constitution, by the institution of courts of justice, trial |