general are not fond of the trouble of collecting proofs, or appearing in the character of accufers; particularly when the delinquent is a white man, of intereft perhaps in the colony, and the sufferer a black flave. Befides, there may in many inftances be a full conviction of the crime, and yet the criminal may not be deemed within the grafp of thofe vague laws which the policy of Europe has thought fufficient for the protection of flaves from the cruelty of their masters. The law may direct, that a mafter fhall not order more than a limited number of ftripes to be inflicted for any fault that his flave commits. But if the law requires no proof of the fault, except the allegation of the mafter, what fecurity has the flave that he shall not be punished unjustly, or that his matter fhall not, as often as he pleafes, repeat the punishment at fuch intervals as keep him out of the reach of the law? it must be owned that the flave has no fecurity from fuch abuses, which is tantamount to putting it in the master's power to torture his flaves to death with impunity. Such laws are no fafeguard, but rather a mockery of the unhappy race of men they pretend to protect.

This unlimited power, which is left in the hands of the mafters, has a bad effect both on the flave and the master. It tends at once to render the first more wretched, and the fecond more wicked. How many men have, for a great part of their lives, fupported the character of well-difpofed good-natured people; and on going from Europe to the Weft-Indies, and becoming proprietors of flaves, have gradually grown ill-tempered, capricious, haughty, and cruel. Even Zeluco, though of a capricious, violent, and felfifh difpofition, was not naturally cruel; this laft grew upon him in confequence of unlimited power. His feverity to the foldiers arofe from a defire of gaining the favour of the commander, by rendering the men under his immediate command more expert than others. In pushing this point he difregarded, indeed, the fufferings of the men; because his exceffive felfithnefs engroffed all his feelings, and left him quite indifferent to the feelings of others; he ftill was not pofitively cruel. Independent of paffion or rage, he had no fatisfaction in giving pain; he was only unconcerned whether they fuffered or not. And afterwards, when he became the abfolute master of a great number of unfortunate creatures, whom he confidered as his property, he thought that he had a right to make the moft of them. And he was informed by those who have heads for fuch a calculation, and hearts to act in confequence of it, that to force flaves to their utmost exertions, and purchase new ones as the old expire, is, upon the whole, more œconomical than to treat them with a certain degree of gentleness, and oblige them to no more labour than is proportioned to their strength, although, by this means, the expence of new purchases would be lefs confiderable, and lefs frequent. A perfon who paffed for a very fenfible man, who formery kept an inn on one of the great pofting roads in England, and was at this time a confiderable proprietor of land in one of the Weft-India islands, had affured him, that he had found this to hold with regard to poft horfes; and the argument was equally just when applied to flaves. Zeluco therefore had originally no direct intention of injuring his flaves; his view was fimply to improve his eftates to the utmoft; but in the execution of this plan, as their exertions did

not

not keep pace with his impatience, he found it neceffary to quicken hem by an unremitting ufe of the whip. This produced difcontent, urmurs, fulkinefs, fometimes upbraidings on their parts; rage, treats, and every kind of abufe on his: he faw hatred in all their looks, he prefumed revenge in all their hearts; he became more and more fevere, and treated them as he imagined they wished to treat him, and as he was confcious he deferved to be treated by them; at length he arrived at that fhocking point of depravity, to have a gratification in punishing, independent of any idea of utility or advantage to himself.

This, unfortunately for a large proportion of mankind, is often the progrefs of unlimited power, and the effect which it too frequently produces on the human character.'

In the multitude of characters defcribed and contrafted in this work, the virtues of Bertram, a citizen of Geneva, and the uninterrupted tranquillity of his mind, notwithstanding the po verty of his circumftances and the feverity of his fortune, form a ftriking contraft to the vices, the profperity, and the mifery of Zeluco. A Scotch Prefbyterian and Whig, named Buchanan, is fet in oppofition to a Scotch Jacobite and Tory, named Targe; and the extravagancies of both parties are finely painted, and ftrongly ridiculed. The picture of Transfer, a wealthy citizen of London, will apply to many an original; and the common folly of men who have dedicated the whole vigour of their lives to one purfuit, that of accumulating money, and who yet expect in the wane of life to derive enjoyment from other occupations and other amufements, is placed in the most striking point of view. The author excels in defcribing national characters, which he often paints by a fingle ftroke. A French furgeon is employed to attend Zeluco, who is mortally wounded by a rope-dancer, the fecret paramour of his mistress, Nerina. Having examined the ftate of his patient, the furgeon declares that he thinks it improbable he fhould live above two, or at moft, three days. Father Mulo, a monk, urges the neceffity of acquainting the wounded man with the danger of his condition. The furgeon replies, that he cannot think it confiftent with politeness to tell a gentleman a difagreeable, or unnecessary, truth on any occafion; obferving that in France fuch a thing would be confidered as quite unpardonable. How it would be confidered in France, is very little to the purpofe,' faid father Mulo; the important point is, how it will be confidered in the other world, where the manner of thinking is very different from what it is in France.' That,' rejoined the furgeon, 'is saying a feverer thing of the other world, than I fhould have expected from a man of your cloth.'

Zeluco is an anonymous work; yet from internal evidence only, we might fafely afcribe it to Dr. Moore, author of the well-known travels through France, Germany, and Italy.

Gil...S. ART.

ART. VIII. Tranfactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Con cluded from Vol. lxxix. p. 537.

HE papers in the LITERARY CLASS of this collection, confift of eight articles. The 1ft and 7th articles contain Effays on the Origin and Structures of the European Legislatures, by Mr. Allan Maconochie, Advocate, and Profeffor of Public Law in the University of Edinburgh. In the first of these Eflays, Mr. M. endeavours to afcertain the form of government of the Gothic nations in their original feats; and in the fecond, he examines the alterations which it underwent upon their fettlement in the Roman empire. He intends to add a third Effay, on fome future occafion, in order to trace the progrefs and revolution of the European legiflatures under the predominancy of the feudal fyftem. In the first part of his work, Mr. M. examines the account which Tacitus has given of the Germans; on which fubject we cannot expect any thing very new, or very interefting, after the laborious and philofophical refearches of a Montefquieu, a Hume, and a Gibbon. The author, however, puts in his claim to originality by afferting, that the ancient Germans had not any order of nobility diftinguished from the general body of freemen: a pofition which feems inconfiftent with the words of Tacitus, "Reges propter nobilitatem;" and which indeed cannot be reconciled with these words, but by fuch logical chemistry as will convert any one proportion into another.

The fecond part treats of the legislature of the German nations during the first ages after their eftablishment in the Roman empire. Mr. M. propofes his hypothefis at very great length; and then fums it up in the following words, which we shall quote as a fpecimen, though furely not of elegance, or of English.

The leading propofition in the foregoing hypothefis is, that the diets of the European ftates were originally national affemblies, containing, de jure, the whole warriors belonging to them, conducted by their local chiefs or magiftrates, who, together with the king and dignified ecclefiaflics, formed a fenate or council that, in general, directed the common refolves. I propofe, in this part of the paper, to confider the grounds of this propofition, in the first place; and then, chiefly with a view to our own country, examine the evidence relative to the deliberative council which I have afcribed to the diets, and to the fituation of towns, in order to justify the hypothefis, in ftating that the former was an affembly of the magistracy, and that the latter reforted to the diets, in the fame manner as the country diftricts.

• Confidering how certainly we know, that the warriors or liberi bomines of every tithing and hundred were bound to attend perfonally, not only on the meetings of thefe districts, but in the general meetings of the province or fhire, where they not only were reviewed by the chief magiftrate, but affifted in the judicial and political deliberations

liberations which the bufinefs of their quarter required, it might have been imagined, that a natural analogy would have led authors to agree in the fuppofition, that the national diet was nothing more than an aggregate of the provincial diets, in the fame manner as the provincial diets were aggregates of those of leffer diftricts. The difficulty we feel in accommodating our reafonings to a period, when both the bufinefs and the amufement of a freeman confifted in making war, and when the habits of the migratory life of fhepherd tribes were ftill recent, and rendered the manners of fociety extremely different from our own, is the only reason I can offer for this opinion having met with little attention or regard. Strong arguments in favour of it, from the hiftory of the ancient German nations, I flatter myself, will be fuggefted from what has been stated in the former parts of this paper. Thofe from the hiftory of latter times, I hope, will be found equally fatisfactory.'

In endeavouring to prove his point, that among the Gothic nations there was not any patrician order diftinct from the order of freemen, and that all the foldiers, or what he calls the military caft, were noblemen or gentlemen (for these terms were originally fynonymous, and ftill remain fo in most countries), and conftitutionally members of the legislative affembly, Mr. M. difplays great copioufnefs of learning, and ftill greater confidence of conjecture. His fyftem, he thinks, will reconcile the feemingly contradictory opinions of Lord Lyttelton and the Abbé de Mably on the one fide, who confider the Gothic governments as democracies; and of Montefquieu and Hume on the other, who regard them as ariftocracies.

Mr. Maconochie's expedients for maintaining at once the rights of the nobility and of the people, put us in mind of a ftory of the Emperor Charles V. currently reported in Italy. In his journies through that country, the Emperor was often teized by the vain Italians for titles of honour. The inhabitants of Mantua and Vicenza were particularly importunate, crowding about the doors of the inn at his Majefty's arrival and departure. To deliver himself from fuch troublefome importunity in future, Charles faid at the former place, "Let them all be marquiffes;" and at the latter, "Let them all be counts. And hence the reason, that the title of marquifs is fo common at Mantua, and that of count almoft univerfal at Vicenza.

Mr. Maconochie, however, feems to be a man of much reading; he has the merit of thinking for himfelf. His obfervations on the deliberative body in the Anglo-Saxon and Scottish diets, and on the question, whether they contained reprefentatives of towns? are ingenious and inftructive. On this latter fubject,

be obferves:

Very strong arguments have been derived from the progress of the Houfe of Commons to its political confequence; and, from its rank and functions, when first found acting in the legislature, të

fhow,

fhow, that it was, by no means, a body coeval with the conftitution. Thefe, however, are well known, and need not be infifted on.

But, independently of the foregoing obfervations, which, however they may produce conviction on people accustomed to estimate the force of political reasonings, will poflibly be little relished by others; I apprehend we have evidence of a more direct nature againft the antiquity of the representation of towns. If, previous to the ara of charters of incorporation, towns were governed precisely in the fame manner as the country, it is manifeft, that nothing can be more improbable, than that they reforted to the diet in any other way than the rest of the nation; and an examination of the state of the AngloSaxon towns, compared with that of thofe on the Continent, both proves, that they contained the fame order of perfons, and the fame political arrangements as the country; and even points out the circumftances, in their fituation, which led them to exchange their ancient structure for their prefent conftitutions.

In the first place, it is evident from Doomsday (which, it will be remembered, mentions the ftate of things under Edward the Con. feffor, as well as their fubfequent ftate under the Conqueror, when the furvey was taken), that the towns were univerfally comprehended under the divifions of the country, by counties, hundreds, and tithings, and were subjected to certain public burdens, in proportion to the divifion at which they were rated. And we accordingly find, that, when the towns, in the fucceeding centuries, purchafed charters, erecting them into little communities, it was neceffary to separate them from the ancient fyftem of fubordination to which they belonged. Thus, thofe charters contained, among other privileges, exemptions from owing fuit to the county, and even hundred courts; exemptions from the ancient authority of the fheriff, as collector of the revenues of the fhire; and provifions, that burgeffes fhould not be tried by a jury of the county, unless one-half of the jury men were taken from their corporation. It is fcarce neceffary to add, that feveral of the towns which obtained charters were, at the conquest, nothing more than manors belonging to the king, or other great proprietors. ATKINS, in his Lex Parliamentaria, has long ago mentioned feveral ancient vills of the domain, that afterwards became royal boroughs.

2dly, Doomsday exhibits the government of towns as the fame with that of the country. Thus, it mentions the comes, vicecomes, and their fubftitutes, viz. præpofiti, majores, &c. as the perfons who had authority in towns: And thofe that ranked as hundreds are defcribed not only as fubdivided into wards or tithings, but as containing lagmen, who, we know, were a certain number of the moft diftinguished perfons of a district, named in the affembly of it, in order to enquire into crimes and misdemeanors, and who decided caufes on oath, if that mode of trial was preferred to the judgment of the affembly itself. Thofe towns that belonged to manors were no doubt governed indifcriminately with the reft of the territory of the manors. A manor formed a tithing within itfelf; and the officers of the proprie tor, as præpofitus, fenefcallus, major domo, foreftarius, viarius (radman), bedellus, &c. by whatever name they were distinguished, performed the functions of magiftrates over it, while the tenants or

vaffals