But the progress of wealth, of luxury, and idleness, in all the states of antiquity, substituted the servile for the patriarchal mode of cultivation. The population lost much in happiness and number by this change; the earth gained little in productiveness. The Roman proprietors extending their patrimonies by the confiscated territories of vanquished states; the Greeks by wealth acquired from trade,first abandoned manual labour, and soon afterwards, despised it. Fixing their residence in towns, they entrusted the management of their estates to stewards and inspectors of slaves; and from that period, the condition of most part of the country population became intolerable. Labour, which once been a point of communion betwixt the two ranks of society, now became a barrier of separation; contempt and severity succeeded to affectionate care; punishments were multiplied as they came to be inflicted by inferiors, and as the death of one or several slaves did not lessen the steward's wealth. Slaves who were ill-fed, ill-teated, ill-recompensed, could not fail to lose all interest in their master's affairs, and almost all understanding. Far from attending to their business with affection, they felt a secret joy every time they saw their oppressors' wealth diminished, or his hopes deceived. The study of science, accompanied with habits of observation, certainly advanced the theory of agriculture: but its practice, at the same time, rapidly declined; a fact, which all the agricultural writers of antiquity lament. The cultivation of land was entirely divested of all that intelligence, affection, and zeal, which had once hastened its success. The revenues were smaller, the expenses greater; and from that period, it became an object to save labour, more than to augment its produce. Slaves, after having driven every free cultivator from the fields, were themselves rapidly decreasing in number. During the decline of the Roman empire, the population of Italy was not less reduced than that of the Agro Romano is in our days; while, at the same time, it had sunk into the that degree of wretchedness and penury. The cultivation of the colonies situated on the Mexican Gulf was founded, in like manner, on the baneful system of slavery. it has, in like manner, consumed the population, debased the human species, and deteriorated the system of agriculture.
The negro trade has of course filled up those voids, which the barbarity of planters annually produced in the agricultural population; and doubtless, under a system of culture, such that the man who labours is constantly reduced below the necessaries of life, and the man who does not labour keeps all for himself, the net produce has always been considerable; but the gross produce, with which alone the nation is concerned, has uniformly been inferior to what would have arisen from any other system of cultivation, whilst the condition of more than seven-eighths of the population has continued to be miserable.
The invasions of the Roman empire, by the barbarians, introduced new manners, and, with them, new systems of cultivation. The conqueror, who had now become proprietor, being much less allured by the enjoyments of luxury, had need of men still more than of wealth. He had ceased to dwell in towns, he had established himself in the country; and his castle formed a little principality, which he wished to be able to defend by his own strength, and thus he felt the necessity of acquiring the affection of such as depended on him. A relaxation of the social bond, and the independence of great proprietors, produced the same effects without the limits of the ancient Roman empire as within. From the epoch of its downfall, masters in every part of Europe began to improve the condition of their dependents; and this return to humanity produced the natural effect; it rapidly increased the population, the wealth, and the happiness of rural labourers.
Different expedients were resorted to for giving slaves and cultivators an interest in life, a property, and an affection for the place of their nativity, as well as for its lord. Adopted by various states, these expedients produced the most decisive influence on territorial wealth and population. In Italy, and part of France and Spain, and probably in most part of the former Roman empire, the master shared the land among his vassals, and agreed with them to share the crops in a raw state. This is cultivation for half produce. In Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, and all that portion of Germany occupied by Slavonic tribes, the master much more rarely enfranchised his slaves. Keeping them always under an absolute dependence, as serfs attached to the soil, he gave them, however, one half of his land, reserving the other to himself. He wished to share, not the fruits of their labour, but their labour itself, and therefore he obliged them to work for him two, three, and in Transylvania, four days of each week. This is cultivation by corvees. In Russia, and several provinces of France and England, masters likewise distributed their lands among vassals; but, instead of wishing to participate either in the lands or the harvests, they imposed a fixed capitation. Such was the abundance of uncultivated land always ready to be cleared, that, in the eyes of those proprietors, the only difference in the condition of agricultural families was the number of workmen included in them. To capitation was always joined the obligation of personal service, and the vassal's continuance in a servile state. Yet, according as the laws watched more or less strictly over the subject's liberty, cultivation upon this principle raised the husbandman to a condition more or less comfortable. In Russia, he never escaped from servitude of the soil; in England, by an easy transition, he arrived at the rank of farmer.
