both in the controversies which
occurred with other vassals, and, what was more material, in the daily
inroads and injuries which were committed by the neighboring barons.
During the time of general war, the sovereign, who marched at the head
of his armies, and was the great protector of the state, always acquired
some accession to his authority, which he lost during the intervals
of peace and tranquillity; but the loose police incident to the feudal
constitutions, maintained a perpetual, though secret hostility, between
the several members of the state; and the vassals found no means of
securing themselves against the injuries to which they were continually
exposed, but by closely adhering to their chief, and falling into a
submissive dependence upon him.

If the feudal government was so little favorable to the true liberty
even of the military vassal, it was still more destructive of the
independence and security of the other members of the state, or what in
a proper sense we call the people. A great part of them were serfs,
and lived in a state of absolute slavery or villainage; the other
inhabitants of the country paid then rent in services, which were in a
great measure arbitrary; and they could expect no redress of injuries in
a court of barony from men who thought they had a right to oppress and
tyrannize over them: the towns were situated either within the demesnes
of the king, or the lands of the great barons, and were almost entirely
subjected to the absolute will of their master. The languishing state of
commerce kept the inhabitants poor and contemptible; and the political
institutions were calculated to render that poverty perpetual. The
barons and gentry, living in rustic plenty and hospitality, gave
no encouragement to the arts, and had no demand for any of the more
elaborate manufactures: every profession was held in contempt but
that of arms; and if any merchant or manufacturer rose by industry and
frugality to a degree of opulence, he found himself but the more exposed
to injuries, from the envy and avidity of the military nobles.

These concurring causes gave the feudal governments so strong a bias
towards aristocracy, that the royal authority was extremely eclipsed
in all the European states; and, instead of dreading the growth of
monarchical power, we might rather expect, that the community would
every where crumble into so many independent baronies, and lose the
political union by which they were