with
most conquerors, was obliged to make, of his inclination to his present
policy.

[* Hoveden, p. 600.]

Scarce any of those revolutions, which, both in history and in common
language, have always been denominated conquests, appear equally
violent, or were attended with so sudden an alteration both of power and
property. The Roman state, which spread its dominion over Europe,
left the rights of individuals in a great measure untouched; and those
civilized conquerors, while they made their own country the seat of
empire, found that they could draw most advantage from the subjected
provinces, by securing to the natives the free enjoyment cf their own
laws and of their private possessions. The barbarians who subdued the
Roman empire, though they settled in the conquered countries, yet being
accustomed to a rude, uncultivated life, found a part only of the land
sufficient to supply all their wants; and they were not tempted to seize
extensive possessions, which they knew neither how to cultivate nor
enjoy. But the Normans and other foreigners who followed the standard of
William while they made the vanquished kingdom the seat of government,
were yet so far advanced in arts as to be acquainted with the advantages
of a large property; and having totally subdued the natives, they
pushed the rights of conquest (very extensive in the eyes of avarice
and ambition, however narrow in those of reason) to the utmost extremity
against them. Except the former conquest of England by the Saxons
themselves, who were induced, by peculiar circumstances, to proceed even
to the extermination of the natives, it would be difficult to find
in all history a revolution more destructive, or attended with a more
complete subjection of the ancient inhabitants. Contumely seems even
co have been wantonly added to oppression;[*] and the natives were
universally reduced to such a state of meanness and poverty, that the
English, name became a term of reproach; and several generations elapsed
before one family of Saxon pedigree was raised to any considerable
honors, or could so much as attain the rank of baron of the realm.[**]
These facts are so apparent from the whole tenor of the English history,
that none would have been tempted to deny or elude them, were they no
heated by the controversies of faction; while one party was absurdly
afraid of those absurd consequences which they saw the other party
inclined to draw from this event. But it is e