re invaded by the Romans?

_Montesinos_.--Something worse than the Greeks of the Homeric age:
something better than the Sandwich or Tonga islanders when they were
visited by Captain Cook. Inferior to the former in arts, in polity, and,
above all, in their domestic institutions; superior to the latter as
having the use of cattle and being under a superstition in which, amid
many abominations, some patriarchal truths were preserved. Less
fortunate in physical circumstances than either, because of the climate.

_Sir Thomas More_.--A viler state of morals than their polyandrian system
must have produced can scarcely be imagined; and the ferocity of their
manners, little as is otherwise known of them, is sufficiently shown by
their scythed war-chariots, and the fact that in the open country the
path from one town to another was by a covered way. But in what
condition were the labouring classes?

_Montesinos_.--In slavery, I suppose. When the Romans first attacked the
island it was believed at Rome that slaves were the only booty which
Britain could afford; and slaves, no doubt, must have been the staple
commodity for which its ports were visited. Different tribes had at
different times established themselves here by conquest, and wherever
settlements are thus made slavery is the natural consequence. It was a
part of the Roman economy; and when the Saxons carved out their kingdoms
with the sword, the slaves, and their masters too, if any survived,
became the property of the new lords of the land, like the cattle who
pastured upon it. It is not likely even that the Saxons should have
brought artificers of any kind with them, smiths perhaps alone excepted.
Trades of every description must have been practised by the slaves whom
they found. The same sort of transfer ensued upon the Norman conquest.
After that event there could have been no fresh supply of domestic
slaves, unless they were imported from Ireland, as well as carried
thither for sale. That trade did not continue long. Emancipation was
promoted by the clergy, and slavery was exchanged for vassalage, which in
like manner gradually disappeared as the condition of the people
improved.

_Sir Thomas More_.--You are hurrying too fast to that conclusion.
Hitherto more has been lost than gained in morals by the transition; and
you will not maintain that anything which is morally injurious can be
politically advantageous. Vassalage I know is a word which bears no