favourable acceptation in this liberal age; and slavery is in worse
repute. But we must remember that slavery implies a very different state
in different ages of the world, and in different stages of society.

_Montesinos_.--In many parts of the East, and of the Mohammedan world, as
in the patriarchal times, it is scarcely an evil. Among savages it is as
little so. In a luxurious state more vices are called into action, the
condition of the slave depends more upon the temper of the owner, and the
evil then predominates. But slavery is nowhere so bad as in commercial
colonies, where the desire of gain hardens the heart--the basest
appetites have free scope there; and the worst passions are under little
restraint from law, less from religion, and none from public opinion.

_Sir Thomas More_.--You have omitted in this enumeration that kind of
slavery which existed in England.

_Montesinos_.--The slavery of the feudal ages may perhaps be classed
midway between the best description of that state and the worst. I
suppose it to have been less humane than it generally is in Turkey, less
severe than it generally was in Rome and Greece. In too many respects
the slaves were at the mercy of their lords. They might be put in irons
and punished with stripes; they were sometimes branded; and there is
proof that it has been the custom to yoke them in teams like cattle.

_Sir Thomas More_.--Are you, then, Montesinos, so much the dupe of words
as to account among their grievances a mere practice of convenience?

_Montesinos_.--The reproof was merited. But I was about to say that
there is no reason to think their treatment was generally rigorous. We
do not hear of any such office among them as that of the Roman _Lorarii_,
whose office appears by the dramatists to have been no sinecure. And it
is certain that they possessed in the laws, in the religion, and probably
in the manners of the country, a greater degree of protection than
existed to alleviate the lot of the Grecian and Roman slaves.

_Sir Thomas More_.--The practical difference between the condition of the
feudal slave, and of the labouring husbandman who succeeded to the
business of his station, was mainly this, that the former had neither the
feeling nor the insecurity of independence. He served one master as long
as he lived; and being at all times sure of the same sufficient
subsistence, if he belonged to the estate like the cattle, and was
accounted with the