o
keep the people in an abject and slavish dependence.

The last general head of his revenue were the customs, prisages, and
other impositions upon trade. Though the revenue arising from traffic in
this rude period was much limited by the then smallness of its object,
this was compensated by the weight and variety of the exactions levied
by an occasional exertion of arbitrary power, or the more uniform system
of hereditary tyranny. Trade was restrained, or the privilege granted,
on the payment of tolls, passages, paages, pontages, and innumerable
other vexatious imposts, of which, only the barbarous and almost
unintelligible names subsist at this day.

These were the most constant and regular branches of the revenue. But
there were other ways innumerable by which money, or an equivalent in
cattle, poultry, horses, hawks, and dogs, accrued to the exchequer. The
king's interposition in marriages, even where there was no pretence from
tenure, was frequently bought, as well as in other negotiations of less
moment, for composing of quarrels, and the like; and, indeed, some
appear on the records, of so strange and even ludicrous a nature, that
it would not be excusable to mention them, if they did not help to show
from how many minute sources this revenue was fed, and how the king's
power descended to the most inconsiderable actions of private life.[73]
It is not easy to penetrate into the true meaning of all these
particulars, but they equally suffice to show the character of
government in those times. A prince furnished with so many means of
distressing enemies and gratifying friends, and possessed of so ample a
revenue entirely independent of the affections of his subjects, must
have been very absolute in substance and effect, whatever might have
been the external forms of government.

For the regulation of all these revenues, and for determining all
questions which concerned them, a court was appointed, upon the model of
a court of the same nature, said to be of ancient use in Normandy, and
called the Exchequer.

There was nothing in the government of William conceived in a greater
manner, or more to be commended, than the general survey he took of his
conquest. An inquisition was made throughout the kingdom concerning the
quantity of land which was contained in each county,--the name of the
deprived and the present proprietor,--the stock of slaves, and cattle of
every kind, which it contained. All these were register