violence; and to a spiritual power, the accumulation of wealth gained by deception, or wrung from the remorse and fears of the dying sinner. On these two laws, as far as law was acknowledged, rested the system of temporal and spiritual dominion. Poverty, wretchedness, and gross ignorance were the lot and inheritance of the people, who occasionally in desperation broke out into revolt against their oppressors. Every country of Europe can furnish examples of scenes of violence and rapine by the chiefs, and of insurrection by the enslaved people. But it is not necessary to adduce here more than the rising of the French peasantry, about the middle of the fourteenth century. "The unfortunate cultivators of the soil sowed in fear, and reaped with pain; and in many places, ills more burdensome than human nature could bear, ground the labourer to the earth." The consequence was, that they rose against the nobles, and, in the fury of revenge, massacred and destroyed for a while all that fell in their way. After the insurrection was put down, and numbers of the peasants were taken prisoners, and examined, the only reason that they could give for their rising was, that "they were miserable!" Had Caillet, the leader of the peasants, been able to have restrained them from committing excesses, and had he succeeded in uniting them, to secure a charter of freedom, he would have appeared, in history, the Tell or the Bruce of his country. What a lesson to governments! and what a responsibility falls on them, if they despise it! The laws of a country are oppressive, when the great mass of the population are miserable, and driven into tumults.

But it takes centuries before nations, or their rulers, whether regal or aristocratic, will learn wisdom.

The insurrection of the Jacquerrie took place in the

⚫ James's Jacquerrie.

year 1358; and in 1766 an insurrection of nearly a similar nature broke out in Bohemia and Hungary. The cultivators of the soil of those countries were ground down by severe exactions. They chiefly held their lands on the condition of giving three or four days' labour in the week to the landlords. This was equivalent to about fifty per cent. of the gross produce of the land as rent. The cultivators were very unhappy, and were at times dependent on the owners of the land for corn, to be replaced from the next harvest; they held their lands at the pleasure of their lords. A people, in such a miserable condition are driven to extremities, either by their own misery-or they become tools, and are instigated to violence by bad men for political purposes. The peasants of Bohemia were almost universally in a state of insurrection, and they menaced with massacre the nobility and rich proprietors; and it required an army of 28,000 men from the Austrian government, before tranquillity was restored.

This popular movement will perhaps be represented in general history as an effort to murder proprietors, and plunder property, for the mere love of violence—it will probably be held forth, as an instance of the disposition innate in a multitude to cruel and destructive measures. But, before a verdict be pronounced, let men reflect on circumstances. Between man and man in a court of justice, is there no allowance made for provocation by one of them for the violent assault of the other? Provoking words, or even looks, may, in the mind of a judge, palliate or justify a blow. It is a terrible thing when a people rise up, as one man, to take vengeance in their own hands: but men are not brutes, to remain for ever submissive, and devour the garbage that is thrown down to them, but they are beings with many good qualities, and some bad ones; and if the former be more cultivated, and less apprehension

entertained of the latter, the world would go on without

insurrections or wars.

"It is the oppressor who has made

man fit only for the yoke."

But coming down to the present day, there is the hope of melioration for the descendants of the men whom misery drove into violence seventy years before.

It would appear that the principles of an Agrarian law have been established in Transylvania, and also the recognition of civil rights to the inhabitants of that country. It was declared "that every man ought to participate in the general affairs of the common country-" that in future every man, whether noble or not, shall be entitled to acquire and possess landed property "—" that every man shall have the right of instituting legal proceedings "that the peasants shall be held qualified to dispose freely of any property acquired by them "-" that the power inflicting corporal punishment shall be entirely withdrawn from the lord of the soil."* These are most valuable concessions to a portion of the Austrian population, and will remind the Briton of the law of Magna Charta, and of the law which removed the restriction on his ancestor from the possession of lands and other property.

of

Throughout the whole of the world, nations are struggling to free themselves from fiscal oppression, and therefrom to secure to the inhabitants political liberty, and civilization. In the present year, 1842, we have seen France nearly thrown into convulsion by the strict exaction of taxes by the government. And in Mexico a change of political power has been effected by one party that took its

This is copied from the Atlas newspaper of 24th Sept. 1842; extracted from some German paper.

This refers to the state of high excitement approaching in several districts to insurrectionary outbreaks of the population, in consequence of the rigour exercised by the government in the collecting of certain taxes.

stand on a reform of the system of levying duties on commodities.

Spain has been repeatedly appealed to, in the course of this work, for examples to illustrate the fatal consequences of a policy opposed to the interests of a country, and unsuited to the genius of its inhabitants; and as a confirmation of the truth of the observations made, the following picture of the state of that interesting country in 1842, drawn by the deputation of Cadiz, is given :—“The evils experienced by the Spanish people from time immemorial, have proceeded from their imperfect economical or fiscal laws. These laws have actually dried up the proper sources of public wealth; have kept the government in constant distress and difficulties; and multiplied contributions and taxes to such an extent, that it may be said that the tree of wealth has been actually cut down in order to gather its fruits. And all this, for what end? That the cotton manufacturers of Catalonia may thrive, and that smugglers may seize upon the revenues belonging of right to the Treasury, and the commerce of the country perish. The same line of inquiry and reflection will cause you to observe, that agriculture, the great fountain of national wealth and prosperity, is being borne down by the superabundance of its own productions, because our fiscal laws prevent their exportation, and induce foreign nations to deal only with those, where they find that just and salutary commercial reciprocity which is denied them by the laws of Spain."*

Such is the present condition of a nation that once had the Netherlands under its dominion, that once threatened England with invasion, and that in the pride of empire assumed titles and prerogatives, which could only be sur

See Circular addressed by the deputation of Cadiz to the provincial deputations of Spain, dated 21 May, 1842.-Times, 24th June.

passed by those of Asiatic pretension. And yet the Spaniards, in all ages, have performed heroic exploits. About thirty years ago, the defence of Saragoza was worthy of a patriotic people resolved to die at their post; and about two thousand years before that event, the fate of Numantia was calculated to awe the world, by the spectacle of the inhabitants and defenders of a city preferring to perish voluntarily, rather than fall into the hands of the Romans who besieged them. Numantia, indeed, put at defiance the whole power of that conquering people.

A sketch of the history of the Roman people has been already given with considerable detail, but, in illustration of the subject treated of in this section, an event that happened about a hundred years before the siege of Numantia, will be referred to.

This event was the irruption of the Gauls into Italy, about 225 years before the Christian era, - -an event that carried consternation to Rome itself, and showed how dangerous it was for one people to exercise harsh measures towards another. It would appear, that a certain tract of country was rented or leased of the Roman people by the Gauls for the use of their flocks and herds. That a law was enacted by the senate, that the lands thus conditionally assigned should be withdrawn, and distributed amongst Roman colonists.

This attempt to deprive them of the lands united the Gauls in a common cause, and they took up arms, crossed the Appenine mountains, and carried the war so as to threaten the capital. The Romans were so alarmed, that they called out all the men capable of bearing arms, and they assembled, to about the number of seven hundred thousand.

About the time that the barbarians rushed like a torrent