manuscript, at this hour, in which the most elaborate abstract arguments are laid down in support of persecution generally, and for the use and public expediency of the terrors of the Inquisition in particular. The very existence of such works shows the deep-felt consciousness of the Roman hierarchy, even in those early times, of the violence they were offering to the innate dictates of justice and humanity; and how difficult a task it was to sustain the credit of an institution, which outraged all the common sentiments and sympathies of mankind. The doctrines developed in these writings, contributed for centuries, the every-day text books for colleges and universities; they were illustrated and enforced with all the fascination that learning, eloquence, and ingenious sophistry could impart; and were, in fact, considered as the fundamental principles of all sound political and ecclesiastical philosophy. Their inculcation formed the most important and vital branch of public instruction; and so systematically exclusive was all the public tuition of the day, that these notions of arbitrary power over opinion, effectually closed up every avenue of the human intellect, by which really useful and enlightened views of social progress and improvement could enter.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ON TRADE AND COMMERCE, AS THEY INFLUENCED THE OPINIONS OF POLITICAL WRITERS, FROM THE

EARLIEST PERIOD TILL THE YEAR 1400.

It is not our intention to enter here into any formal history of commercial or trading enterprises; these have been very amply discussed by distinguished writers, in almost every country in Europe. We purpose only very briefly alluding to such general laws, declarations, and manifestoes of trading communities, as are interesting to the historian of political sentiment, and public opinion to know.

The various codes of commercial laws and rules, often led to great alterations in the civil and political institutions of countries; and when they happened to be wise and just in themselves, they often roused into activity much of that liberality of opinion, and mutual good-will, among different nations, which operated favourably for the extension of real liberty and prosperity. We find, as we proceed from the most early times, to the period mentioned at the head of this chapter, that, in these ages famed for active commercial speculations, we recognize a corresponding extension of a spirit of national independence, and well

regulated liberty; as well as a more willing disposition in rulers to yield civil privileges of great importance to the popular feeling of the day.

There are but few documents which throw much light on the true state of trade, commerce, and manufactures, or on those general principles which go under the denomination of commercial legislation, up to the end of the fourteenth century. The chief guide we have in our reasonings and conclusions on the subject, is rational inference and deduction.

We are apt to imagine, when perusing the ordinary histories of these two thousand years, and dwelling upon the constant wars and feuds among the several nations of the world, that all semblance of trade, commerce, and handicraft work, must have been banished from the earth; and the whole of society reduced to herds of barbarians and houseless wanderers. But this is frequently an exaggerated, and a positively erroneous notion. The very existence of extensive armies presupposes, and cannot exist without, a considerable advanced state of the arts of life. These vast herds of men must be equipped and supported; the most part of their number must have cities and homes to which they belong; and for their daily sustenance, the land must be made to yield her fruits in ordinary abundance. All this must, in all countries, rest upon a pretty broad basis of the arts and occupations of peace.

We find scattered remarks in ancient histories, that the early cities famous for their trade, and commercial skill and enterprise, were likewise noted for their love of civil liberty; and those occasional tumults which are also mentioned in such localities, were generally the result of the somewhat ill-regulated enjoyment of

this great political blessing and inheritance. The inhabitants of Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Phoenicia, Egypt, and most other cities alluded to in our common histories of the ancient world, generally enjoyed a much larger share of personal independence and power, than fell to the lot of the other portions of their respective countrymen, who inhabited the smaller provincial towns and agricultural villages. This circumstance constitutes a particular and conspicuous feature in many of the writings of the early politicians of Greece, and even of Rome itself, who enumerate not a few of these municipal and civil privileges, as tokens of the progress an entire nation had made in constitutional freedom, and national civilization and intelligence.

We likewise find many striking exemplifications of this connexion between the commercial spirit and civil freedom, in the history of Europe, from the christian era to the termination of the fourteenth century. The first indications of the revival of social liberty in the Italian States, was coeval with the foundation of its commercial cities, and the augmentation of its trading speculations. When the pressure of the barbarian conquests had in some measure abated, the merchants of these states opened up a commerce with the ports of the Greek empire; and the connections thus established paved the way to similar undertakings in the Northern and Western countries of Europe. The Venetian Republic, commanding the Adriatic on the one hand, and important and extensive ranges of the European continent on the other, became admirably skilled in commercial affairs; and at the end of the ninth century was, in fact, the mistress of the entire trade of the then civilized world. She was afterwards

followed by Amalfi, Pisa, Genoa, Florence, and other cities; the internal histories of which abound with rich and varied materials for the literary and speculative politician.

In all these great commercial emporiums, we find the spirit of political party and rivalship running high. The continual struggles for national superiority and power, and for individual liberty and independence, present lessons full of interest to the political philosopher; and, at the same time, display the powerful and humanizing influence of trading communications over the barbaric element of mere savage and military power. On this point, an able moden author makes the following pertinent remarks. "It is remarkable," says he, "that republican liberty, though at length carried to an extreme in the northern parts of the Italian peninsula, was primarily established in its southern region, from which it appears to have been transmitted by the communications of commerce. The southern countries, favoured by their ambiguous situation on the frontier of the two empires of the east and west, and by the commercial advantages of this position, were enabled to present instances of republican government, while those of the north were yet comprehended under the Italian kingdom and the dominion of the emperor; but, on the contrary, they sunk under the ascendancy of the new kingdom of Naples, just about the same time in which the emperial authority was ruined in the northern provinces, and these became divided into a multitude of free communities. Southern Italy, accordingly, displayed the example of liberty which was imitated in the north; northern Italy, however, the field of contention for the Pontiff