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 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 them as part of the live stock, he resembled them also in the exemption which he enjoyed from all cares concerning his own maintenance and that of his family.  The feudal slaves, indeed, were subject to none of those vicissitudes which brought