nate extremes of famine and repletion. Would it not be better, that each of you should hold and cultivate as much ground as will produce sufficient food for himself and his children through every season, without risk of the want you are now pining under? Or if you hesitate to make the experiment first, grant to us two a portion just sufficient for the purpose; we ask no more: watch our progress, and see if we shall not be more at ease, more vigorous, and more contented than you. See whether we shall seek to drown our senses in intoxication from the brandy of Europeans, and wake from the potion more sorrowful and exhausted.-Mark well, if our children will grasp the scalping knife; and having made these observations, consider whether your mode of life, or ours, be best and happiest."

He paused; and the people looking at each other with smiles of confidence, a murmer of applause filled my ears. They threw down their weapons, and advanced to us with open arms; but as I leaned to your embrace, the vision swung and faded, and I awoke.

LETTER XII.

"To-day,” L—— said, “we will proceed in our examination into the effects of the last catastrophe I have mentioned, as causes which gave rise to the unequal division of that which was, for a time, common to all.

"The inhabitants of the earth, or rather of those parts which were the theatre of this revolution in Nature (for I suggest, that the notion of exclusive tenancy of surface obtains not, or with much less force, in the countries which were not visited by its operation) were greatly reduced in number, and vast tracks left in an unoccupied state by that event. Thus it was, that the immense forests of your country grew up in the soil filled by the hand of Nature, with the seeds of their existence. The regions there now repeopling, have been before inhabited by a race to whom the arts unknown to you were familiar: else how came the Tumuli, the ancient forts of the West Country, and the ruins of a city in the southern parts of your continent, constructed in knowledge of the mechanical powers? For you

must bear in mind, that if any portion of surface, say England, at present in artificial treatment from the labour of man, were left to Nature for only a few centuries, abandoned to the impulse her hand would give, it would bloom in wildness, in all the luxuriance of wood and water-fall, marsh and plain. The rivers no longer scoured by industrious necessity, would lift their beds, continually form fresh channels, and foam over new cataracts. The fields would soon bristle with thorns and furze, affording secure retreats for the birds to deposit the acorn and the beechmast; even now, it is common to see a young oak emerging from a tuft of brambles. But this is foreign to my purpose.

"At first, man roamed along the deserts, living in moveable habitations, exercising no ownership but over large herds of cattle which fed in common. A remnant from destruction, he as yet built no cities; he associated but with few of his species. Hence arose the form of patriarchal government, under which every head of a family had unlimited power over its members. The use of the medium called 'Money,' was yet unknown; the idea of arbitrary value was not yet conceived. But as mankind again increased in number, and began to spread thicker, some, more provident and

watchful than the rest, took the alarm. They began to see, that if each was to continue in exclusive possession of the cattle over which he claimed ownership, and which were also increasing daily, there would cease to be room for all. And the art of tillage being forgot or unknown, that if every man gathered fruit where he pleased, the earth would not yield a sufficiency. They began to say one to another, 'Let us hasten to join our stock, to throw into one our respective pastures, and declare to our neighbours, our resolution to keep them from encroaching. Let us also draw our families to a common centre, to be a mutual protection, and if necessary to repel aggression with force.' And thus was drawn the first new line of exclusive possession, and the origin of towns and adjacent lands held in common, as the property of the inhabitants.

"Hence also arose the form of Regal government, by which the direction of the whole community was vested in one man, who, by election and common consent, was to fill the double office of Leader against other societies in case of aggression, and of regulator of domestic disagreements. And soon such a Head was called into action: for now, those, who more indolent, or from whatever cause, had stood by without entering into the pact formed

by those more wary, irritated by the loss of what had been hitherto sufficient, and held in common, endeavoured to expel by force the junta so openly or secretly formed. But as such attack was often confined to one household, or because those who felt aggrieved did not coalesce in a mode of co-operation, they successively fell a prey to superior force. Sometimes a general pitched-battle was fought; often the party who deemed themselves unable to cope with those who had now become their deadly enemies, renounced all idea of opposition in despair, and quietly submitted to privation of what they would not, or could not defend. The victors in these disputes divided the remaining tracts of those falling in combat, among themselves, the chief reserving the largest or best portion for himself. And thus was framed the law of conquest, an assumed right arising from supineness on one side, or overmatch in strength on the other, between two parties engaged in unnatural warfare: a law which is, at this day, the basis of unequal ownership in this island; which has, ever since its promotion, been swayed by action and reaction, and at this instant convulses the community to its centre. Those who survived these contests, destitute of the means of procuring food, became the slaves, the appendage