SKETCH I.
DIVERSITY of MEN and of LANGUAGES.

WHETHER there be different races of men, or whether all men be of one race, without any difference but what proceeds from climate or other accident, is a profound ques­tion of natural history, which remains still unde­termined after all that has been said upon it. As the question is of moment in tracing the history of man, I purpose to contribute my mite; and in or­der to admit all the light possible, a view of brute animals as divided into different races or kinds, will make a proper introduction.

As many Animals contribute to our well-being, by labouring for us, or by affording us food and rai­ment, and as many are noxious; our terrestrial ha­bitation [Page 2] would be little comfortable, had we no means but experience for distinguishing the one sort from the other. Were each individual animal a species by itself, (indulging the expression), dif­fering from every other individual, a man would finish his days without acquiring so much knowledge of animals as is necessary even for self-preservation: experience would give him no aid with respect to any individual of which he has no experience. The Deity has left none of his works imperfect. Animals are formed of different kinds, each kind having a figure and a temper peculiar to itself. Great uniformity is discovered among animals of the same kind; no less variety among animals of different kinds: and to prevent confusion, kinds are distinguished externally by figure, air, manner, so clearly as not to escape even a child ^*. To com­plete this curious system, we have an innate sense, that each kind is endued with properties peculiar to itself; and that these properties belong to every individual of the kind ^a. Our road to the know­ledge of animals is thus wonderfully abridged: the experience we have of the disposition and proper­ties of any animal, is applied without hesitation to every one of the kind. By that sense, a child, fa­miliar with one dog, is fond of others that resem­ble it: an European, upon the first sight of a cow in Africa, strokes it as gentle and innocent; and an African avoids a tiger in Hindostan as at home.

[Page 3] If the foregoing theory be well founded, neither experience nor argument is required to prove, that a horse is not an ass, or that a monkey is not a man ^b. Some animals indeed are so similar, as to render it uncertain whether they be not radically of the same species. But in every such instance there is little need to be solicitous; for I venture to af­firm, that both will be found gentle or fierce, wholesome food or unwholesome. Such questions may be curious, but they are of no use.

The division of brute animals into different kinds, is not more useful to man than to the animals them­selves. A beast of prey would be ill fitted for its station, if nature did not teach it what creatures to attack, and what to avoid. A rabbit is the prey of the ferret. Present a rabbit, even dead, to a young ferret that never had seen a rabbit; it throws itself upon the body, and bites it with fury. A hound has the same instinct with respect to a hare, and most dogs have it. Unless directed by nature, in­nocent animals would not know their enemy till they were in its clutches. A hare flies with pre­cipitation from the first dog it ever saw; and a chicken, upon the first sight of a kite, cowers un­der its dam. Social animals, without scruple, con­nect with their own kind, and as readily avoid others ^*. Birds are not afraid of quadrupeds; not even of a cat, till they are taught by experience that a cat is their enemy. They appear to be as little afraid [Page 4] of a man naturally; and upon that account are far from being shy when left unmolested. In the un­inhabited island of Visia Grandé, one of the Phi­lippines, Kempfer says, that birds may be taken with the hand. Hawks, in some of the South-sea islands, are equally tame. At Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands, geese, far from being shy, may be knocked down with a stick. The birds that in­habit certain rocks hanging over the sea in the island of Annabon, take food readily out of a man's hand. In Arabia Felix, foxes and apes show no fear of man; the inhabitants of hot countries having no notion of hunting. In the uninhabited island Be­ring, adjacent to Kamskatka, the foxes are so little shy that they scarce go out of a man's way. Doth not this observation suggest a final cause? A par­tridge, a plover, a pheasant, would be lost to man for food, were they naturally as much afraid of him as of a hawk or a kite.

The division of animals into different kinds, serves another purpose, not less important than those mentioned; which is, to fit them for different cli­mates. We learn from experience, that no ani­mal nor vegetable is fitted for every climate; and from experience we also learn, that there is no ani­mal or vegetable but what is fitted for some climate, where it grows to perfection. Even in the torrid zone, plants of a cold country are found upon mountains where plants of a hot country will not grow; and the height of a mountain may be de­termined with tolerable precision from the plants it produces. Wheat is not an indigenous plant in Britain; no farmer is ignorant that foreign seed is requisite to preserve the plant in vigour. To pre­vent flax from degenerating in Scotland and Ireland, great quantities of foreign seed are annually im­ported. A camel is peculiarly fitted for the burn­ing sands of Arabia; and Lapland would be unin­habitable [Page 5] but for rain-deer, an animal so entirely fitted for piercing cold, that it cannot subsist even in a temperate climate. Arabian and Barbary horses degenerate in Britain; and to preserve the breed in some degree of perfection, frequent supplies from their original climate are requisite. Spanish horses degenerate in Mexico, but improve in Chili; hav­ing more vigour and swiftness there than even the Andalusian race, whose offspring they are. Our dunghill-fowl, imported originally from a warm country in Asia, are not hardened, even after many centuries, to bear the cold of this country like birds originally native: the hen lays few or no eggs in winter, unless in a house warmed with fire. The deserts of Zaara and Biledulgerid in Africa, may be properly termed the native country of lions: there they grow to nine feet long and five feet high. Lions in the south of Africa toward the Cape of Good Hope, grow but to five feet and a half long and to three and a half high. A breed of lions transplanted from the latter to the former, would rise to the full size; and sink to the smaller size, if transplanted from the former to the latter.

To preserve the different species of animals en­tire, as far as necessary, Providence is careful to prevent a mixed breed. Few animals of different species copulate together. Some may be brought to copulate, but without effect; and some produce a mongrel, a mule for example, which seldom pro­creates, if at all. In some few instances, where a mixture of species is harmless, procreation goes on without limitation. All the different species of the dog kind copulate together, and the mongrels produced generate others without end. But dogs are by their nature companions to men; and Providence pro­bably has permitted a mixture, in order that every man may have a dog to his liking.

[Page 6] M. Buffon in his natural history borrows from Ray ^c a very artificial rule for ascertaining the different species of animals: ‘"Any two animals that can procreate together, and whose issue can also procreate, are of the same species ^d."’ A horse and an ass can procreate together; but they are not, says he, of the same species, because their issue, a mule, cannot procreate. He applies that rule to the human race; holding all men to be of one race or species, because a man and a woman, however different in size, in shape, in complexion, can procreate together without end. And by the same rule he holds all dogs to be of one species. With respect to other animals, the rule should pass without opposition from me; but as it also respects man, the subject of the present enquiry, I propose to examine it with attention. Providence, it is true, hath prevented confusion; for in most in­stances it hath with-held from animals of different species a power of procreating together; but as our author has not attempted to prove that such restraint is universal without a single exception, his rule is evidently, a petitio principii. Why may not two animals different in species produce a mixed breed? Buffon must say, that by a law of nature animals of different species never produce a mixed breed. But has he proved this to be a law of na­ture? On the contrary, he more than once men­tions several exceptions. He admits the sheep and the goat to be of a different species; and yet we have his authority for affirming, that a he-goat and a ewe produce a mixed breed which generate for ever ^e. The camel and the dromedary, tho' [Page 7] nearly related, are however no less distinct than the horse and the ass. The dromedary is less than the camel, more slender, and remarkably more swift of foot: it has but one bunch on its back, the ca­mel has two; the race is more numerous than that of the camel, and more widely spread. One would not desire distinguishing marks more satisfying; and yet these two species propagate together no less freely than the different races of men and of dogs. Buffon indeed, with respect to the camel and dromedary, endeavours to save his credit, by a distinction without a difference. ‘"They are,"’ says he, ‘"one species; but their races are diffe­rent, and have been so past all memory ^f."’ Does this say more than that the camel and the dromedary are different species of the same genus? which also holds true of the different species of men and of dogs. If our author will permit me to carry back to the creation the camel and the dro­medary as two distinct races, I desire no other concession. He admits no fewer than ten kinds of goats, visibly distinguishable, which also propagate together; but says that these are varieties only, tho' permanent and unchangeable. No difficulty is unsurmountable if words be allowed to pass without meaning. Nor does he even preserve any consistency in his opinions: tho' in distinguish­ing a horse from an ass, he affirms the mule they generate to be barren, yet afterward, entirely for­getting his rule, he admits the direct contrary ^g. At that rate a horse and an ass are of the same species. Did it never once enter into the mind of this author, that the human race would be strangely imperfect, if they were unable to distinguish a man [Page 8] from a monkey, or a hare from a hedge-hog, till it were known whether they can procreate to­gether?

But it seems unnecessary after all to urge any argument against the foregoing rule, which M. Buffon himself inadvertently abandons as to all ani­mals, men and dogs excepted. We are indebted to him for a remark, That not a single animal of the torrid zone is common to the old world and to the new. But how does he verify his remark? Does he ever think of trying whether such animals can procreate together? ‘"They are,"’ says he, ‘"of different kinds, having no such resemblance as to make us pronounce them to be of the same kind. Linnaeus and Brisson,"’ he adds, ‘"have very improperly given the name of the camel to the lama and the pacos of Peru. So apparent is the difference, that other writers class these animals with sheep. Wool however is the only circumstance in which a pacos resembles a sheep: nor doth the lama resemble a camel ex­cept in length of neck."’ He distinguisheth in the same manner, the true Asiatic tiger from several American animals that bear the same name. He mentions its size, its force, its ferocity, the colour of its hair, the strips black and white that like rings surround alternately its trunk, and are conti­nued to the end of its tail; ‘"characters,"’ says he, ‘"that clearly distinguish the true tiger from all animals of prey in the new world; the largest of which scarce equals one of our mastives."’ And he reasons in the same manner upon the other animals of the torrid zone ^h. Here then we have M. Buffon's authority against himself, that there are different races of men; for he cannot deny that [Page 9] certain tribes differ apparently from each other, not less than the lama and pacos from the camel or from the sheep, nor less than the true tiger from the American animals of that name. Which of his rules are we to follow? Must we apply different rules to different animals? and to what animals are we to apply the different rules? For proving that dogs were created of different kinds, what better evidence can be expected than that the kinds continue distinct to this day? Our author pretends to derive the mastiff, the bull-dog, the hound, the greyhound, the terrier, the water-dog, &c. all of them from the prickt-ear shepherd's cur. Now, admitting the progeny of the original male and female cur to have suffered every possible alte­ration from climate, food, domestication; the re­sult would be endless varieties, so as that no one individual should resemble another. Whence then are derived the different species of dogs above men­tioned, or the different races or varieties, as M. Buffon is pleased to name them? Uniformity and permanency must be a law in their nature, for they never can be the production of chance. There are mongrels, it is true, among dogs, from want of choice, or from a depraved appetite: but as all animals prefer their own kind, mongrels are few compared with animals of a true breed. There are mongrels also among men: the several kinds however continue distinct; and probably will so continue for ever.

The celebrated Linnaeus, instead of describing every animal according to its kind as Adam our first parent did, and Buffon copying from him, has wandered wonderfully far from nature in classing animals. He distributes them into six classes, viz. Mammalia, Aves, Amphibia, Pisces, Insecta, Vermes. The Mammalia are distributed into seven orders, chiefly from their teeth, viz. Pri­mates, [Page 10] Bruta, Ferae, Glires, Pecora, Belluae, Cete. And the Primates are Homo, Simia, Le­mur, Vespertilio. What may have been his pur­pose in classing animals so, I cannot guess, if it be not to enable us, from the nipples and teeth of any particular animal, to know where it lies in his book. It resembles the classing books in a library by size, or by binding, without regard to the con­tents. It may serve as a sort of dictionary; but to no other purpose so far as I can discover. How whimsical is it to class together animals that nature hath widely separated, a man for example and a bat? What will a plain man think of a method of classing that denies a whale to be a fish? Beside, one would wish to know why in classing animals he confines himself to the nipples and the teeth, when there are many other distinguishing marks. Animals are not less distinguishable by their tails; long tails, short tails, no tails: nor less distinguishable by their hands, some having four hands, some two, some none, &c. &c. At the same time, if any solid instruction is to be acquired from such classing, I shall listen, not only with attention, but with satisfaction.

And now more particularly of man, after dis­cussing other animals. If the only rule afforded by nature for classing animals can be depended on, there are different races of men as well as of dogs: a mastiff differs not more from a spaniel, than a white man from a negro, or a Laplander from a Dane. And if we have any faith in Providence, it ought to be so. Plants were created of different kinds to fit them for different climates, and so were brute animals. Certain it is, that all men are not fitted equally for every climate. There is scarce a climate but what is natural to some men, where they prosper and flourish; and there is not a cli­mate but where some men degenerate. Doth not [Page 11] then analogy lead us to conclude, that as there are different climates on the face of this globe, so there are different races of men fitted for these different climates? The inhabitants of the frozen regions of the north, men, birds, beasts, fish, are all of them provided with a quantity of fat which guards them against cold. Even the trees are full of rosin. The Esquimaux inhabit a bitter cold country; and their blood and their breath are remarkably warm. The island St. Thomas, under the line, is ex­tremely foggy; and the natives are fitted for that sort of weather, by the rigidity of their fibres. The fog is dispelled in July and August by dry winds; which give vigour to Europeans, whose fibres are relaxed by the moisture of the atmos­phere, as by a warm bath. The natives, on the contrary, who are not fitted for a dry air, have more diseases in July and August than during the other ten months. On the other hand, instances are without number of men degenerating in a cli­mate to which they are not fitted by nature; and I know not of a single instance where in such a climate people have retained their original vigour. Several European colonies have subsisted in the torrid zone of America more than two centuries; and yet even that length of time has not familia­rised them to the climate: they cannot bear heat like the original inhabitants, nor like negroes trans­planted from a country equally hot: they are far from equalling in vigour of mind or body the na­tions from which they sprung. The Spanish inha­bitants of Carthagena in South America lose their vigour and colour in a few months. Their motion is languid; and their words are pronounced with a low voice, and with long and frequent intervals. Europeans who are born in Batavia soon degene­rate. Scarce one of them has talents sufficient to bear a part in the administration. There is not an [Page 12] office of trust or figure but what is filled with na­tive Europeans. Some Portuguese, who have been for ages settled on the sea-coast of Congo, retain scarce the appearance of men. South Carolina, especially about Charlestown, is extremely hot, having no sea-breeze to cool the air. Europeans there die so fast that they have not time to dege­nerate. Even in Jamaica, tho' more temperate by a regular succession of land and sea-breezes, re­cruits from Britain are necessary to keep up the numbers. The climate of the northern provinces resembles our own, and population goes on with great rapidity.

Thus it appears that there are different races of men fitted by nature for different climates. Upon a thorough examination another fact will perhaps also appear, that the natural productions of each climate make the most wholesome food for the people who are fitted to live in it. Between the tropics, the natives live chiefly on fruits, seeds, and roots; and it is the opinion of the most know­ing naturalists, that such food is of all the most wholesome for the torrid zone, comprehending the hot plants, which grow there to perfection, and tend greatly to fortify the stomach. In a tempe­rate climate, a mixture of animal and vegetable food is held to be the most wholesome; and there both animals and vegetables abound. In a cold climate, animals are in plenty, but scarce any vegetables that can serve for food to man. What physicians pronounce upon that head, I know not; but if we dare venture a conjecture from analogy, animal food will be found the most wholesome for such as are made by nature to live in a cold cli­mate.

M. Buffon, from the rule, That animals which can procreate together, and whose progeny can also procreate, are of one species, concludes, that [Page 13] all men are of one race or species; and endeavours to support that favourite opinion by ascribing to the climate, to food, or to other accidental causes, all the varieties that are found among men. But is he seriously of opinion, that any operation of climate, or of other accidental cause, can account for the copper colour and smooth chin universal among the Americans, the prominence of the Pudenda universal among Hottentot women, or the black nipple no less universal among female Samoides? The thick fogs of the island St. Tho­mas may relax the fibres of the natives, but can­not make them more rigid than they are naturally. Whence then the difference with respect to rigidity of fibres between them and Europeans, but from original nature? It is in vain to ascribe to the cli­mate the low stature of the Esquimaux, the small­ness of their feet, or the overgrown size of their head. It is equally in vain to ascribe to climate the low stature of the Laplanders ^*, or their ugly visage. Lapland is indeed piercingly cold; but so is Finland, and the northern parts of Norway, the inhabitants of which are tall, comely, and well proportioned. The black colour of negroes, thick lips, flat nose, crisped woolly hair, and rank smell, distinguish them from every other race of men. The Abyssinians on the contrary are tall and well made, their complexion a brown olive, features well proportioned, eyes large and of a sparkling black, thin lips, a nose rather high than flat. There is no such difference of climate between [Page 14] Abyssinia and Negroland as to produce these strik­ing differences. At any rate, there must be a con­siderable mixture both of soil and climate in these extensive regions; and yet not the least mixture is perceived in the people.

If the climate have any commanding influence, it must be chiefly displayed upon the complexion; and in that article accordingly our author exults. ‘"Man,"’ says he, ‘"white in Europe, black in Africa, yellow in Asia, and red in America, is still the same animal, tinged only with the colour of the climate. Where the heat is ex­cessive, as in Guinea and Senegal, the people are perfectly black; where less excessive, as in Abyssinia, the people are less black; where it is more temperate, as in Barbary and in Arabia, they are brown; and where mild, as in Europe and Lesser Asia, they are fair ⁱ."’ But here he triumphs without a victory: he is forced to acknowledge, that the Samoides, Laplanders, and Greenlanders, are of a sallow complexion; for which he has the following salvo, that the extre­mities of heat and of cold produce nearly the same effects on the skin. But he is totally silent upon a fact that singly overturns his whole system of co­lour, viz. that all Americans without exception are of a copper colour, tho' in that vast continent there is every variety of climate. Neither doth the black colour of some Africans, nor the brown colour of others, correspond to the climate. The people of the desert of Zaara, commonly termed Lower Ethiopia, tho' exposed to the vertical rays of the sun in a burning sand yielding not even to Guinea in heat, are of a tawny colour, far from being jet black like negroes. The natives of Monomotapa are perfectly black, with crisped [Page 15] woolly hair, tho' the southern parts of that exten­sive kingdom are in a temperate climate, very different from that of Guinea. And the Caffres, even those who live near the Cape of Good Hope, are the same sort of people. The heat of Abyssi­nia approacheth nearer to that of Guinea; and yet, as mentioned above, the inhabitants are not black. Nor shall our author's ingenious observa­tion concerning the extremities of heat and cold purchase him impunity with respect to the sallow complexion of the Samoides, Laplanders, and Greenlanders. The Finlanders and northern Norwegians live in a climate not less cold than that of the people mentioned; and yet are fair beyond other Europeans. I say more, there are many instances of races of people preserving their original colour in climates very different from their own; but not a single instance of the contrary so far as I can learn. There have been four com­plete generations of negroes in Pensylvania, with­out any visible change of colour: they continue jet black as originally. Shaw, in his travels through Barbary, mentions a people inhabiting the moun­tains of Auress bordering upon Algiers on the south, who appeared to be of a different race from the Moors. Their complexion, far from swarthy, is fair and ruddy; and their hair a deep yellow, instead of being dark as among the neighbouring Moors. He conjectures them to be a remnant of the Vandals, perhaps the tribe mentioned by Pro­copius in his first book of the Vandalic war. If the European complexion be proof against a hot climate for a thousand years, I pronounce that it will never yield to climate. In the suburbs of Cochin, a town in Malabar, there is a colony of industrious Jews of the the same complexion they have in Europe. They pretend that they were established there during the captivity of Babylon: [Page 16] it is unquestionable that they have been many ages in that country. Those who ascribe all to the sun, ought to consider how little probable it is, that the colour it impresses on the parents should be com­municated to their infant children, who never saw the sun: I should be as soon induced to believe with a German naturalist, whose name has escaped me, that the negro colour is owing to an ancient custom in Africa of dying the skin black. Let a European for years expose himself to the sun in a hot climate, till he be quite brown, his children will nevertheless have the same complexion with those in Europe. The Hottentots are continually at work, and have been for ages, to darken their complexion; but that operation has no effect on their children. From the action of the sun is it possible to explain, why a negro, like a European, is born with a ruddy skin, which turns jet black the eighth or ninth day?

Different tribes are distinguishable, not less by internal disposition than by external figure. Nations are for the most part so blended by war, by com­merce, or by other means, that vain would be the attempt to trace out an original character in any cultivated nation. But there are savage tribes, which, so far as can be discovered, continue to this day pure without mixture, who act by instinct not art, who have not learned to disguise their passions: to such I confine the inquiry. There is no propensity in human nature more general than aversion to strangers, as will be made evident in a following sketch ^k. And yet some nations must be excepted, not indeed many in number, who are remarkably kind to strangers; by which circum­stance they appear to be of a peculiar race. In order to set the exceptions in a clear light, a few [Page 17] instances shall be premised of the general propen­sity. The nations that may be the most relied on for an original character, are islanders at a distance from the continent and from each other. Among such, great variety of character is found. Some islands adjacent to New Guinea, are inhabited by negroes, a bold, mischievous, untractable race; always ready to attack strangers when they ap­proach the shore. The people of New Zealand are of a large size and of a hoarse voice. They appeared shy according to Tasman's account. Some of them however ventured on board in order to trade; but finding opportunity, they surprised seven of his men in a shallop, and without the slightest provocation killed three of them, the rest having escaped by swimming. The island called Recreation, 16th degree southern latitude and 148th of longitude west from London, was disco­vered in Roggewein's voyage. Upon sight of the ships, the natives flocked to the shore with long pikes. The crew made good their landing, having beat back the natives by a continued fire of mus­kets; who, returning after a short interval, ac­cepted presents of beads, small looking-glasses, and other trinkets, without shewing the least fear: they even assisted the crew in gathering herbs for those who were afflicted with the scurvy. Some of the crew traversing the island in great security, and trusting to some of the natives who led the way, were carried into a deep valley surrounded with rocks; where they were instantly attacked on every side with large stones; and with difficulty made their escape, but not without leaving several dead upon the field. In Commodore Byron's voy­age to the South sea, an island was discovered named Disappointment. The shore was filled with natives in arms to prevent landing. They were black, and without cloathing, except what covered [Page 18] the parts that nature teaches to hide. But a spe­cimen is sufficient here, as the subject will be fully illustrated in the sketch referred to above.

The kindness of some tribes to strangers deserves more attention, being not a little singular. Gon­neville, commander of a French ship in a voyage to the East Indies in the year 1503, was probably the first European who visited the Terra Australis Incognita; being driven thither by a tempest. He continued six months in that country, while his vessel was refitting; and the manners he describes were in all appearance original. The natives had not made a greater progress in the arts of life than the savage Canadians have done; ill clothed; and worse lodged, having no light in their cabins but what came in through a hole in the roof. They were divided into small tribes, governed each by a king; who, tho' neither better clothed nor lodged than others, had power of life and death over his subjects. They were a simple and peaceable people; and in a manner worshipped the French, providing them with necessaries, and in return thankfully receiving knives, hatchets, small look­ing-glasses, and other such baubles. In a part of California the men go naked; and are fond of feathers and shells. They are governed by a king, with great mildness; and of all savages are the most humane, even to strangers. An island dis­covered in the South sea by Tasman, 21st degree of southern latitude and 177th of longitude west from London, was called by him Amsterdam. The natives, who had no arms offensive nor de­fensive, treated the Dutch with great civility, except in being given to pilfering. At no great distance another island was discovered, named Annamocha by the natives, and Rotterdam by Tasman; possessed by a people resembling those last mentioned, particularly in having no arms. [Page 19] The Dutch, sailing round the island, saw abun­dance of cocoa-trees planted in rows, with many other fruit-bearing trees, kept in excellent order. Commodore Roggewein, commander of a Dutch fleet, discovered, an. 1721, a new island in the South sea; inhabited by a people lively, active, and swift of foot; of a sweet and modest deport­ment: but timorous and faint-hearted; for having on their knees presented some refreshments to the Dutch, they retired with precipitation. Numbers of idols cut in stone were set up along the coast, in the figure of men with large ears, and the head covered with a crown; the whole nicely propor­tioned and highly finished. They fled for refuge to these idols: and they could do no better; for they had no weapons either offensive or defensive. Neither was there any appearance of government or subordination; for they all spoke and acted with equal freedom. This island, situated 28 degrees 30 minutes southern latitude, and about 115 de­grees of longitude west from London, is by the Dutch called Easter or Pasch Island ^*. The Commodore directing his course north-west, dis­covered in the southern latitude of 12 degrees, and in the longitude of 190, a cluster of other islands, planted with variety of fruit-trees, and bearing herbs, corn, and roots, in plenty. When the ships approached the shore, the inhabitants came in their canoes with fish, cocoa-nuts, Indian figs, and other refreshments; for which they received small looking-glasses, strings of beads, and other toys. These islands were well peopled: many thousands thronged to the shore to see the ships, the men being armed with bows and arrows, and appearing [Page 20] to be governed by a chieftain: they were of the same complexion with that of Europe, only a little more sun-burnt. They were brisk and lively, treating one another with civility; and in their behaviour expressing nothing wild nor savage. Their bodies were not painted; but handsomely clothed, from the middle downward, with silk fringes in neat folds. Large hats screened their faces from the sun, and collars of odoriferous flowers surrounded their necks. The face of the country is charming, being finely diversified with hills and vallies. Some of the islands are ten miles in circumference, some fifteen, and some twenty. The historian adds, that these islanders are in all respects the most civilized and the best tempered people they discovered in the South sea. Far from being afraid, they treated the Dutch with great kindness; and expressed much regret at their de­parture. These islands got the name of Bowman's islands, from the captain of the Tienhoven, who discovered them. In Commodore Byron's voyage to the South sea, while they were passing through the streights of Magellan, some natives approached in their canoes; and upon invitation came on board, without fear, or even shyness. They at the same time appeared grossly stupid; and parti­cularly could not comprehend the use of knives, offered to them in a present. In another part of the streights, the natives were highly delighted with the presents made them. M. Bougainville, in his voyage round the world, describes a people in the streights of Magellan, probably those last mentioned, as of a small stature, tame and peace­able, having scarce any cloathing in a climate bit­terly cold. Commodore Byron discovered another island in the South sea covered with trees, which was named Byron island. The inhabitants were neither savage nor shy, trafficking freely with the [Page 21] crew, though they seemed addicted to thieving. One of them ventured into the ship. After leav­ing Otaheite, Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, sailing westward, discovered a cluster of islands, termed by them Society islands: the natives were ex­tremely civil, and appeared to have no aversion to strangers. The island of Oahena, north-west from that of Otaheite, is a delightful spot; the soil fer­tile, and the shores adorned with fruit-trees of va­rious kinds. The inhabitants are well proportioned, with regular engaging features; the women un­commonly beautiful and delicate. The inhabitants behaved with great hospitality and probity to the people of the ship in which these gentlemen made a late voyage round the world.

To find the inhabitants of these remote islands differing so widely from the rest of the world as to have no aversion to strangers, but on the contrary showing great kindness to the first they probably ever saw, is a singular phenomenon. It is in vain here to talk of climate; because in all climates we find an aversion to strangers. From the instances given above, let us select two islands, or two clusters of islands, suppose for example Bowman's islands inhabited by Whites, and those adjacent to New Guinea inhabited by Blacks. Kindness to strangers is the national character of the former, and hatred to strangers is the national character of the latter. Virtues and vices as entering into the character of individuals, depend on causes so va­rious, and so variable, as to give an impression of chance more than of design. We are not always certain of uniformity in the conduct even of the same person; far less that sons will inherit their father's virtues or vices. In most countries, a savage who has no aversion to strangers, nor to neighbouring clans, would be noted as singular: to find the same quality in every one of his chil­dren, [Page 22] would be surprising: and would be still more so, were it diffused widely through a multitude of his descendents. Yet a family is as nothing com­pared with a whole nation; and when we find kindness to strangers a national character in certain tribes, we reject with disdain the notion of chance, and perceive intuitively that effects so regular and permanent must be owing to a constant and inva­riable cause. Such effects cannot be accidental, more than the uniformity of male and female births in all countries and at all times. They cannot be accounted for from education or example, which indeed may contribute to spread a certain fashion or certain manners, but cannot be their fundamen­tal cause. Where the greater part of a nation is of one character, education and example may ex­tend it over the whole; but the character of that greater part can have no foundation but nature. What resource then have we for explaining the opposite manners of the islanders above mentioned, but that they are of different races?

The same doctrine is strongly confirmed upon finding courage or cowardice to be a national cha­racter. Individuals differ widely as to these; but a national character of courage or cowardice must depend on a permanent and invariable cause. I therefore proceed to instances of national courage and cowardice, that the reader may judge for him­self, whether he can discover any other cause for such steady uniformity but diversity of race.

The northern nations of Europe and Asia have at all times been remarkable for courage. Lucan endeavours to account for the courage of the Scan­dinavians from a firm belief, universal among them, that they should be happy in another world.

Pretty well for a poet! but among all nations the soul is believed to be immortal, tho' all nations have not the courage of the Scandinavians. The Caledonians were eminent for that virtue; and yet had no such opinion of happiness after death as to make them fond of dying. Souls after death were believed to have but a gloomy sort of existence, like what is described by Homer ^m. Their cou­rage [Page 24] therefore was a gift of nature, not of faith. The people of Malacca and of the neighbouring islands, who are all of the same race and speak the same language, are fierce, turbulent, and bold above any of the human species, tho' they inhabit the torrid zone, held commonly to be the land of cowardice. They never observe a treaty of peace when they have any temptation to break it; and are perpetually at war with their neighbours, or with one another. Instances there are, more than one, of twenty-five or thirty of them in a boat venturing, with no other weapons but poinards, to attack a European ship of war. These men inha­bit a most fruitful country, which should naturally render them indolent and effeminate; a country abounding with variety of exquisite fruits and odo­riferous flowers in endless succession; sufficient to sink any other people into voluptuousness. They are a remarkable exception from the observation of Herodotus, ‘"That it is not given by the gods to any country, to produce rich crops and warlike men."’ This instance, with what are to follow, show past contradiction, that a hot climate is no enemy to courage. The inhabitants of New Zea­land are of all men the most intrepid, and the least apt to be alarmed at danger. The Giagas are a fierce and bold people in the midst of the torrid zone of Africa: and so are the Ansieki, bordering on Loango. The wild Arabs, who live mostly within the torrid zone, are bold and resolute, holding war to be intended for them by Providence. The African negroes, tho' living in the hottest known country, are yet stout and vi­gorous, and the most healthy people in the uni­verse. I need scarce mention again the negroes adjacent to New Guinea, who have an uncom­mon degree of boldness and ferocity. But I men­tion with pleasure the island Otaheite, discovered [Page 25] in the South sea by Wallis, because the inhabitants are not exceeded by any other people in firmness of mind. The inhabitants are numerous; and tho' the Dolphin was probably the first ship they had ever seen, yet they resolutely marched to the shore, and attacked her with a shower of stones. Some volleys of small shot made them give way: but returning with redoubled ardour, they did not totally lose heart, till the great guns thundered in their ears. Nor even then did they run away in terror; but advising together, they assumed looks of peace, and signified a willingness to for­bear hostilities. Peace being settled, they were singularly kind to our people, supplying their wants, and mixing with them in friendly inter­course ^*. When Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander were on the coast of New Holland, the natives seeing some of our men fishing near the shore, singled out a number of their own equal to those in the boat, who marching down to the water-edge, chal­lenged the strangers to fight them; an instance of the most heroic courage. The people in that part of New Holland must be a very different race from those whom Dampier saw.

A noted author ⁿ holds all savages to be bold, impetuous, and proud; assigning for a cause, their equality and independence. As in that observation he seems to lay no weight on climate, and as little on original disposition, it is with regret that my subject leads me in this public manner to differ from him with respect to the latter. The charac­ter he gives in general to all savages, is indeed ap­plicable to many savage tribes, our European fore­fathers [Page 26] in particular; but not to all. It but faintly suits even the North-American savages, whom our author seems to have had in his eye; for in war they carefully avoid open force, relying chiefly on stratagem and surprise. They value themselves, it is said, upon saving men; but as that motive was no less weighty in Europe, and indeed every where, the proneness of our forefa­thers to open violence vouches for their superiority in active courage. The following incidents, re­ported by Charlevoix, give no favourable idea of some North-Americans with regard to that sort of courage. The fort de Vercheres in Canada, be­longing to the French, was in the year 1690 at­tacked by some Iroquois. They approached silent­ly, preparing to scale the palisade, when some musket-shot made them retire. Advancing a se­cond time, they were again repulsed, wondering that they could discover none but a woman, who was seen every where. This was Madame de Vercheres, who appeared as resolute as if support­ed by a numerous garrison. The hopes of storm­ing a place without men to defend it, occasion­ed reiterated attacks. After two days siege, they retired, fearing to be intercepted in their retreat. Two years after, a party of the same nation ap­peared before the fort so unexpectedly, that a girl of fourteen, daughter of the proprietor, had but time to shut the gate. With the young woman there was not a soul but one raw soldier. She shewed herself with her assistant, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another; changing her dress frequently in order to give some appearance of a garrison, and always fired opportunely. The faint-hearted Iroquois decamped without success.

But if the Americans abound not with active courage, their passive courage is beyond concep­tion. Every writer expatiates upon the torments [Page 27] they endure, not only patiently, but with singu­lar fortitude; deriding their tormentors, and bra­ving their utmost cruelty. North-American sa­vages differ indeed so widely from those formerly in Europe, that it is difficult to conceive them to be of the same race. Passive courage they have, even to a wonder; but abound not in active courage: our European soresathers, on the contra­ry, were much more remarkable for active courage than for passive. The Kamskatkans in every ar­ticle resemble the North-Americans. In war they are full of stratagem, but never attack openly if they can avoid it. When victorious, they murder without mercy, burn their prisoners alive, or tear out their bowels. If they be surrounded, and can­not escape, they turn desperate, cut the throats of their wives and children, and throw themselves into the midst of their enemies. And yet these people are abundantly free. Their want of active cou­rage is the more surprising, because they make no difficulty of suicide when they sall into any di­stress. But their passive courage is equal to that of the Americans: when tortured in order to extort a confession, they show the utmost firm­ness; and seldom discover more than what they freely confess at their first examination.

The savages of Guiana are indolent, good-na­tured, submissive, and a little cowardly; tho' they yield not to the North-Americans as to equality and independence. The inhabitants of the Marion or Ladrone islands live in a state of perfect equa­lity: every man avenges the injury done to him­self; and even children are regardless of their pa­rents. Yet these people are great cowards; in battle indeed they utter loud shouts; but it is more to animate themselves than to terrify the enemy The negroes in the slave-coast of Guinea are good­natured and obliging; but not remarkable for cou­rage. [Page 28] The Laplanders are of all the human spe­cies the most timid: upon the slightest surprise they fall down in a swoon like the feeblest female in England: thunder shakes them to pieces. The face of their country is nothing but rocks covered with moss: it would be scarce habitable but for rain-deer, on which the Laplanders chiefly depend for food.

The Macassars, inhabitants of the island Cele­bes in the torrid zone, differ from all other people. They have active courage above even the fiercest European savages; and they equal the North-Ame­rican savages in passive courage. During the reign of Chaw Naraya, King of Siam, a small party of Macassars, who were in the king's pay, having revolted, it required a whole army of Siamites to subdue them. Four Macassars, taken alive, were cruelly tortured. They were beat to mummy with cudgels, iron pins thrust under their nails, all their fingers broken, the flesh burnt off their arms, and their temples squeezed between boards; yet they bore all with unparalleled firmness. They even refused to be converted to Christianity, tho' the Jesuits upon that occasion offered to intercede for them. A tiger, let loose, having fastened on the foot of one of them, the man never once offered to draw it away. Another, without uttering a word, bore the tiger breaking the bones of his back. A third suffered the animal to lick the blood from his face, without shrinking, or turning away his eyes. During the whole of that horrid spectacle, they never once bewailed themselves, nor were heard to groan.

In concluding from the soregoing facts, that there are different races of men, I reckon upon strenuous opposition, not only from men biassed against what is new or uncommon, but from num­berless sedate writers, who hold every distinguish­ing [Page 29] mark, internal as well as external, to be the effect of soil and climate. Against the former, patience is my only shield; but I cannot hope for any converts to a new opinion, without removing the arguments urged by the latter.

Among the endless number of writers who ascribe supreme efficacy to the climate, Vitruvius shall take the lead. The first chapter of his sixth book is entirely employed in describing the influence of climate on the constitution and temper of the na­tives. The following is the substance: ‘"For the sun, where he throws out a moderate degree of moisture, preserves the body in a temperate state; but where his rays are more fierce, he drains the body of moisture. In very cold regions, where the moisture is not suck'd up by the heat, the body, sucking in the dewy air, rises to a great size, and has a deep tone of voice. Nor­thern nations accordingly, from cold and moi­sture, have large bodies, a white skin, red hair, grey eyes, and much blood. Nations, on the contrary, near the equator, are of small stature, tawny complexion, curled hair, black eyes, slen­der legs, and little blood. From want of blood, they are cowardly: but they bear fevers well, their constitution being formed by heat. Nor­thern nations, on the contrary, sink under a fe­ver; but from the abundance of blood, they are bold in war."’ In another part of the chapter, he adds, ‘"From the thinness of the air, and en­livening heat, southern nations are quick in thought, and acute in reasoning. Those in the north, on the contrary, which breathe a thick and cold air, are dull and stupid."’ And this he illustrates from the case of serpents, which in summer-heat are active and vigorous; but in win­ter, become torpid and immoveable. He then proceeds as follows. ‘"It is then not at all surprising, [Page 30] that heat should sharpen the understanding, and cold blunt it. Thus the southern nations are ready in counsel and acute in thought; but make no figure in war, their courage being exhausted by the heat of the sun. The inhabitants of cold climates, prone to war, rush on with vehe­mence without the least fear; but are slow of understanding."’ Then he proceeds to account, upon the same principle, for the superiority of the Romans in arms, and for the extent of their em­pire. ‘"For as the planet Jupiter lies between the fervid heat of Mars and the bitter cold of Saturn; so Italy, in the middle of the tem­perate zone, possesses all that is favourable in either climate. Thus by conduct in war she overcomes the impetuous force of northern bar­barians; and by vigour of arms confounds the politic schemes of her southern neighbours. Di­vine Providence appears to have placed the Ro­mans in that happy situation, in order that they might become masters of the world."’—Vege­tius accounts for the different characters of men from the same principle. ‘"Omnes nationes quae vicinae sunt soli, nimio calore siccatas, amplius quidem sapere, sed minus habere sanguinis di­cunt: ac propterea constantiam ac fiduciam co­minus non habere pugnandi, quia metuunt vul­nera qui se exiguum sanguinem habere noverunt. Contra, septentrionales populi, remoti a solis ardoribus, inconsultiores quidem, sed tamen lar­go sanguine redundantes, sunt ad bella promptis­simi ^{o *}."’—Servius, in his commentary on [Page 31] the Aeneid of Virgil ^p, says, ‘"Afri versipelles, Graeci leves, Galli pigrioris ingenii, quod natu­ra climatum facit ^†."’—Mallet, in the intro­duction to his history of Denmark, copying Vitru­vius and Vegetius, strains hard to derive ferocity and courage in the Scandinavians from the climate: ‘"A great abundance of blood, fibres strong and rigid, vigour inexhaustible, formed the tempera­ment of the Germans, the Scandinavians, and of all other people who live under the same cli­mate. Robust by the climate, and hardened with exercise, confidence in bodily strength for­med their character. A man who relies on his own force cannot bear restraint, nor submission to the arbitrary will of another As he has no occasion for artifice, he is altogether a stran­ger to fraud or dissimulation. As he is always ready to repel force by force, he is not suspicious nor distrustful. His courage prompt him to be faithful in friendship, generous, and even mag­nanimous. He is averse to occupations that re­quire more assiduity than action; because mode­rate exercise affords not to his blood and fibres that degree of agitation which suits them. Hence his disgust at arts and manufactures; and as pas­sion labours to justify itself, hence his opinion, [Page 32] that war only and hunting are honourable pro­fessions."’ Before subscribing to this doctrine, I wish to be satisfied of a few particulars. Is our author certain, that inhabitants of cold countries have the greatest quantity of blood? And is he certain, that courage is in every man proportion­ed to the quantity of his blood ^*? Is he also certain, that ferocity and love of war did universally ob­tain among the northern Europeans? Tacitus re­ports a very different character of the Chauci, who inhabited the north of Germany: ‘"Tam im­mensum terrarum spatium non tenent tantum Chauci, sed et implent: populus inter Germa­nos nobilissimus, quique magnitudinem suam ma­lit justitia tueri. Sine cupiditate, sine impoten­tia, quieti, secretique, nulla provocant bella, nullis raptibus aut latrociniis populantur. Idque praecipuum virtutis ac virium argumentum est, quod ut superiores agunt, non per injurias asse­quuntur. Prompta tamen omnibus arma, ac, [Page 33] si res poscat, exercitus ^{* q}."’ Again, with re­spect to the Arii, he bears witness, that beside ferocity and strength of body, they are full of fraud and artifice. Neither do the Laplanders nor Samoides correspond to his description, being remarkable for pusillanimity, tho' inhabitants of a bitter cold country ^†. Lastly, a cold climate doth not always make the inhabitants averse to occupations that require more assiduity than action: the people of Iceland formerly were much addicted to study and literature; and for many centuries were the chief historians of the north. They are to this day fond of chess, and spend much of their time in that amusement: there is scarce a peasant but who has a chess-board and men. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander report, that the peasants of Iceland are addicted to history, not only of their own country, but of that of Europe.

The most formidable antagonist remains still on hand, viz. Montesquieu, who is a great champion [Page 34] for the climate; observing, that in hot climates people are timid like old men, and in cold climates bold like young men. This in effect is to maintain, that the torrid zone is an unfit habitation for men; that they degenerate in it, lose their natural vi­gour, and even in youth become like old men. That justly celebrated author certainly intended not any imputation on Providence; and yet, doth it not look like an imputation, to maintain, that so large a portion of the globe is fit for beasts only, not for men? He ought to have explained why a certain race of men may not be fitted for a hot climate, as others are for a temperate, or for a cold one. There does not appear any opposition between heat and courage, more than between cold and courage: on the contrary, courage seems more connected with heat than with cold. The fiercest and boldest animals, a lion, for example, a tiger, a panther, thrive no where so much as in the hottest climates. The great condor of Peru in the torrid zone, is a bird not a little fierce and rapacious. A lion visibly degenerates in a temperate climate. The lions of Mount Atlas, which is sometimes crowned with snow, have not the boldness nor the force, nor the ferocity of such as tread the burning sands of Zaara and Biledulgerid. Our author, it is true, endea­vours to support his opinion by natural causes. These are ingenious and plausible; but unluckily they are contradicted by stubborn facts, which will appear upon a very slight survey of this globe. The Samoides and Laplanders are living instances of un­common pusillanimity in the inhabitants of a cold climate; and instances, not few in number, have been mentioned of warlike people in a hot climate. To these I add the Hindows, whom our author will not admit to have any degree of courage; tho' he acknowledges, that, prompted by religion, the men voluntarily submit to dreadful tortures, [Page 35] and that even women are ambitious to burn them­selves alive with their deceased husbands. In vain does he endeavour to account for such extraordina­ry exertions of fortitude, active as well as passive, by the force of imagination; as if imagination could operate more forcibly in a woman to burn herself alive, than on a man to meet his enemy in battle. The Malayans and Scandinavians live in very opposite climates, and yet are equally coura­geous. Providence has placed these nations each of them in its proper climate: cold would benumb a Malayan in Sweden, heat would enervate a Swede in Malacca; and both would be rendered cowards. I stop here; for to enter the lists against an anta­gonist of so great fame, gives me a seeling as if I were treading on forbidden ground.

The colour of the Negroes, as above observed, affords a strong presumption of their being a diffe­rent race from the Whites; and I once thought, that the presumption was supported by inferiority in their understanding. But it appears to me doubt­ful, upon second thoughts, whether the inferiority of their understanding may not be occasioned by their condition. A man never ripens in judgement nor in prudence but by exercising these powers. At home the negroes have little occasion to exercise either of them: they live upon fruits and roots, which grow without culture they need little cloath­ing: and they erect houses without trouble or art. Abroad, they are miserable slaves, having no en­couragement either to think or to act. Who can say how far they might improve in a state of free­dom, were they obliged, like Europeans, to pro­cure bread with the sweat of their brows? Some kingdoms in Negroland, particularly that of Whi­dah, have made great improvements in govern­ment, in police, and in manners. The negroes, particularly on the gold-coast, are naturally gay: [Page 36] they are industrious, apprehend readily what is said to them, have a good judgement, are equi­table in their dealings, and accommodate themselves readily to the manners of strangers.

I shall close the survey with some instances that seem to differ widely from the common nature of man. The Giagas, a fierce and wandering nation in the heart of Africa, are in effect land-pirates, at war with all the world. They indulge in poly­gamy; but bury all their children the moment of birth, and chuse in their stead the most promising children taken in war. There is no principle among animals more prevalent than affection to their offspring: supposing the Giagas to be born without hands or without feet, would they be more distinguishable from the rest of mankind ^*? The author of an account of Guiana, mentioning a deadly poison composed by the natives, says, ‘"I do not find that even in their wars they ever use poisoned arrows. And yet it may be won­dered, that a people living under no laws, actu­ated with no religious principle, and unrestrain­ed by the fear of present or future punishment, [Page 37] should not sometimes employ that fatal poison for gratifying hatred, jealousy, or revenge. But in a state of nature, tho' there are few restraints, there are also fewer temptations to vice; and the dif­ferent tribes are doubtless sensible that poisoned arrows in war would, upon the whole, do more mischief than good."’ This writer it would seem has forgot, that prospects of future good or evil never have influence upon savages. Is it his opi­nion, that fear of future mischiefs to themselves, would make the negroes of New Guinea abstain from employing poisoned arrows against their ene­mies? We have nothing but original disposition to account for manners so singular in the savages of Guiana. The Japanese resent injuries in a manner which has not a parallel in any other part of the world: it is indeed so singular as scarce to be consistent with human nature. Others wreak their resentment on the person who affronts them; but an inhabitant of Japan wreaks it on himself: he rips up his own belly. Kempfer re­ports the following instance. A gentleman coming down the great stair of the Emperor's palace, pas­sed another going up, and their swords happened to clash. The person descending took offence: the other excused himself, saying that it was acci­dental: adding, that swords only were concerned, and that his was as good as the other. I'll show you the difference, says the person who began the quarrel: he drew his sword, and ripped up his own belly. The other, piqued at being thus prevented in revenge, hastened up with a plate he had in his hand for the Emperor's table; and returning with equal speed, he in like manner ripped up his belly in sight of his antagonist, saying, ‘"If I had not been serving my prince, you should not have got the start of me; but I shall die satisfied, hav­ing show'd you that my sword is as good as [Page 38] yours."’ The same author gives an instance of uncommon ferocity in the Japanese, blended with manners highly polished. In the midst of a large company at dinner, a young woman, strain­ing to reach a plate, unwarily suffered wind to escape. Ashamed and confounded, she raised her breasts to her mouth, tore them with her teeth, and expired on the spot. The Japanese are equally singular in some of their religious opinions. They never supplicate the gods in distress; holding, that as the gods enjoy uninterrupted bliss, such suppli­cations would be offensive to them. Their holi­days accordingly are dedicated to feasts, weddings, and all public and private rejoicings. It is delight­ful to the gods, say they, to see men happy. They are far from being singular in thinking that a benevolent deity is pleased to see men happy; but nothing can be more inconsistent with the common feelings of men, than to hold, that in distress it is wrong to supplicate the author of our nature for relief, and that he will be displeased with such sup­plication. In deep affliction, there is certainly no balm equal to that of pouring out the heart to a benevolent deity, and expressing entire resignation to his will.

In support of the foregoing doctrine, many particu­lars still more extraordinary might have been quoted from Greek and Roman writers: but truth has no occasion for artifice; and I would not take advan­tage of celebrated names to vouch facts that appear incredible or uncertain. The Greeks and Romans made an illustrious figure in poetry, rhetoric, and all the fine arts; but they were little better than novices in natural history. More than half of the globe was to them what the Terra Australis incog­nita is to us; and imagination operates without control when it is not checked by knowledge: the ignorant at the same time are delighted with won­ders; [Page 39] and the more wonderful a story is, the more welcome it is made. This may serve as an apolo­gy for ancient writers, even when they relate and believe facts to us incredible. Men at that period were ignorant, in a great measure, of nature, and of the limits of her operations. One concession will be made to me, that the writers mentioned who report things at second-hand, are much more excusable than the earliest of our modern tra­vellers, who pretend to vouch endless wonders from their own knowledge. Natural history, that of man especially, is of late years much ripened: no improbable tale is suffered to pass without a strict examination; and I have been careful to adopt no facts but what are vouched by late travel­lers and writers of credit. Were it true what Dio­dorus Siculus reports on the authority of Aga­tharchides of Cnidus, concerning the lchthyopha­ges on the east coast of Afric, it would be a more pregnant proof of a distinct race of men than any I have discovered. They are described to be so stupid, that even when their wives and children are killed in their sight, they stand insensible, and give no signs either of anger or of compassion. This I cannot believe upon so slight testimony; and the Greeks and Romans were at that time extremely credulous, being less acquainted with neighbouring nations, than we are with the Anti­podes. The Balearic islands, Majorca, Minorca, Yvica, are at no great distance from Sicily; and yet Diodorus the Sicilian reports of the inhabi­tants, that at the solemnization of marriage all the male friends, and even the household servants, lay with the bride before the bridegroom was admitted. Credat Judeus appella. It would not be much more difficult to make me believe what is said by Pliny of the Blemmyans, that they had no head, and that the mouth and eyes were in the [Page 40] breast; or of the Arimaspi, who had but one eye, placed in the middle of the forehead; or of the Astomi, who having no mouth, could neither eat nor drink, but lived upon smelling; or of a thou­sand other absurdities which Pliny relates, with a grave face, in the 6th book of his natural history, cap. 30. and in the 7th book, cap. 2.

Thus upon an extensive survey of the inhabited parts of our globe, many nations are found diffe­ring so widely from each other, not only in com­plexion, in features, in shape, and in other exter­nal circumstances, but in temper and disposition, particularly in two capital articles, courage and the treatment of strangers, that even the certain­ty of there being different races could not make one expect more striking differences. Doth M. Buffon think it sufficient, barely to say, that such differences may possibly be the effect of climate, or of other accidental causes? The presumption is, that the differences subsisting at present have always subsisted; which ought to be held as true, till po­sitive evidence be brought of the contrary: instead of which we are put off with bare suppositions and possibilities.

But not to rest entirely upon presumptive evi­dence, to me it appears clear from the very frame of the human body, that there must be different races of men fitted for different climates. Few animals are more affected than men generally are, not only with change of seasons in the same cli­mate, but with change of weather in the same season. Can such a being be fitted for all cli­mates equally? Impossible. A man must at least be hardened by nature against the slighter changes of seasons or weather: he ought to be altogether insensible of such changes. Yet from Sir John Pringle's observations on the diseases of the army, to go no further, it appears, that even military [Page 41] men, who ought of all to be the hardiest, are greatly affected by them. Horses and horned cattle sleep on the bare ground, wet or dry, without harm; and yet are not made for every climate: can a man be made for every climate, who is so much more delicate, that he cannot sleep on wet ground without hazard of some mortal disease?

But the argument I chiefly rely on is, That were all men of one species, there never could have existed, without a miracle, different kinds, such as exist at present. Giving allowance for every sup­poseable variation of climate, or of other natural causes, what can follow, as observed about the dog­kind, but endless varieties among individuals, as among tulips in a garden, so as that no individual shall resemble another. Instead of which we find men of different kinds, the individuals of each kind remarkably uniform, and differing not less remark­ably from the individuals of every other kind. Uniformity and permanency are the offspring of design, never of chance.

There is another argument that appears also to have weight: Horses with respect to size, shape, and spirit, differ widely in different climates. But let a male and a female, of whatever climate, be carried into a country where horses are in perfec­tion, their progeny will improve gradually, and will acquire in time the perfection of their kind. Is not this a proof, that all horses are of one kind? If so, men are not all of one kind; for if a White mix with a Black in whatever climate, or a Hot­tentot with a Samoide, the result will not be either an improvement of the kind, or the contrary; but a mongrel breed differing from both parents. It is thus ascertained beyond any rational doubt, that there are different races or kinds of men, and that these races or kinds are naturally fitted for different climates: whence we have reason to con­clude, [Page 42] that originally each kind was placed in its proper climate, whatever change may have hap­pened in later times by war or commerce.

There is a remarkable fact that confirms the foregoing conjectures. As far back as history goes, or tradition kept alive by history, the earth was inhabited by savages divided into many small tribes, each tribe having a language peculiar to itself. Is it not natural to suppose, that these original tribes were different races of men, placed in proper cli­mates, and left to form their own language?

Upon summing up the whole particulars men­tioned above, would one hesitate a moment to adopt the following opinion, were there no counter­balancing evidence, viz. ‘"That God created many pairs of the human race, differing from each other both externally and internally; that he fitted these pairs for different climates, and placed each pair in its proper climate; that the peculiarities of the original pairs were preserved entire in their descendents; who, having no assistance but their natural talents, were left to gather knowledge from experience, and in particular were left (each tribe) to form a lan­guage for itself; that signs were sufficient for the original pairs, without any language but what nature suggests; and that a language was formed gradually, as a tribe increased in num­bers, and in different occupations, to make speech necessary?"’ But this opinion, however plausible, we are not permitted to adopt; being taught a different lesson by revelation, viz. That God created but a single pair of the human species. Tho' we cannot doubt of the authority of Moses, yet his account of the creation of man is not a little puzzling, as it seems to contradict every one of the facts mentioned above. According to that account, different races of men were not formed, nor were [Page 43] men formed originally for different climates. All men must have spoken the same language, viz. that of our first parents. And what of all seems the most contradictory to that account, is the savage state: Adam, as Moses informs us, was endued by his Maker with an eminent degree of knowledge; and he certainly was an excellent preceptor to his children and their progeny, among whom he lived many generations. Whence then the degeneracy of all men unto the savage state? To account for that dismal catastrophe, mankind must have suffer­ed some terrible convulsion.

That terrible convulsion is revealed to us in the history of the tower of Babel, contained in the 11th chapter of Genesis, which is, ‘"That for many centuries after the deluge, the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech; that they united to build a city on a plain in the land of Shinar, with a tower whose top might reach unto heaven; that the Lord beholding the people to be one, and to have all one lan­guage, and that nothing would be restrained from them which they imagined to do, con­founded their language, that they might not understand one another; and scattered them abroad upon the face of all the earth."’ Here light breaks forth in the midst of darkness. By confounding the language of men, and scattering them abroad upon the face of all the earth, they were rendered savages. And to harden them for their new habitations, it was necessary that they should be divided into different kinds, fitted for different climates. Without an immediate change of constitution, the builders of Babel could not possibly have subsisted in the burning region of Guinea, nor in the frozen region of Lapland; houses not being prepared, nor any other conve­nience to protect them against a destructive climate. [Page 44] Against this history it has indeed been urged, ‘"that the circumstances mentioned evince it to be purely an allegory; that men never were so frantic as to think of building a tower whose top might reach to heaven; and that it is grossly absurd, taking the matter literally, that the Almighty was afraid of men, and reduced to the necessity of saving himself by a miracle."’ But that this is a real history, must necessarily be admitted, as the confusion of Babel is the only known fact that can reconcile sacred and profane history.

And this leads us to consider the diversity of languages ^*. If the common language of men had [Page 45] not been confounded upon their attempting the tower of Babel, I affirm, that there never could have been but one language. Antiquaries con­stantly suppose a migrating spirit in the original inhabitants of this earth; not only without evi­dence, but contrary to all probability. Men never desert their connections nor their country without necessity: fear of enemies and of wild beasts, as well as the attraction of society, are more than sufficient to restrain them from wandering; not to mention that savages are peculiarly fond of their natal soil ^*. The first migrations were probably occasioned by factions and civil wars; the next by commerce. Greece affords instances of the former, [Page 46] Phoenicia of the latter. Unless upon such occasions, members of a family or of a tribe will never retire farther from their fellows than is necessary for food; and by retiring gradually, they lose neither their connections nor their manners, far less their language, which is in constant exercise. As far back as history carries us, tribes without number are discovered, each having a language peculiar to itself. Strabo ^a reports, that the Albanians were divided into several tribes, differing in external appearance and in language. Caesar found in Gaul several such tribes; and Tacitus records the names of many tribes in Germany. There are a multi­tude of American tribes that to this day continue distinct from each other, and have each a different language. The mother-tongues at present, tho' numerous, bear no proportion to what formerly existed. We find original tribes gradually enlarg­ing; by conquest frequently, and more frequently by the union of weak tribes for mutual defence. Such events promote one language instead of many. The Celtic tongue, once extensive, is at present confined to the highlands of Scotland, to Wales, to Britany, and to a part of Ireland. In a few centuries, it will share the fate of many other original tongues: it will be totally forgotten.

If men had not been scattered every where upon the consusion of Babel, another particular must have occurred, differing not less from what has really happened than that now mentioned. As paradise is conjectured to have been situated in the heart of Asia, the surrounding regions, for the reason above given, must have been first peopled; and the civilization and improvements of the mo­ther-country were undoubtedly carried along to every new settlement. In particular, the colonies [Page 47] planted in America, the South-sea islands, and the Terra Australis incognita, must have been highly polished; because, being at the greatest distance, they probably were the latest. And yet these and other remote people, the Mexicans and Peruvians excepted, remain to this day in the original savage state of hunting and fishing.

Thus, had not men wildly attempted to build a tower whose top might reach to heaven, all men would not only have spoken the same language, but would have made the same progress toward maturity of knowledge and civilization. That de­plorable event reversed all nature: by scattering men over the face of all the earth, it deprived them of society, and rendered them savages. From that state of degeneracy, they have been emerging gradually. Some nations, stimulated by their own nature, or by their climate, have made a rapid progress; some have proceeded more slowly; and some continue savages. To trace out that progress toward maturity in different nations, is the subject of the present undertaking.

SKETCH II.
Progress of Men with respect to FOOD and PO­PULATION.

IN temperate climates, the original food of men was fruits that grow without culture, and the flesh of land-animals. As such animals become shy when often hunted, there is a contrivance of nature, no less simple than effectual, which engages men to bear with chearfulness the fatigues of hunting, and the uncertainty of capture; and that is, an appetite for hunting. Hunger alone is not suffi­cient: savages, who act by sense not by foresight, move not when the stomach is full; and it would be too late when the stomach is empty, to form a hunting-party. As this appetite belongs to every savage who depends on hunting for procuring food; it is one instance, among many, of providential wisdom, in adapting the internal constitution of man to his external circumstances. The appetite for hunting, tho' among us little necessary for food, is, to this day, visible in our young men, high and low, rich and poor. Natural propensities may be rendered faint or obscure, but never are totally eradicated.

It is probable, that fish was not early the food of man. Water is not our element; and savages probably did not attempt to draw any food from the sea or from rivers, till land-animals turned scarce. Plutarch in his Symposiacs observes, that the Syrians and Greeks of old abstained from fish. Menelaus ^a complains, that his companions had been reduced by hunger to that food; and tho' the [Page 49] Grecian camp, at the siege of Troy, was on the sea-shore, there is not in Homer a single hint of their seeding on fish. We learn from Dion Cassius, that the Caledonians did not eat fish, tho' they had them in plenty; which is confirmed by Adamannus, a Scotch historian, in his life of St. Columba. The ancient Caledonians depended almost entirely on deer for food, because in a cold country the fruits that grow spontaneously afford very little nourish­ment; and domestic animals, which at present so much abound, were not early known in the north of Britain.

Antiquaries talk of acorns, nuts, and other shell­fruits, as the only vegetable food that men had originally; overlooking wheat, rice, barley, &c. which must, from the creation, have grown spon­taneously: for surely, when agriculture first com­menced, seeds of these plants were not procured by a miracle ^*. The Laplanders, possessing a country [Page 50] where corn will not grow, make bread of the inner bark of trees; and Linneus reports, that swine there fatten on that food, as well as in Sweden upon corn.

Plenty of food procured by hunting and fishing, promotes population: but as consumption of food increases with population, wild animals, sorely per­secuted, become not only more rare but more shy. Men, thus pinched for food, are excited to try other means for supplying their wants. A fawn, a kid, or a lamb, taken alive, and tamed for amuse­ment, suggested probably flocks and herds, and in­troduced the shepherd-state. Changes are not perfected but by slow degrees: hunting and fishing continue for a long time favourite occupations; and the few animals that are domesticated, serve as a common stock to be distributed among individuals, according to their wants. But as the idle and indo­lent, tho' the least deserving, are thus the greatest consumers of the common stock, an improvement was suggested, that every family should rear a stock for themselves. Men by that politic regulation be­ing taught to rely on their own industry, display'd the hoarding-principle, which multiplied flocks and herds exceedingly. And thus the shepherd-state was perfected, plenty of food being supplied at home, without ranging the woods or the waters. Hunting and fishing being no longer necessary for [Page 51] food, became an amusement merely, and a gratifi­cation of the original appetite for hunting.

The finger of God may be clearly traced in the provision made of animal food for man. Grameni­vorous animals, perhaps all, make palatable and wholesome food. I except not the horse: some nations feed on it; others do not, because it is more profitable by its labour. Carnivorous animals, ge­nerally speaking, make not wholesome food nor palatable. The first-mentioned animals are gentle, and easily domesticated: the latter are fierce, not easily tamed, and uncertain in temper when tamed. Grass grows every where in temperate regions; and men beside can multiply animal food without end, by training domestic animals to live on turnip, car­rot, potato, and other roots, &c. Herodotus adds the following admirable reflection: ‘"We may ra­tionally conjecture, that Divine Providence has rendered extremely prolific such creatures as are naturally fearful, and serve for food; lest they should be destroyed by constant consumption: whereas the rapacious and cruel are almost bar­ren. The hare, which is the prey of beasts, birds, and men, is a great breeder: a lioness, on the contrary, the strongest and fiercest of beasts, brings forth but once."’

The shepherd-state is friendly to population. Men by plenty of food multiply apace; and in process of time neighbouring tribes, straitened in their pasture, go to war for extension of territory, or migrate to grounds not yet occupied. Necessity, the mother of invention, suggested agriculture. When corn growing spontaneously was rendered scarce by con­sumption, it was an obvious thought to propagate it by art: nature was the guide, which carries on its work of propagation with seeds, that drop from plants in their maturity, and spring up new plants. As the land was possessed in common, the seed of [Page 52] course was sown in common, and stored in a com­mon repository to be parcelled out among individu­als in want, as the common stock of animals had been formerly. We have for our authority Diodo­rus Siculus, that the Celtiberians divided their land annually among individuals, to be laboured for the use of the public, and that the product was stored up, and distributed from time to time among the necessitous. A lasting division of the land among the members of the state, securing to each man the product of his own skill and labour, was a great spur to industry, and multiplied food exceedingly. Popu­lation made a rapid progress, and government be­came an art: for agriculture and commerce cannot flourish without salutary laws.

Natural fruits ripen to greater perfection in a temperate than in a cold climate, and cultivation is more easy; which circumstances make it highly probable, that agriculture became first an art in temperate climes. The culture of corn was so early known in Greece, as to make a branch of its fabu­lous history: in Egypt it must have been coeval with the inhabitants; for while the Nile overflows, they cannot subsist without corn ^b. Nor without corn could the ancient monarchies of Assyria and Babylon have been so populous and powerful as they are said to have been. In the northern parts of Europe, wheat, barley, pease, and perhaps oats, are foreign plants: as the climate is not friendly to corn, agriculture must have crept northward by slow degrees; and even at present, it requires no small portion both of skill and industry to bring corn to maturity in such a climate. Hence it may be inferred with certainty, that the shepherd-state continued longer in northern climates than in those nearer the sun. Cold countries however are friend­ly [Page 53] to population; and the northern people, multi­plying beyond the food that can be supplied by flocks and herds, were compelled to throw off many swarms in search of new habitations. Their fre­quent migrations were for many years a dreadful scourge to neighbouring kingdoms. People, amaz­ed at the multitude of the invaders, judged, that the countries from whence they issued must have been exceedingly populous; and hence the North was termed officina gentium; but scarcity of food in the shepherd-state was the true cause. The north of Europe, in all probability, is as well peopled at present as ever it was, tho' its migrations have ceas­ed, corn and commerce having put an end to that pestilence ^*. Denmark at present feeds 2,000,000 of inhabitants, Sweden, according to a list made up anno 1760, 2,383,113; and these countries must be much more populous than of old, when over-run with immense woods, and agriculture ut­terly unknown. Had the Danes and Norwegians [Page 54] been acquainted with agriculture in the ninth and tenth centuries, when they poured out multitudes upon their neighbours, they would not have ventur­ed their lives in frail vessels upon a tempestuous ocean, in order to distress nations who were not their enemies. But hunger is a cogent motive; and hunger gave to these pirates superiority in arms above every nation that enjoyed plenty at home. Luckily such depredations must have intervals; for as they necessarily occasion great havock even among the victors, the remainder finding sufficien­cy of food at home, rest there till an increasing po­pulation force them again to action ^*. Agriculture, which fixes people to a spot, is an invincible obsta­cle to migration; and happy it is for Europe, that agriculture, now universally diffused, has put an end for ever to such migrations: the northern peo­ple find occupation and sustenance at home, with­out infesting others. Agriculture is a great blessing: it not only affords us food in plenty, but secures the fruits of our industry from hungry and rapacious in­vaders ^†.

That the progress above traced must have pro­ceeded from some vigorous impulse will be admit­ted, considering the prevailing influence of custom: once hunters, men will always be hunters, till they [Page 55] be forc'd out of that state by some overpowering cause. Hunger, the cause here assigned, is of all the most overpowering; and the same cause, over­coming indolence and idleness, has introduced ma­nufactures, commerce, and variety of arts ^*.

The progress here delineated has, in all temper­ate climates of the old world, been precisely uni­form; but it has been different in the extremes of cold and hot climates. In very cold regions, which produce little vegetable food for man, the hunter­state was originally essential. In temperate regions, as observed above, men subsisted partly on vegeta­ble food, which is more and more plentiful in pro­portion to the heat of the climate. In the torrid [Page 56] zone, natural fruits are produced in such plenty and perfection, as to be more than sufficient for a mo­derate population: and in case of extraordinary po­pulation, the transition to husbandry is easy. There are found accordingly in every populous country of the torrid zone, crops of rice, maize, roots, and other vegetable food, raised by the hand of man. As hunting becomes thus less and less necessary in the progress from cold to hot countries, the appe­tite for hunting keeps pace with that progress; it is vigorous in very cold countries, where men depend on hunting for food; it is less vigorous in temperate countries, where they are partly fed with natural fruits; and there is scarce any vestige of it in hot countries, where vegetables are the food of men, and where meat is an article of luxury. The ori­ginal occupation of savages, both in cold and tem­perate climates, is hunting, altogether essential in the former as the only means of procuring food. The next step of the progress in both, is the occu­pation of a shepherd; and there the progress stops short in very cold regions, unfit for corn. Lapland in particular produces no vegetable but moss, which is the food of no animal but of the rain-deer. This circumstance solely is what renders Lapland habita­ble by men. Without rain-deer, the sea-coasts within the reach of fish would admit some inhabit­ants; but the inland parts would be a desert. As the swiftness of that animal makes it not an easy prey, the taming it for food must have been early attempted; and its natural docility made the at­tempt succeed. It yields to no other animal in use­fulness: it is equal to a horse for draught: its flesh is excellent food; and the female gives milk more nourishing than that of a cow: its fur is fine; and the leather made of its skin, is both soft and durable. In Tartary, tho' a great part of it lies in a temper­atezone, there is little corn. As far back as tradi­tion [Page 57] reaches, the Tartars have had flocks and herds; and yet, in a great measure, they not only continue hunters, but retain the ferocity of that state: they are not fond of being shepherds, and have not any knowledge of husbandry. This in appearance is singular; but nothing happens without a cause. Tartary is one continued mountain from west to east, rising high above the countries to the south; and declining gradually to the northern ocean, with­out a single hill to intercept the bitter blasts of the north. A few spots excepted, a tree above the size of a shrub cannot live in it ^*. In Europe, the mountains of Norway and Lapland are a comforta­ble screen against the north wind: whence it is, that the ground about Stockholm ^c produces both trees and corn; and even about Abo ^d the climate is tolerable. Great Tartary abounds with pasture; but extreme cold renders it very little capable of corn. Thro' all Chinese Tartary, even as low as the 43d degree of latitude, the frost continues seven or eight months every year; and that country, tho' in the latitude of France, is as cold as Iceland; the causes of which are its nitrous soil, and its height without any shelter from the west wind that has passed through an immense continent extremely cold. A certain place near the source of the river Kavamhuran, and within 80 leagues of the great wall, was found by Father Verbeist to be 3000 geo­metrical paces above the level of the sea. Thus the Tartars, like the Laplanders, are chained to the shepherd-state, and can never advance to be husband­men. [Page 58] If population among them ever be so great as to require more food than the shepherd-state can supply, migration will be their only resource.

In every step of the progress, the torrid zone differs. We have no evidence that either the hunter or shepherd state were ever known there: the inhabitants at present subsist upon vegetable food; and probably did so from the beginning. In Manila, one of the Philippine islands, the trees bud, blossom, and bear fruit, all the year round. The natives, driven from the sea-coast to the inland parts, have no particular place of abode, but live under the shelter of trees, which afford them food as well as habitation; and when the fruit is con­sumed in one spot, they remove to another. The orange, lemon, and other European trees, bear fruit twice a-year: a sprig planted bears fruit with­in the year. And this picture of Manila answers to numberless places in the torrid zone. The Ma­rian or Ladrone islands are extremely populous; and yet the inhabitants live entirely on fish, fruits, and roots. The inhabitants of the new Philippine islands live on cocoa-nuts, salads, roots, and fish. The inland negroes make but one meal a-day, which is in the evening. Their diet is plain, con­sisting mostly of rice, fruits, and roots. The is­land of Otaheite is healthy, the people tall and well made; and by temperance, vegetables and fish being their chief nourishment, they live to a good old age, with scarce any ailment. There is no such thing known among them as rotten teeth: the very smell of wine or spirits is disagreeable; and they never deal in tobacco nor spiceries. In many places Indian corn is the chief nourishment, which every man plants for himself. The inhabitants of Biledulgerid and the desert of Zaara have but two meals a-day, one in the morning, and one in the evening. Being temperate, and strangers to the [Page 59] diseases of luxury and idleness, they generally live to a great age. Sixty with them is the prime of life, as thirty is in Europe. An inhabitant of Madagascar will travel two or three days without any food but a sugar cane. There is indeed little appetite for animal food in hot climates; tho' beef and fowl have in small quantities been introduced to the tables of the great, as articles of luxury. In America are observable some variations from the progress; but these are reserved for a separate sketch ^e.

With respect to population in particular, that plenty of food is its chief cause, may be illustrated by the following calculation. The southern pro­vinces of China produce two crops of rice in a year, sometimes three; and an acre well cultivated gives food to ten mouths. The peasants go almost naked; and the better sort wear but a single garment made of cotton, of which as much is produced upon an acre as may cloath four or five hundred persons. Hence the extreme populousness of China and other rice countries. The Cassave root, which serves the Americans for bread, is produced in such plenty, that an acre of it will feed more persons than six acres of wheat. It is not then for want of food that America is ill peopled. That Negroland is well peopled is past doubt, considering the great annual draughts from that country to America, without any apparent diminution of numbers. Instances are not extremely rare of 200 children born to one man by his different wives. Food must be ex­tremely plentiful to enable a man to maintain so many children. It would require extraordinary skill and labour to make Europe so populous: an acre and an half of wheat is barely sufficient to maintain a single family of peasants; and their [Page 60] cloathing requires many more acres. A country of savages, who live chiefly by hunting, must be very thin of inhabitants; as 10,000 or double that number of acres are no more than sufficient for maintaining a single family. If the multiplication of animals depended chiefly on fecundity, wolves would be more numerous than sheep: a great pro­portion of the latter are deprived of the procreating power, and many more of them are killed than of the former: yet we see every where large flocks of sheep, seldom a wolf; for what reason, other than that the former have plenty of food, the latter very little? A wolf resembles a savage who lives by hunting, and consumes the game of five or six hundred acres.

Waving the question, Whether the human race be the offspring of one pair, or of many, it appears the intention of Providence, that the earth should be peopled, and population be kept up by the ordi­nary means of procreation. By these means a tribe soon becomes too populous for the primitive state of hunting and fishing: it may even become too populous for the shepherd-state; but probably a nation can scarce be too populous for husbandry. In the two former states, food must decrease in quantity as consumers increase in number: but agriculture has the signal property of producing, by industry, food in proportion to the number of con­sumers. In fact the greatest quantities of corn and of cattle are commonly produced in the most popu­lous districts, where each family has its proportion of land An ancient Roman, sober and industrious, made a shift to maintain his family on the product of a few acres ^*.

[Page 61] The bounty given in Britain for exporting corn is friendly to population in two respects; first, be­cause husbandry requires many hands; and, next, because the bounty lowers the price of corn at home. To give a bounty for exporting cattle would ob­struct population; because pasture requires few hands, and exportation would raise the price of cattle at home. From the single port of Cork, an. 1735, were exported 107, 161 barrels of beef, 7379 barrels of pork, 13, 401 casks of butter, and 85, 727 firkins of the same commodity. Thus a large portion of Ireland is set apart for feeding other nations. What addition of strength would it not be to Britain, if that large quantity of food were consumed at home by useful manufacturers!

Lapland is but thinly inhabited even for the shepherd-state, the country being capable of main­taining a greater number of rain-deer, and conse­quently a greater number of the human species than are found in it. At the same time, the Lap­landers are well acquainted with private property: every family has tame rain deer of their own, to the extent sometimes of four or five hundred. They indeed seem to have more rain-deer than there is a demand for. Why then is Lapland so thinly peopled? Either it must have been but lately plant­ed, or the inhabitants are not prolific. I incline to the latter, upon the authority of Scheffer. Tar­tary is also but thinly peopled; and as I find not that the Tartars are less prolific than their neigh­bours, it is probable that Tartary, being the most barren country in Asia, has not been early planted. At the same time population has been much re­tarded [Page 62] by the restless and roaming spirit of that people: it is true, they have been forced into the shepherd-state by want of food; but so averse are they to the sedentary life of a shepherd, that they trust their cattle to slaves, and persevere in their favourite occupation of hunting. This disposition has been a dreadful pest to the human species, the Tartars having made more extensive conquests, and destroy'd more men, than any other nation known in history: more cruel than tigers, they seemed to have no delight but in blood and mas­sacre, without any regard either to sex or age ^*. Luckily for the human species, rich spoils dazzled their eyes, and roused an appetite for wealth. Avarice is sometimes productive of good: it moved these monsters to sell the conquered people for slaves, which preserved the lives of millions. Con­quests, however successful, cannot go on for ever; they are not accomplished without great loss of men; and the conquests of the Tartars depopulated their country.

But as some centuries have elapsed without any considerable eruption of that siery people, their numbers must at present be considerable by the ordinary progress of population. Have we not rea­son to dread new eruptions, like what formerly happened? Our foreknowledge of future events extends not far; but so far as it extends, we have nothing to fear from that quarter. The Tartars subdued a great part of the world by ferocity and undaunted courage, supported by liberty and inde­pendence. They acknowledged Genhizkan as their leader in war; but were as far from being slaves, [Page 63] as the Franks were when they conquered Gaul. Tamerlane again enjoyed but a substituted power, and never had the audacity to assume the title of Chan or Emperor. But the Tartars have submit­ted to the same yoke of despotism that their ferocity imposed upon others; and being now governed by a number of petty tyrants, their courage is broken by slavery, and they are no longer formidable to the rest of mankind ^*.

Depopulation enters into the present sketch as well as population. The latter follows not with greater certainty from equality of property, than the former from inequality. In every great state, where the people, by prosperity and opulence, are sunk into voluptuousness, we hear daily complaints of depopulation. Cookery depopulates like a pes­tilence; because when it becomes an art, it brings within the compass of one stomach what is suffi­cient for ten in days of temperance; and is so far worse than a pestilence, that the people never re­cruit again. The inhabitants of France devour at present more food than the same number did for­merly. The like is observable in Britain, and in every country where luxury abounds. Remedies are proposed and put in practice, celebacy disgraced, marriage encouraged, and rewards given for a nu­merous [Page 64] offspring All in vain! The only effectual remedies are to encourage husbandry, and to re­press luxury. Olivares hoped to re-people Spain by encouraging matrimony. Abderam, a Maho­metan king of Cordova, was a better politician. By encouraging industry, and procuring plenty of food, he re-peopled his kingdom in less than thirty years ^*.

Luxury is a deadly enemy to population, not only by intercepting food from the industrious, but by weakening the power of procreation. Indolence accompanies voluptuousness, or rather is a branch of it: women of rank seldom move, but in chang­ing place employ others to move them; and a wo­man enervated by indolence and intemperance, is ill qualified for the severe labour of child-bearing. Hence it is, that people of rank, where luxury prevails, are not prolific. This infirmity not only prevents population, but increases luxury, by ac­cumulating wealth among a few blood-relations. A barren woman among the labouring poor, is a wonder. Could women of rank be persuaded to make a trial, they would find more self-enjoyment in temperance and exercise, than in the most re­fined luxury; and would have no cause to envy others the blessing of a numerous and healthy off­spring.

Luxury is not a greater enemy to population by enervating men and women, than despotism is by [Page 65] reducing them to slavery, and destroying industry. Despotism is a greater pest to the human species than an Egyptian plague; for by rendering men miserable, it weakens both the appetite for pro­creation and the power. Free states, on the con­trary, are always populous: a man who is happy longs for children to make them also happy; and industry enables him to accomplish his purpose. This observation is verified from the history of Greece, and of the Lesser Asia: the inhabitants anciently were free and extremely numerous: the present inhabitants, reduced to slavery, make a very poor figure with respect to numbers. A pes­tilence destroys those only who exist, and the loss is soon repaired; but despotism, as above observed, strikes at the very root of population.

An overflowing quantity of money in circulation, is another cause of depopulation. In a nation that grows rich by commerce, the price of labour in­creases with the quantity of circulating money, which of course raises the price of manufactures; and manufacturers who cannot find a vent for their high-rated goods in foreign markets, must give over business, and commence beggars, or retire to another country where they may have a prospect of success. But luckily, there is a remedy in that case to prevent depopulation: land is cultivated to greater perfection by the spade than by the plough; and the more plentiful crops produced by the spade are more than sufficient to defray the additional ex­pence of cultivation. This is a resource for em­ploying those who cannot make bread as manu­facturers; and deserves well the attention of the legislature. The advantage of the spade is conspi­cuous with respect to war; it provides a multitude of robust men for recruiting our armies, the want of whom may be supplied by the plough, till they return in peace to their former occupation.

SKETCH III.
Progress of Men with respect to PROPERTY.

AMong the senses inherent in the nature of man, the sense of property is eminent. By this sense wild animals caught by labour or art, are perceived to belong to the hunter or fisher; they become his property. This sense is the foundation of meum et tuum, a distinction of which no human being is ignorant. In the shepherd-state, there is the same perception of property with respect to wild animals tamed for use, and also with respect to their progeny. It takes place also with respect to a field separated from the common, and culti­vated by a man for bread to himself and family ^a.

The sense of property is slower in its growth toward maturity than the external senses, which are perfect even in childhood; but ripens faster than the sense of congruity, of symmetry, of dig­nity, of grace, and other delicate senses, which scarce make any figure till we become men. Chil­dren discover a sense of property in distinguishing their own chair, and their own spoon. In them however it is faint and obscure, requiring time to bring it to perfection. The gradual progress of that sense, from its infancy among savages to its maturity among polished nations, is one of the most entertaining articles that belong to the present un­dertaking. But as that article makes a part of Historical law-tracts ^b, nothing remains for me but a few gleanings.

[Page 67] Man is by nature a hoarding animal, having an appetite for storing up things of use; and the sense of property is bestow'd on men, for securing to them what they thus store up. Hence it appears, that things provided by Providence for our suste­nance and accommodation, were not intended to be possessed in common; and probably in the ear­liest ages every man separately hunted for himself and his family. But chance prevails in that occu­pation; and it may frequently happen, that while some get more than enough, others must go sup­perless to bed. Sensible of that inconvenience, it crept into practice, for hunting and fishing to be carried on in common ^*. We find accordingly the practice of hunting and fishing in common, even among gross savages. Those of New Holland, above mentioned, live upon small fish dug out of [Page 68] the sand when the sea retires. Sometimes they get plenty, sometimes very little; but whether suc­cessful or unsuccessful, all is broiled and ate in common. After eating they go to rest: they re­turn to their fishing next ebb of the tide, whether it be day or night, foul or fair; for go they must, or starve. In small tribes, where patriotism is vigorous, or in a country thinly peopled in propor­tion to its fertility, the living in common is ex­tremely comfortable: but in a large state where selfishness prevails, or in any state where great po­pulation requires extraordinary culture, the best method is to allow every man to shift for himself and his family: men wish to labour for themselves; and they labour more ardently for themselves than for the public. Private property became more and more sacred in the progress of arts and manufac­tures: to allow an artist of superior talents no pro­fit above others, would be a sad discouragement to industry, and be scarce consistent with common justice.

The sense of property is not confined to the human species. The beavers perceive the timber they store up for food, to be their property; and the bees seem to have the same perception with respect to their winter's provision of honey. Sheep know when they are in a trespass, and run to their own pasture on the first glimpse of a man. Monkies do the same when detected in robbing an orchard. Sheep and horned cattle have a sense of property with respect to their resting-place in a fold or in­closure, which every one guards against the in­croachments of others. He must be a sceptic in­deed who denies that perception to rooks: thieves there are among them as among men; but if a rook purloin a stick from another's nest, a council is held, much chattering ensues, and the lex ta­lionis is applied, by demolishing the nest of the [Page 69] criminal. To man are furnished rude materials only: to convert these into food and cloathing re­quires industry; and if he had not a sense that the product of his labour belongs to himself, his in­dustry would be extremely faint. In general, it is pleasant to observe, that the sense of property is always given where it is useful, and never but where it is useful.

An ingenious writer, describing the inhabitants of Guiana, who continue hunters and fishers, makes an eloquent harangue upon the happiness they en­joy, in having few wants and desires, and in hav­ing very little notion of private property. ‘"The manners of these Indians exhibit an amiable pic­ture of primeval innocence and happiness. The ease with which their few wants are supplied, renders division of land unnecessary; nor does it afford any temptation to fraud or violence. That proneness to vice, which among civilized nations is esteemed a propensity of nature, has no ex­istence in a country where every man enjoys in perfection his native freedom and independence, without hurting or being hurt by others. A perfect equality of rank, banishing all distinctions but of age and personal merit, promotes freedom in conversation, and firmness in action; and suggests no desires but what may be gratified with innocence. Envy and discontent cannot subsist with perfect equality; we scarce even hear of a discontented lover, as there is no dif­ference of rank and fortune, the common ob­stacles that prevent fruition. Those who have been unhappily accustomed to the refinements of luxury, will scarce be able to conceive, that an Indian, with no covering but what modesty requires, with no shelter that deserves the name of a house, and with no food but of the coarsest kind painfully procured by hunting, can feel any [Page 70] happiness: and yet to judge from external ap­pearance, the happiness of these people may be envied by the wealthy of the most refined na­tions; and justly; because their ignorance of extravagant desires, and endless pursuits that torment the great world, excludes every wish beyond the present. In a word, the inhabitants of Guiana are an example of what Socrates justly observes, that those who want the least, approach the nearest to the Gods, who want nothing."’ It must be acknowledged, that the innocence of savages, here painted in fine colours, is in every respect more amiable than the luxury of opulent cities, where sensuality and selfishness are ruling passions. But is our author unacquainted with a middle state between the two extremes, more suitable than either to the dignity of human nature? The appetite for property is not bestow'd upon us in vain: it has given birth to many useful arts, and to almost all the fine arts; it is still more useful in furnishing opportunity for gratifying the most dignified natural affections; for without pri­vate property, what place would there be for bene­volence or charity ^c? Without private property, there would be no industry; and without industry, men would remain savages for ever.

The appetite for property, in its nature a great blessing, degenerates, I acknowledge, into a great curse when it transgresses the bounds of moderation. Before money was introduced, the appetite seldom was immoderate, because plain necessaries were its only objects. But money is a species of property, of such extensive use as greatly to inflame the ap­petite. Money prompts men to be industrious; and the beautiful productions of industry and art, rousing the imagination, excite a violent desire of [Page 71] fine houses, ornamented gardens, and of every thing gay and splendid. Habitual wants multiply: luxury and sensuality gain ground: the appetitie for property becomes headstrong, and must be grati­fied even at the expence of justice and honour. Examples are without number of this progress; and yet the following history deserves to be kept in memory, as a striking and lamentable illustration. Hispaniola was that part of America which Co­lumbus first discovered anno 1497. He landed upon the territory of Guacanaric, one of the prin­cipal Cacics of the island. That prince, who had nothing barbarous in his manners, received his guests with cordiality; and encouraged his people to vie with one another in obliging them. To gratify the Spanish appetite for gold, they parted freely with their richest ornaments; and in return, were satisfied with glass beads, and such baubles. The Admiral's ship having been tossed against the rocks in a hurricane, Guacanaric was not wanting to his friend on that occasion: he convened a num­ber of men to assist in unloading the ship; and attended himself till the cargo was safely lodged in a magazine. The Admiral having occasion to return to Spain, left a part of his crew behind; who, forgetting the lessons of moderation he had taught them, turned licentious. The remonstran­ces of Guacanaric were in vain: they seized upon the gold and wives of the Indians; and in general treated them with great cruelty. Such enormities did not long pass unresented: the rapacious Spa­niards, after much bloodshed, were shut up in their fort, and reduced to extremity. Unhappily a reinforcement arrived from Spain: a long and bloody war ensued, which did not end till the island­ers were wholly brought under. Of this island, about 200 leagues in length and between sixty and [Page 72] eighty in breadth, a Spanish historian bears witness, that the inhabitants amounted to a million when Columbus landed ^*. The Spaniards, relentless in their cruelty, forc'd these poor people to abandon the culture of their fields, and to retire to the woods and mountains. Hunted like wild beasts even in these retreats, they fled from mountain to moun­tain, till hunger and fatigue, which destroy'd more than the sword, forc'd them to deliver themselves up to their implacable conquerors. There remained at that time but 60,000, who were divided among the Spaniards as slaves. Excessive fatigue in the mines, and want of even the common necessaries of life, reduced them in five years to 14,000. Con­sidering them merely as beasts of burden, they would have yielded more profit had they been treated with less inhumanity. Avarice frequently counteracts its own end: by grasping too much, it loses all. The Emperor Charles resolved to apply some effectual remedy; but being interrupted for some time by various avocations, he got intelligence that the poor Indians were totally extirpated. And they were so in reality, a handful excepted, who lay hid in the mountains, and subsisted as by a mi­racle in the midst of their enemies. That handful were discovered many years after by some hunters; who treated them with humanity, regretting per­haps the barbarity of their forefathers. The poor Indians, docile and submissive, embraced the Chris­tian religion, and assumed by degrees the manners [Page 73] and customs of their masters. They still exist, and live by hunting and fishing.

Affection for property! Janus double-fac'd, pro­ductive of many blessings, but degenerating often to be a curse. In thy right hand, Industry, a cornucopia of plenty: in thy left, Avarice, a Pandora's box of deadly poison.

SKETCH IV.
Origin and Progress of COMMERCE.

THE few wants of men in the first stage of society, are supplied by barter or permutation in its rudest form. In barter, the rational conside­ration is, what is wanted by the one, and what can be spared by the other. But savages are not always so clear-sighted: a savage who wants a knife will give for it any thing that is less useful to him at present; without considering either the present wants of the person he is dealing with, or his own future wants. An inhabitant of Guiana will for a fish-hook give more at one time, than at another he will give for a hatchet, or for a gun. Kempfer reports, that an inhabitant of Puli Timor, an island adjacent to Malacca, will, for a bit of coarse linen not worth three halfpence, give provisions worth three or four shillings. But people improve by degrees, attending to what is wanted and to what can be spared on both sides; and in that lesson, the American savages in our neighbourhood are not a little expert.

Barter or permutation, in its original form, proved miserably deficient, when men and their wants multiplied. That sort of commerce cannot be carried on at a distance; and even among neigh­bours, it does not always happen, that the one can spare what the other wants. Barter is somewhat enlarged by covenants: a bushel of wheat is deli­vered to me, upon my promising an equivalent at [Page 75] a future time. But what if I have nothing that my neighbour may have occasion for? or what if my promise be not relied on? Thus barter, even with the aid of covenants, proves still insufficient. The numberless wants of men cannot readily be supplied without some commodity in general esti­mation, that will be gladly accepted in exchange for every other article of commerce. That com­modity ought not to be bulky, nor be expensive in keeping, nor be consumable by time. Gold and silver are metals which possess these properties in an eminent degree. They are at the same time per­fectly homogeneous in whatever country produced: two masses of pure gold or of pure silver are always equal in value, provided they be of the same weight. These metals are also divisible into small parts, convenient to be given for goods of small value.

Gold and silver, when first introduced into com­merce, were probably bartered, like other com­modities, by bulk merely. Rock-salt in Ethiopia, white as snow and hard as stone, is to this day bartered in that manner with other goods. It is dug out of the mountain Lafta, formed into plates of a foot long, and three inches broad and thick; and a portion is broke off equivalent in value to the thing wanted. But more nicety came to be intro­duced into the commerce of gold and silver: instead of being given loosely by bulk, every portion was weighed in scales: and this method of barter is practised in China, in Ethiopia, and in many other countries. Even weight was at length disco­vered to be an imperfect standard. Ethiopian salt may be proof against adulteration; but weight is no security against mixing gold and silver with base metals. To prevent that fraud, pieces of gold and silver are impressed with a public stamp, vouching both the purity and quantity; and such pieces are [Page 76] termed coin. This was a notable improvement in commerce; and, like other improvements, was probably at first thought the utmost stretch of human invention. It was not foreseen, that these metals wear by much handling in the course of circulation; and consequently, that in time the public stamp is reduced to be a voucher of the pu­rity only, not of the quantity. Hence proceed manifold inconveniences; for which no other re­medy occurs, but to restore the former method of weighing, trusting to the stamp for the purity only. This proves an embarrassment in commerce; but it will facilitate paper-money, which is free of that embarrassment.

When gold or silver in bullion is exchanged with other commodities, such commerce passes under the common name of barter or permutation: when current coin is exchanged, such commerce is term­ed buying and selling; and the money exchanged is termed the price of the goods.

As commerce cannot be carried on to any extent without a standard for comparing goods of different kinds, and as every commercial country is possessed of such a standard, it seems difficult to say by what means the standard has been established. It is plainly not founded on nature; for the different kinds of goods have naturally no common measure by which they can be valued: two quarters of wheat can be compared with twenty; but what rule have we to compare wheat with broad cloth, or either of them with gold, or gold even with silver or copper? Several ingenious writers have endeavoured to account for the comparative value of commodities, by reducing them all to the labour employ'd in raising food: which labour is said to be a standard for measuring the value of all other labour, and consequently of all things produced by labour. ‘"If, for example, a bushel of wheat and [Page 77] an ounce of silver be produced by the same quantity of labour, will they not be equal in value?"’ This standard is imperfect in many respects. I observe, first, that to give it a rational appearance, there is a necessity to maintain, con­trary to fact, that all materials on which labour is employ'd are of equal value. It requires as much labour to make a brass candlestick as one of silver, tho' far from being of the same value. A bushel of wheat may sometimes equal in value an ounce of silver; but an ounce of gold does not always re­quire more labour than a bushel of wheat; and yet they differ widely in value. The value of labour, it is true, enters into the value of every thing pro­duced by it; but is far from making the whole value. If an ounce of silver were of no greater value than the labour of procuring it, that ounce would go for payment of the labour, and nothing be left to the proprietor of the mine: such a doc­trine will not relish with the King of Spain; and as little with the Kings of Golconda and Portugal, proprietors of diamond mines. Secondly, The standard under review supposes every sort of labour to be of equal value, which however will not be maintained. An useful art in great request may not be generally known: the few who are skilful may justly demand more for their labour than the common rate. An expert husbandman bestows no more labour in raising an hundred bushels of wheat, than his ignorant neighbour in raising fifty: if labour be the only standard, the two crops ought to afford the same price. Was not Raphael intitled to a higher price for one of his fine tablatures, than a dunce is for a tavern-sign, supposing the labour to have been equal? Lastly, as this standard is applicable to things only that require labour, what rule is to be followed with respect to natural fruits, and other things that require no labour?

[Page 78] Laying aside then this attempt to fix a standard, it occurs to me, that the value of a commodity depends chiefly, tho' not solely, on the demand. Quantity beyond the demand renders even neces­saries of no value; of which water is an instance. It may be held accordingly as a general rule, That the value of goods in commerce depends on a de­mand beyond what their quantity can satisfy; and rises in proportion to the excess of the demand above the quantity. Even water becomes valuable in countries where the demand exceeds the quantity: in arid regions, springs of water are highly valued; and in old times were frequently the occasion of broils and bloodshed. Comparing next different commodities with respect to value, that commodity of which the excess of the demand above the quan­tity is the greater, will be of the greater value. Were utility or intrinsic value only to be considered, a pound of iron would be worth ten pounds of gold; but as the excess of the demand for gold above its quantity is much greater than that of iron, the latter is of less value in the market. A pound of opium or of Jesuit's bark is, for its salutary effects, more valuable than gold; and yet, for the reason given, a pound of gold will purchase many pounds of these drugs. Thus, in general, the excess of the demand above the quantity is the standard that chiefly fixes the mercantile value of commodities ^*.

[Page 79] The causes that make a demand, seem not so easily ascertained. One thing is evident, that the demand for necessaries in any country, must depend on the number of its inhabitants. This rule holds not so strictly in articles of convenience; because some people are more greedy of conveniencies than others. As to articles of taste and luxury, the de­mand appears so arbitrary as scarce to be reducible to any rule. A taste for beauty is general; but so different in different persons, as to make the demand extremely variable: the faint representation of any plant in an agate, is valued by some for its rarity; but the demand is far from being universal. Sava­ges are despised for being fond of glass beads; but were such toys equally rare among us, they would be coveted by many: a copper coin of the Empe­ror Otho is of no intrinsic value; and yet, for its rarity, would draw a great price.

The value of gold and silver in commerce, like that of other commodities, was at first, we may believe, both arbitrary and fluctuating; and, like other commodities, they found in time their value in the market. With respect to value, however, there is a great difference between money and other commodities. Goods that are expensive in keeping, such as cattle, or that are impaired by time, such as corn, will always be first offered in [...]change for what is wanted; and when such goods are offered to sale, the vender must be contented with the cur­rent price: in making the bargain the purchaser has the advantage; for he suffers not by reserving his money to a better market. And thus commodities are brought down by money to the lowest value that can afford any profit. At the same time, gold and silver sooner find their value than other commodities. The value of the latter is regulated both by the quantity and by the demand; the value of the for­mer is regulated by the quantity only, the demand [Page 80] being unbounded: and even with respect to quanti­ty, these precious metals are less variable than other commodities.

Gold and silver being thus sooner fixed in their value than other commodities, become a standard for valuing every other commodity, and consequent­ly for comparative values. A bushel of wheat, for example, being valued at five shillings, a yard of broad cloth at fifteen, their comparative values are as one to three.

A standard of values is essential to commerce; and therefore where gold and silver are unknown, other standards are established by practice. The only standard among the savages of North America is the skin of a beaver. Ten of these are given for a gun, two for a pound of gun-powder, one for four pounds of lead, one for six knives, one for a hatchet, six for a coat of woollen cloth, five for a petticoat, and one for a pound of tobacco. Some nations in Africa employ shells, termed couries, for a stand­ard.

As my chief view in this sketch is, to examine how far industry and commerce are affected by the quantity of circulating coin, I premise, in that view, the following plain propositions: Supposing, first, the quantity of money in circulation, and the quan­tity of goods in the market, to continue the same, the price will rise and fall with the demand. For when more goods are demanded than the market affords, those who offer the highest price will be preferred: as, on the other hand, when the goods brought to market exceed the demand, the venders have no resource but to entice purchasers by a low price. The price of fish, flesh, butter, and cheese, is much higher than formerly; for these being now the daily food even of the lowest people, the de­mand for them is greatly increased.

[Page 81] Supposing now a fluctuation in the quantity of goods only, the price falls as the quantity increases, and rises as the quantity decreases. The farmer whose quantity of corn is doubled by a favourable season, must sell at half the usual price; because the purchaser, who sees a superfluity, will pay no more for it. The contrary happens upon a scanty crop: those who want corn must starve, or give the market-price, however high. The manufac­tures of wool, flax, and metals, are much cheaper than formerly; for tho' the demand has increased, yet by skill and industry the quantities produced have increased in a greater proportion. More pot­herbs are consumed than formerly; and yet by skil­ful culture the quantity is so much greater in pro­portion, as to have lowered the price to less than one half of what it was eighty years ago.

It is easy to combine the quantity and demand, supposing a fluctuation in both. Where the quan­tity exceeds the usual demand, more people will be tempted to purchase by the low price; and where the demand rises considerably above the quantity, the price will rise in proportion. In mathematical language, these propositions may be thus expressed, that the price is directly as the demand, and in­versely as the quantity.

A variation in the quantity of circulating coin is the most intricate circumstance; because it never happens without making a variation in the demand for goods, and frequently in the quantity. I take the liberty however to suppose, that there is no va­riation but in the quantity of circulating coin; for tho' that cannot happen in reality, yet the result of the supposition will throw light upon what really happens: the subject is involved, and I wish to make it plain. I put a simple case, that the half of our current coin is at once swept away by some ex­traordinary accident. This at first will embarrass [Page 82] our internal commerce, as the vender will insist for the usual price, which now cannot be afforded. But the error of such demand will soon be discover­ed; and the price of commodities, after some fluc­tuation, will settle at the one half of what it was formerly. At the same time, there is here no down­fal in the value of commodities, which cannot hap­pen while the quantity and demand continue unva­ried. The purchasing for a sixpence what formerly cost a shilling, makes no alteration in the value of the things purchased; because a sixpence is equal in value to what a shilling was formerly. In a word, when money is scarce, it must bear a high value: it must in particular go far in the purchase of goods; which we express by saying, that goods are cheap.—Put next the case, that by some accident our specie is instantly doubled. Upon supposition that the quantity and demand continue unvaried, the re­sult must be, not instantaneous indeed, to double the price of commodities. Upon the former suppo­sition, a sixpence is in effect advanced to be a shil­ling: upon the present supposition, a shilling has in effect sunk down to a sixpence. And here again it ought to be observed, that tho' the price is augment­ed, there is no real alteration in the value of com­modities. A bullock that, some years ago, could have been purchased for ten pounds, will at present yield fifteen. The vulgar ignorantly think, that the value of horned cattle has risen in that proporti­on. The advanced price may, in some degree, be occasioned by a greater consumption; but it is chief­ly occasioned by a greater quantity of money in cir­culation ^*.

[Page 83] Combining all the circumstances, the result is, that if the quantity of goods and of money continue the same, the price will be in proportion to the de­mand. If the demand and quantity of goods con­tinue the same, the price will be in proportion to the quantity of money. And if the demand and quantity of money continue the same, the price will fall as the quantity increases, and rise as the quan­tity diminishes.

These speculative notions will, I hope, enable us with accuracy to examine, how industry and commerce are affected by variations in the quantity of circulating coin. It is evident, that arts and ma­nufactures cannot be carried on to any extent, with­out coin. Hands totally employ'd in any art or manufacture require wages daily or weekly, because they must go to market for every necessary of life. The clothier, the tailor, the shoe-maker, the gar­dener, the farmer, must employ servants to prepare their goods for the market, to whom, for that rea­son, wages ought to be regularly paid. In a word, commerce among an endless number of individuals who depend on each other even for necessaries, would be altogether inextricable without a quantity of circulating coin. Money may be justly conceiv­ed to be the oil, that lubricates all the springs and wheels of a great machine, and preserves it in mo­tion ^*. [Page 84] Supposing us now to be provided with no more of that precious oil than is barely sufficient for the easy motion of our industry and manufactures, a diminution of the necessary quantity must cramp all of them. Our industry and manufactures must decay; and if we do not confine the expence of living to our present circumstances, which seldom happens, the balance of trade with foreign nations will turn against us, and leave us no resource for making the balance equal, but to export our gold and silver. And when we are drained of these me­tals, farewell to arts and manufactures. We shall be reduced to the condition of savages, which is, that each individual depends entirely on his own labour for procuring every necessary of life. The consequences of a favourable balance are at first di­rectly opposite; but at the long-run come out to be the same: they are sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the stomach. A brisk influx of riches by a favourable balance, rouses our activity. Plenty of money elevates our spirits, and inspires an appetite for pleasure: we indulge a taste for show and em­bellishment; become hospitable, and refine upon the arts of luxury. Plenty of money is a prevailing motive even with the most sedate, to exert them­selves in building, in husbandry, in manufactures, and in other solid improvements. Such articles re­quire both hands and materials, the prices of which are raised by the additional demand. The labourer [Page 85] again whose wages are thus raised, is not now satis­fied with mere necessaries; but insists for conveni­encies, the price of which also is raised by the new demand. In short, increase of money raises the price of every commodity; partly from the greater quantity of money, and partly from the additional demand for supplying artificial wants. Hitherto a delightful view of prosperous commerce: but be­hold the remote consequences. High wages will undoubtedly promote at first the spirit of industry, and double the quantity of labour: but the utmost exertion of labour is limited within certain bounds; and consequently a perpetual influx of gold and silver will not for ever be attended with a proporti­onal quantity of work: The price of labour will rise in proportion to the quantity of money; but the produce will not rise in the same proportion; and for that reason our manufactures will be dearer than formerly. Hence a dismal scene. The high price at home of our manufactures will exclude us from foreign markets; for if the merchant cannot draw there for his goods what he paid at home, with some profit, he must abandon foreign commerce altogether. And what is still more dis­mal, we shall be deprived even of our own mark­ets; for in spite of the utmost vigilance, foreign commodities, cheaper than our own, will be pour­ed in upon us. The last scene is to be deprived of our gold and silver, and reduced to the same misera­ble state as if the balance had been against us from the beginning.

However certain it may appear, that an aug­mentation in the quantity of money must raise the price of labour and of manufactures, yet there is a fact that seems to contradict the proposition, which is, that in no other country are labour and manufactures so cheap as in the two peninsulas on the right and left of the Ganges, tho' in no other [Page 86] country is there such plenty of money. To ac­count for this singular fact, political writers say, that money is there amassed by the nabobs, and withdrawn from circulation. This is not satisfac­tory: the chief exportation from these peninsulas are their manufactures, the price of which comes first to the merchant and manufacturer; and how can that happen without raising the price of la­bour? Rice, it is true, is the food of their labour­ing poor; and an acre of rice yields more food than five acres of wheat: but the cheapness of necessaries, tho' it hath a considerable influence in keeping down the price of labour, cannot have an effect so extraordinary as to keep it constantly down, in opposition to an overflowing current of money. The populousness of these two countries is a cir­cumstance that has been totally overlooked. Every traveller is amazed how such swarms of people can find bread, however fertile the soil may be. Let us examine that circumstance. One thing is evi­dent, that were the people fully employed, there would not be a demand for the tenth part of their manufactures. Here then is a country where hand­labour is a drug for want of employment. The people at the same time, sober and industrious, are glad to be employed at any rate; and whatever pittance is gained by labour makes always some addition. Hence it is, that in these peninsulas, superfluity of hands overbalancing both the quan­tity of money and the demand for their manu­factures, serves to keep the price extremely low.

What is now said discovers an error in the pro­position above laid down. It holds undoubtedly in Europe, and in every country where there is work for all the people, that an augmentation in the cir­culating coin raises the price of labour and of ma­nufactures: but such augmentation has no sensible effect in a country where there is a superfluity of [Page 87] hands, who are always disposed to work when they find employment.

From these premises it will be evident, that un­less there be a superfluity of hands, manufactures can never flourish in a country abounding with mines of gold and silver. This in effect is the case of Spain: a constant influx of these metals, raising the price of labour and of manufactures, has de­prived the Spaniards of foreign markets, and also of their own: they are reduced to purchase from strangers even the necessaries of life. What a dismal condition will they be reduced to when their mines come to be exhausted!

To illustrate this observation, which indeed is of great importance, I enter more minutely into the condition of Spain. The rough materials of silk, wool, and iron, are produced there more perfect than in any other country; and yet flourishing ma­nufactures of these would be ruinous to it in its present state. Let us only suppose that Spain itself could furnish all the commodities that are de­manded in its American territories; what would be the consequence? The gold and silver pro­duced by that trade would center and circulate in Spain: money would become a drug: labour and manufactures would rise to a high price; and every necessary of life, not excepting manufac­tures of silk, wool, and iron, would be smuggled into Spain, the high price there being sufficient to overbalance every risk: Spain would be left with­out industry, and without people. Spain was ac­tually in the flourishing state here supposed when America was discovered: its gold and silver mines enflamed the disease; and consequently was the greatest misfortune that ever befel that once po­tent kingdom. The exportation of our silver coin to the East Indies, so loudly exclaimed against by shallow politicians, is to us, on the contrary, a most [Page 88] substantial benefit; it keeps up the value of silver, and consequently lessens the value of labour and of goods, which enables us to maintain our place in foreign markets. Were there no drain for our sil­ver, its quantity in our continent would sink its va­lue so much as to render the American mines unpro­fitable. Notwithstanding the great flow of money to the East Indies, many mines in the West Indies are given up, because they afford not the expence of working; and were the value of silver in Eu­rope brought much lower, the whole silver mines in the West Indies would be necessarily abandoned. Thus our East India commerce, which is thought ruinous by many, because it is a drain to much of our silver, is for that very reason profitable to all. The Spaniards profit by importing it into Europe; and other nations profit, by receiving it for their manufactures.

How ignorantly do people struggle against the necessary connection of causes and effects! If money do not overflow, a commerce in which the imports exceed in value the exports, will soon drain a nation of its money, and put an end to in­dustry. Commercial nations for that reason struggle hard for a favourable balance of trade; and they fondly imagine that it cannot be too favourable. If advantageous to them, it must be disadvantageous to those they deal with; which proves equally ruinous to both. They foresee, indeed, but with­out concern, immediate ruin to those they deal with; but they have no inclination to soresee, that ultimately it will prove equally ruinous to themselves. It appears the intention of Providence, that all nations should benefit by commerce as by sunshine; and it is so ordered, that an unequal balance is pre­judicial to the gainers as well as to the losers: the latter are immediate sufferers; but not less so ulti­mately are the former. This is one remarkable in­stance, [Page 89] among many, of providential wisdom in conducting human affairs, independent of the will of man, and frequently against his will. An am­bitious nation, placed advantageously for trade, would willingly engross all to themselves, and re­duce their neighbours to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. But an invincible bar is op­posed to such avarice, making an overgrown com­merce the means of its own destruction. The commercial balance held by the hand of Provi­dence, is never permitted to preponderate much to one side; and every nation partakes, or may par­take, of all the comforts of life. Engrossing is bad policy; and men are prompted, both by in­terest and duty, to second the plan of Providence, and to preserve, as near as possible, equality in the balance of trade.

Upon these principles, a wise people, having acquired a stock of money sufficient for an exten­sive commerce, will tremble at a balance too ad­vantageous: they will rest satisfied with an equal balance, which is the golden mean. A disadvan­tageous balance may always be prevented by industry and frugality: but by what means is a ba­lance too favourable to be guarded against? With respect to that question, it is not the quantity singly of gold and silver in a country that raises the price of labour and of manufactures, but the quantity in circulation; and may not the circulating quan­tity be regulated by the state, permitting no coin­age but what is beneficial to its manufactures? Let the registers of foreign mints be carefully watched, in order that our current coin may not exceed that of our industrious neighbours. There will always be a demand for the surplus of our bullion, either to be exported as a commodity, or to be purchased at home for plate: which can­not be too much encouraged, being ready at every [Page 90] crisis to be coined for public service. The senate of Genoa has wisely burdened porcelane with a heavy tax, being a foreign luxury; but it has not less wisely left gold and silver plate free; whilst we most unwisely have loaded it with a duty.

The accumulating of money in a public trea­sury, anciently the practice of every prudent mo­narch, prevents superfluity. Lies there any good objection against that practice, in a trading na­tion, where gold and silver flow in with impetu­osity? A great sum locked up by a frugal king, Henry VII. of England for example, lessens the quantity of money in circulation: profusion in a successor, which was the case of Henry VIII. is a spur to industry, similar to the influx of gold and silver from the new world. The canton of Bern, by locking up money in its treasury, pos­sesses the miraculous art of reconciling immense wealth with frugality and cheap labour. A climate not kindly, and a soil not naturally fertile, enured the inhabitants to temperance and to virtue. Pa­triotism is their ruling passion: they consider them­selves as children of the republic; are fond of ser­ving their mother; and hold themselves sufficiently recompensed by the privilege of serving her; by which means the public revenue greatly exceeds the expence of government. They carefully lock up the surplus for purchasing land when a proper opportunity offers; which is a shining proof of their disinterestedness as well as of their wisdom. By that politic measure, much more than by war, the canton of Bern, from a very slender origin, is now far superior to any of the other cantons in ex­tent of territory. But in what other part of the globe are there to be found ministers of state, mo­derate and disinterested like the citizens of Bern! In the hands of a rapacious ministry, the greatest treasure would not be long-lived: under the ma­nagement [Page 91] of a British ministry, it would vanish in the twinkling of an eye; and do more mischief by augmenting our money in circulation above what is salutary, than formerly it did good by con­fining it within moderate bounds. But against such a measure there lies an objection still more weighty than its being an ineffectual remedy: in the hands of an ambitious prince it would prove dangerous to liberty.

If the foregoing measures be not relished, I can discover no other means for preserving our station in foreign markets, but a bounty on ex­portation. The sum would be great: but the pre­serving our industry and manufactures, and the preventing an influx of foreign manufactures, are conspicuous advantages that cannot be purchased too dear. At the same time, a bounty on ex­portation would not be an insupportable load: on the contrary, superfluity of wealth, procured by a balance constantly favourable, would make the load abundantly easy. A proper bounty would ba­lance the growing price of labour and materials at home, and keep open the foreign market. By neglecting that salutary measure, the Dutch have lost all their manufactures, a neglect that has greatly benefited both England and France. The Dutch indeed act prudently in with-holding that benefit as much as possible from their powerful neighbours: to prevent purchasing from them, they consume the manufactures of India.

The manufactures of Spain, once extensive, have been extirpated, partly by their mines of gold and silver. Authors ascribe to the same cause the decline of their agriculture; but erroneously: on the contrary, superfluity of gold and silver is favourable to agriculture, by raising the price of its productions. It raises also, it is true, the price of labour; but that additional expence is far from [Page 92] balancing the profit made by high prices of what­ever is raised out of the ground. Too much wealth indeed is apt to make the farmer press into a higher rank: but it is the landlord's fault if that evil be not prevented by a proper heightening of the rent, which will always confine the farmer within his own sphere.

As gold and silver are essential to commerce, foreign and domestic, several commercial nations, fond of these precious metals, have endeavoured most absurdly to bar the exportation by penal laws; forgetting that gold and silver will never be exported while the balance of trade is in their favour, and that they must necessarily be export­ed when the balance is against them. Neither do they consider, that if a people continue industrious, they cannot be long afflicted with an unfavourable balance; for the value of money, rising in pro­portion to its scarcity, will lower the price of their manufactures, and promote exportation: the ba­lance will turn in their favour; and money will flow in, till by plenty its value be reduced to a par with that of neighbouring nations.

It is an important question, Whether a bank be upon the whole beneficial or hurtful to commerce. It is undoubtedly a spur to industry, like a new in­flux of money: but then, like such influx, it raises the price of labour and of manufactures. Weighing these two facts in a just balance, the result seems to be, that in a country where mo­ney is scarce, a bank properly constituted is a great blessing, as it in effect multiplies the specie, and promotes industry and manufactures; but that in a country which possesses money sufficient for an extensive trade, the only bank that will not hurt foreign commerce, is that which is erected for sup­plying the merchant with ready money by dis­counting bills. At the same time, much caution [Page 93] and circumspection is necessary with respect to banks of both kinds. A bank erected for discount­ing bills, ought to be confined to bills really granted in the course of commerce; and ought to avoid, as much as possible, the being imposed on by fictitious bills drawn merely in order to procure a loan of money. And with respect to a bank purposely erected for lending money, there is great danger of extending credit too far, not only with respect to the bank itself and to its numerous debtors, but with respect to the country in general, by raising the price of labour and of manufactures, which is the never-failing result of too great plenty of mo­ney, whether coin or paper.

The different effects of plenty and scarcity of money, have not escaped that penetrating genius, the sovereign of Prussia. Money is not so plenti­ful in his dominions as to make it necessary to with­draw a quantity, by heaping up treasure. He in­deed always retains in his treasury six or seven mil­lions Sterling for answering unforeseen demands: but being sensible that the withdrawing from circu­lation any larger sum, would be prejudicial to com­merce, every farthing saved from the necessary ex­pence of government, is laid out upon buildings, upon operas, upon any thing, rather than cramp circulation. In that kingdom, a bank established for lending money would promote industry and manufactures.

SKETCH V.
Origin and Progress of ARTS.

SKETCH VI.
Progress of the FEMALE SEX.

THE history of the female sex, a capital branch of the history of man, comprehends great variety of matter, curious and interesting. But sketches are my province, not complete histo­ries; and I propose, in the present sketch, to trace the gradual progress of women, from their low state in savage tribes, to their elevated state in ci­vilized nations.

With regard to the outlines, whether of internal disposition, or of external figure, men and women are precisely the same. Nature, however, intend­ing them for mates, has given them characters dif­ferent, but concordant, so as to produce together delicious harmony. The man, naturally more ro­bust, is fitted for severe labour and for field-exer­cises; the woman for sedentary occupations; and particularly for nursing children. To that diffe­rence the mind also contributes. A boy is always running about; delights in a top or a ball; and rides upon a stick for want of a horse. A girl has less inclination to move: her first amusement is a ba­by; which she delights to dress and undress. The man, bold and vigorous, is qualified for being a protector: the woman, delicate and timid, requires protection. The man, as a protector, is directed by nature to govern: the woman, conscious of in­feriority, is disposed to obedience. Their intellec­tual powers correspond to the destination of nature: [Page 182] men have penetration and solid judgment to fit them for governing: women have sufficient under­standing to make a decent figure under good go­vernment; a greater proportion would excite dan­gerous rivalship. Add another capital difference of character: the gentle and insinuating manners of the female sex tend to soften the roughness of the other sex; and where-ever women are indulg­ed with any freedom, they polish sooner than men.

These are not the only particulars that distin­guish the sexes. With respect to matrimony, it is the privilege of the male, as superior and protec­tor, to make a choice: the female preferred has no privilege, but barely to consent or to refuse. Nature fits them for their different parts: the male is bold, the female bashful. Hence, among all nations, it is the practice for men to court, and for women to be courted: which holds also among many other animals, probably among all that pair.

Another distinction is equally visible: the ma­ster of a family is immediately connected with his country: his wife, his children, his servants, are immediately connected with him, and with their country, through him only. Women, ac­cordingly, have less patriotism than men; and less bitterness against the enemies of their country.

The peculiar modesty of the female sex is also a distinguishing circumstance. Nature hath pro­vided them with it as their chief defence against the artful solicitations of the other sex before marriage, and also the chief support of conjugal fidelity. It is held to be their capital virtue; and a woman who surrenders her chastity is universally despised; though in a man chastity is scarce held to be a virtue, except in the married state. But of that more fully afterwards.

[Page 183] A fundamental article in the present sketch is, Matrimony; and it has been much controverted, whether it be an appointment of nature, or only of municipal law. Many writers have exercised their talents in that controversy, but without giv­ing any satisfaction to a judicious enquirer. If I mistake not, it may be determined upon solid principles; and as it is of importance in the history of man, the reader, I am hopeful, will not be dis­gusted at the length of the argument.

Many writers hold, that women were originally common; and animal love was gratified as among horses and horned cattle; and that matrimony was not known till nations grew, in some degree, to be orderly and refined. I select Cicero as an au­thor of authority: ‘"Nam fuit quoddam tempus, cum in agris homines passim, bestiarum more, vagabantur, et sibi victu ferino vitam propa­gabant: nec ratione animi quicquam sed ple­raque viribus corporis administrabant. Nondum divinae religionis, non humani officii ratio co­lebatur. Nemo legitimas viderit nuptias, non certos quisquam inspexerat libros ^{* a}."’ Pliny, in support of that doctrine, informs us, that the Garamantes, an African nation, lived promiscuously together, without any notion of matrimony. Among the Auses, a people of Libya, as Herodotus says, matrimony was not known, and men cohabited with women indifferently, like other animals. A boy educated by his mother was, at a certain age, [Page 184] admitted to an assembly of the men, and the man he clung to was reputed his father. Justin and other authors report, that, before Cecrops, who reigned in Attica about 1600 years before Christ, marriage was not known in Greece; and that the burden of children lay upon the mother.

Before entering directly into the matter, it is proper to remove, if possible, the bias of these great names. The practice of the Garamantes and of the Auses is mentioned by Pliny and Herodotus as singular; and, were it better vouch­ed than it is, it would avail very little against the practice of all other nations. Little weight can be laid upon Pliny's evidence in particular, considering what he reports in the same chapter of the Blemmayans, that they had no head, and that the mouth and eyes were in the breast. Pliny, at the same time, as well as Herodotus, being very deficient in natural knowledge, was grossly credu­lous; and cannot be relied on, with respect to any thing strange or uncommon. As to what is re­ported of ancient Greece, Cecrops possibly prohibi­ted polygamy, or introduced some other matrimoni­al regulation, which, by writers, might be mistaken for a law appointing matrimony. However that be, one part of the report is undoubtedly false; for it will be made evident afterward, that, in the hunter-state, or, even in that of shepherds, it is impracticable for any woman, by her own in­dustry alone, to rear a numerous issue. If this be at all possible, it can only be in the torrid zone, where people live on fruits and roots, which are produced in plenty with very little labour. Upon that account Diodorus Siculus is less blameable for listening to a report, that the inhabitants of Tapro­bana, supposed to be the island of Ceylon, never marry, but that women are used promiscuously. But as there is no such practice known at present [Page 185] in the East Indies, there is no just ground to believe, that it ever was the practice; and the East Indies were so little known to the ancient Greeks, that their authors cannot be much relied on in the accounts they give of that distant region. The opinion of Cicero may seem to have more weight at first view; and yet a single observation will re­duce it to nothing. The notions of that author upon the primitive state of man must confessedly be exceedingly crude, when he denies to savages any sense of religion or of moral duty. Ought we to rely more on him, when he denies, that they have any notion of matrimony? Caesar's account of the ancient Britons approaches the nearest to a loose commerce with women, though in the main it is good evidence against the opinion of Cicero. It was common, he says, for a number of bro­thers, or other near relations, to use their wives promiscuously. The offspring, however, were not common; for each man maintained the children that were produced by his own wife. Herodotus reports the same of the Massagetae.

Laying thus aside the great names of Cicero, Herodotus, and Pliny, the field lies open to a fair and impartial investigation. And as the means provided by nature for continuing the race of other animals may probably throw light upon the oeco­nomy of nature with respect man, I begin with that article, which has not engaged the attention of naturalists so much as it ought to do. With respect to animals whose nourishment is grass, pairing would be of no use: the female feeds her­self and her young at the same instant, and the male has nothing to do. On the other hand, all brute animals, whose young require the nursing care of both parents, are directed by nature to pair; nor is that connection dissolved till the young can provide for themselves. Pairing is indispensable to [Page 186] wild birds that build on trees; because the male must provide food for his mate while she is hatch­ing the eggs. And as they have commonly a nu­merous issue, it requires the labour of both to pick up food for themselves and for their young. Upon that account it is so ordered, that the young are sufficiently vigorous to provide for themselves, be­fore a new brood is produced.

What I have now opened suggests the following question, Whether, according to the animal oeco­nomy above display'd, are we to presume, or not, that man is directed by nature to matrimony? If analogy can be rely'd on, the affirmative must be held, as there is no other creature in the known world to which pairing is so necessary. Man is a long-lived animal, and is proportionally slow in growing to maturity: he is a helpless being before the age of fifteen or sixteen, and there may be in a family ten or twelve children of different births before the eldest can shift for itself. Now in the original state of hunting and fishing, which are laborious occupations, and not always successful, a woman suckling her infant is not able to provide food even for herself, far less for ten or twelve vo­racious children. Matrimony, therefore, or pairing, is so necessary to the human race, that it must be natural and instinctive. When such ample means are provided for continuing every other animal race, is it supposable that the chief race would be neg­lected? Providential care descends even to vege­table life: every plant bears a profusion of seed; and in order to cover the earth with vegetables, some seeds have wings, some are scattered by means of a spring, and some are so light as to be carried about by the wind. Brute animals which do not pair, have grass and other food in plenty, enabling the female to feed her young without needing any help from the male. But where the [Page 187] young require the nursing care of both parents, pairing is a law of nature. When other races are so amply provided for, can it be seriously thought, that Providence is less attentive to the human race? If men and women were not impelled by nature to matrimony, they would be less fitted for continuing their species than even the humblest plant. Have we not reason fairly to conclude, that matrimony in the human race is an appointment of nature? Can that conclusion be resisted by any one who believes in Providence, and in final causes ^*?

To confirm this doctrine, let the consequences of a loose commerce between the sexes be examin­ed. The carnal appetite, when confined to one object, seldom transgresses the bounds of tempe­rance. But were it encouraged to roam like a bee sucking honey from every flower, every new object would inflame the imagination; and satiety with respect to one would give new vigour with respect to others: a generic habit would be formed of in­temperance in fruition ^b; and animal love would become the ruling passion. Men, like the hart in rutting-time, would all the year round fly with impetuosity from object to object, giving no quar­ter even to women suckling their infants: and women, abandoning themselves to the same passion, would become altogether regardless of their off­spring. In that state, the continuance of the hu­man race would be a miracle. In the savage state, [Page 188] as mentioned above, it is beyond the power of any woman to provide food for a family of children; and now it appears, that intemperance in animal love would render a woman careless of her family, however easy it might be to provide for it ^*.

I say more: The promiscuous use of women would unqualify them in a great measure from procreating, or having a family. The carnal ap­petite in man resembles his appetite for food: both of them demand gratification without end, after short intervals. Where the carnal appetite is felt but a short space annually, as among animals who feed on grass, the promiscuous use of females is according to the order of nature: but such a law in man, where the carnal appetite is always awake, would be an effectual bar to population; as it is an undoubted truth, that women who indulge that appetite to excess, seldom have children; and if all women were common, all women would in effect be common prostitutes.

[Page 189] If undisguised nature shows itself any where, it is in children. So truly is matrimony an instinct of nature, as to be understood even by children. They often hear, it is true, people talking of matrimony; but they also hear of logical, metaphysical, and commercial matters, without understanding a syl­lable. Whence then their notion of marriage but from nature? Marriage at the same time is a com­pound idea, which no instruction could bring with­in the comprehension of a child, did not nature co-operate.

That the arguments urged above against a pro­miscuous use of women do not necessarily conclude against polygamy, or the union of one man with a plurality of women, will not escape an attentive reader. St. Augustin and other fathers admit, that polygamy is not prohibited by the law of nature; and the learned Grotius professes the same opi­nion ^c. But great names terrify me not; and I venture to maintain, that pairing in the strictest sense is a law of nature among men as among wild birds; and that polygamy is a gross infringement of this law. My reasons follow.

I urge, in the first place, the equal number of males and females, as a clear indication of the will of God, that every man should be confined to one wife, and every woman to one husband. That equality which has subsisted in all countries, and at all times, is a signal instance of over-ruling Pro­vidence; for the chances against it are infinite. All men are by nature equal in rank; and every man consequently is equally privileged to have a wife; which cannot be, if polygamy be permitted. Were ten women born for one man, as is falsely reported to be the case in Bantam, polygamy might be the intention of Providence; but from [Page 190] the equality of males and females, it is clearly the voice of nature, as well as of the sacred scripture, ‘"That a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and that they shall be one flesh."’

Consider, in the next place, that however plau­sible polygamy may appear in the present state of things, where inequality of rank and of fortune have produced luxury and sensuality; yet that the laws of nature were not contrived by our Maker for a forc'd state, where numberless individuals are de­graded below their natural rank, for the benefit of a few who are elevated above it. To form a just notion of polygamy, we must look back to the original state of man, where all are equal. In that state, every man cannot have two wives; and con­sequently no man is intitled to more than one, till every other be upon an equal footing with him. At the same time, the union of one man with one woman is much better calculated for continuing the race, than the union of one man with many wo­men. Think of a savage who may have fifty or sixty children by different wives, all depending for food upon his industry. Chance must turn out much in his favour, if the half of them perish not by hunger. How much a better chance for life have infants who are distributed more equally in different families?

Polygamy is attended with an effect still more pernicious, with respect to children even of the most opulent families. Unless affection be reci­procal and equal, there can be no proper society in the matrimonial state, no cordiality, nor due care of offspring. But such affection is inconsistent with polygamy: a woman in that state, far from being a companion to her husband, is degraded to the rank of a servant, a mere instrument of pleasure and propagation. Among many wives there will [Page 191] always be a favourite: the rest turn peevish; and if they resent not the injury against their husband, and against their children as belonging to him, will at least be disheartened, and neglect them altoge­ther. At the same time, fondness for the favourite wife and her children makes the husband indifferent about the rest; and woful is the condition of chil­dren who are neglected by both parents ^d. To produce such an effect is certainly not the purpose of nature.

It merits peculiar attention, that Providence has provided for an agreeable union among all creatures who are taught by nature to pair. Animal love, among creatures who pair not, is confined within a narrow space of time: while the dam is occupied about her young, animal love lies dormant, that she may not be abstracted from her duty. In pair­ing animals, on the contrary, animal love is always awake: frequent enjoyment endears a pair to each other, and makes constancy a pleasure. Such is the case of the human race; and such is the case of wild birds ^e. Among the wild birds that build on trees, the male, after feeding his mate in the nest, plants himself upon the next spray, and chears her with a song. There is still greater pleasure pro­vided for the human race in the matrimonial state, and stronger incitements to constancy. Sweet is the society of a pair fitted for each other, in whom are collected the affections of husband, wife, lover, friend, the tenderest affections of human nature. Public government is in perfection, when the so­vereign commands with humanity, and the subjects are cordial in their obedience. Private government in conjugal society arrives at still greater perfection, where husband and wife govern and are governed [Page 192] reciprocally, with entire satisfaction to both. The man bears rule over his wife's person and conduct; she bears rule over his inclinations: he governs by law; and she by persuasion. Nor can her autho­rity ever fail, where it is supported by sweetness of temper, and zeal to make him happy ^*.

[Page 193] The God of nature has enforc'd conjugal society, not only by making it agreeable, but by the prin­ciple of chastity inherent in our nature. To ani­mals that have no instinct for pairing, chastity is utterly unknown; and to them it would be useless. The mare, the cow, the ewe, the she-goat, receive the male without ceremony, and admit the first that comes in the way without distinction. Neither have tame fowl any notion of chastity: they pair not; and the female gets no food from the male, even during incubation. But chastity and mutual fidelity are essential to all pairing animals; for wan­dering inclinations would render them negligent in nursing their young. Wild birds pair; and they are by instinct faithful to each other while their young require nurture. Chastity and mutual fide­lity in matrimony are equally essential to the human race, and equally enforc'd by the principle of chas­tity, a branch of the moral sense.

Nor is chastity confined to the matrimonial state. Matrimony is instituted by nature for continuing the species; and it is the duty of man to abstain from animal enjoyment except in that state. The ceremonies of marriage, and the causes of separation and divorce, are subjected to municipal law: but if a man beget children, it is his duty to unite with the mother in taking care of them; and such union is matrimony according to the law of nature. Hence it is, that the first acts of incontinence, where en­joyment only is in view, are always attended with shame, and with a degree of remorse. At the same time, as chastity in persons who are single is only a [Page 194] self-duty, it is not so strongly enforc'd by the moral sense as chastity is in married persons, who owe to each other mutual fidelity. Deviations accord­ingly from the former make a less figure than from the latter: we scarce ever hear of adultery among savages: tho' among them incontinence before marriage is not uncommon. In Wales, even at present, and in the highlands of Scotland, it is scarce a disgrace for a young woman to have a bastard. In the country last mentioned, the first instance known of a bastard-child being destroy'd by its mother through shame is a late one. The virtue of chastity appears to be there gaining ground; as the only temptation a woman can have to destroy her child is, to conceal her frailty. The principle of chastity, like that of propriety or of decency, is but faint among savages, and has little of that authority which it acquires among polished nations before they are corrupted by luxury. We shall have occasion to see afterward, that even the great duty of justice is but faint among barbarians, and yields too readily to every irregular impulse, till the moral sense acquires full maturity. Bou­gainville reports, that in the island of Otaheite, or King George's island, a young woman is free to follow her inclinations; and that her having had many lovers gives her not the less chance for a husband.

Chastity is no doubt a restraint upon nature; and therefore, if shame be removed, by making it law­ful to obey the appetite, nature will prevail. In the year 1707, a contagious distemper having car­ried off a large proportion of the inhabitants of Iceland, the King of Denmark fell on a device to re-people the country, which succeeded to a wish. A law was made, authorising young women in that island to have bastards, even to the number of six, [Page 195] without wounding their reputation ^*. The young women were so zealous to re-people their country, that, after a few years, it was found proper to abro­gate the law.

Modesty is by nature intended to guard chastity, as chastity is to guard matrimony. And modesty, like chastity, is one of those delicate principles that make no great figure among savages. In the land of Jesso, young women sometimes go naked in summer: if, however, they meet a stranger, they hang the head, and turn away through shame. Nature here is their only instructor ^†. Some savage tribes have so little notion of modesty, as to go naked, without even covering their privy parts. Regnard reports, upon his own knowledge, that in Lapland, man, woman, and child, take the hot bath promiscuously, and are not ashamed to be seen in that condition, even by a stranger. As this appeared singular, I took opportunity to mention it to Dr. Solander, who made more than one visit to that country. He said, that Regnard's report might be true, but without any imputation on the modesty of the Laplanders; for that their place of bathing is always so dark, that nothing can be seen. He added, that the females in Lapland, both mar­ried and unmarried, are extremely chaste. The inhabitants of Otaheite, tho' otherwise a good sort of people, seem to have as little notion of modesty [Page 196] as of chastity. We have Bougainville's authority, that they frankly offered their young women to the French, and were greatly surprised when they de­clined performing in public. The women of New Zeland are both chaste and modest. In Lieutenant Cook's Voyage Round the World, it is reported, that he stumbled upon some of them naked, search­ing for lobsters in the sea; and that they were in great confusion for being seen in this condition by strangers.

But now, if pairing in the strictest sense be a law of nature among men, as among some other animals, how is polygamy to be accounted for, which formerly was universal, and to this day ob­tains among many nations? I am reduced to no dilemma here. Polygamy is derived from two sources; first, from savage manners, once univer­sal; and next, from voluptuousness in warm cli­mates, which instigates men of wealth to transgress every rule of temperance. These two sources I propose to handle with care, because they make a great part of the history of the female sex.

With respect to the first, sweetness of temper, a capital branch of the female character, displays itself externally, by mild looks, and gentle manners. But such graces are scarce perceptible in a female savage; and even in the most polished would not be perceived by a male savage. Among savages, strength and boldness are the only valued qualities: in these qualities females are miserably deficient; and for that reason are contemned by the males, as beings of an inferior order. The North-Ame­rican tribes glory in idleness: the drudgery of la­bour degrades a man in their opinion, and is proper for women only. To join young persons in mar­riage is accordingly the business of parents; and it would be unpardonable meanness in the bridegroom to shew any fondness for the bride. Young men [Page 197] among the Hottentots are admitted into society with their seniors at the age of eighteen; after which it is disgraceful to keep company with fe­males. In Guiana, a woman never eats with her husband; but after every meal attends him with water for washing. A woman in the Caribbee islands is not permitted to eat even in the presence of her husband; and yet we are assured ^f, that the women there obey with such sweetness and respect, as never to give their husbands occasion to remind them of their duty; ‘"an example,"’ adds our sage author, ‘"worthy the imitation of Chris­tian wives, who are daily instructed from the pulpit in the duties of obedience and conjugal fidelity, but to very little purpose."’ Dampier observes in general, that among all the wild nations he was acquainted with, the women carry the bur­dens, while the men walk before, and carry no­thing but their arms. Women even of the highest rank are not better treated. The sovereign of Giaga, in Africa, has many wives, who are lite­rally his slaves: one carries his bow, one his ar­rows, and one gives him drink; and while he is drinking, they all fall on their knees, clap their hands, and sing. Not many centuries ago, a law was made in England, prohibiting the New Testa­ment in English to be read by women, 'prentices, journeymen, or serving men ^g. What a pitiful figure must the poor women have made in that age! In Siberia, and even in Russia, the capital excepted, men treat their wives in every respect as slaves. The regulations of Peter I. put marriage upon a more respectable footing among people of rank; and yet such are the brutal manners of the Russians, [Page 198] that tyrannical treatment of wives is far from being eradicated.

The low condition of the female sex among sa­vages and barbarians paved the way to polygamy. Savages, excited by a taste for variety, and still more by pride, which is gratified by many servants, delight in a multiplicity of wives. The pairing principle, tho' rooted in human nature, makes little figure among savages, yielding to every irregular appetite; and this fairly accounts why polygamy was once universal. It might indeed be thought, that animal love, were there nothing else, should have raised women to some degree of estimation among the men. But male savages, utter strangers to decency or refinement, gratify animal love with as little ceremony as they do hunger or thirst.

Hence appears the reason of a custom that will surprise those who are unacquainted with ancient customs; which is, that women are purchased for wives, as other goods are purchased. Women by marriage became slaves; and no man will give away his daughter to be a slave, but for a valuable consideration. The practice was universal. I be­gin with the Jews. Abraham bought Rebekah, and gave her to his son Isaac for a wife ^h. Jacob having nothing else to give, served Laban fourteen years for two wives ⁱ. Sechem demanding in marriage Dinah, Jacob's daughter, said, ‘"Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife ^k."’ To David, de­manding Saul's daughter in marriage, Saul said, ‘"The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines ^l."’ In the Iliad, [Page 199] Agamemnon offers his daughter to Achilles for a wife, and says, that he would not demand for her any price. Pausanias reports of Danaus, that no suitors appearing to demand any of his daughters, he published, that he would give them without dowry. In Homer there is frequent mention of nuptial gifts from a bridegroom to his bride's father. From terming them gifts, it is probable that the former method of purchase was beginning to wear out. It wore out before the time of Aristotle, who infers, that their fore-fathers must have been a very rude people. The ancient Spaniards purchased their wives. We have the authority of Herodotus and of Heraclides Ponticus, that the same was practised in Thrace. And the latter adds, that if a wife was ill treated, her relations could demand her back, upon repaying the price they got for her. In the Roman law mention is made of matrimony per aes et libram, which was solemnized by laying down a quantity of brass, with a balance for weighing it, understood to be the price paid for the bride. This must have been once a reality, tho' it sunk down to be a mere ceremony, after it became customary for a Roman bride to bring a dowry with her. The Babylonians and the Assyrians, at stated times, collected all the marriageable young women, and disposed of them by auction. Rubruguis, in his voyage to Tartary, ann. 1253, reports, that there every man bought his wife. They believe, he adds, that their wives serve them in another world as they do in this; for which reason, a widow has no chance for a second husband, whom she cannot serve in the other world. Olaus Magnus remark­ing, that among the ancient Goths no dower was provided on the bride's part, gives a reason, better suited perhaps to the time he lived in than to what he describes. ‘"Apud Gothos, non mulier viro sed vir mulieri dotem assignat; ne conjux, ob [Page 200] magnitudinem dotis insolescens, aliquando ex placida consorte proterva evadet, atque in mari­tum dominari contendat ^*;"’ as if the hazard of petulancy in a wife would hinder a man to accept a dower with her:—a sad doctrine for an heiress. Giraldus Cambrensis, in his description of Wales, says, that formerly they hardly ever married with­out a prior cohabitation, it having been customary for parents to let out their daughters to young men upon trial, for a sum of money told down, and under a penalty if the girls were returned. This I believe to be a mistake. It is more probable, that in Wales men purchased their wives, as was done all the world over, with liberty to return them if they proved not agreeable. The bride's parents retained the dowry, and her chance for a husband was as good as ever.

The same custom continues among barbarous nations. It continues among the Tartars, among the Mingrelians, among the Samoides, among the Ostiacs, among the people of Pegu, and of the Molucca islands. In Timor, an East-Indian island, men even sell their children to purchase more wives. The Prince of Circassia demanded from the Prince of Mingrelia, who was in suit of his daughter, a hundred slaves loaded with tapestry and other household furniture, a hundred cows, as many oxen, and as many horses. We have evidence of the same custom in Africa, particularly in Biledul­gerid, among the negroes on the sea-coast, and in Monomotapa. Among the Caribbees there is one instance where a man gets a wife without paying for her. After a successful war, the victors are [Page 201] entertained at a feast, where the General harangues on the valour of the young men who made the best figure. Every man who has marriageable daugh­ters, is fond to offer them to such young men without any price. The purchasing of wives is universal among the wild Arabs. When the bar­gain is concluded, the bridegroom is permitted to visit the bride: if she answer not his expectations, he may turn her off; but has no claim for the price he paid. The inland negroes are more po­lished than those on the coast; and there is scarce any remains among them of purchasing wives: the bridegroom makes presents to his bride, and her father makes presents to him. There are remaining traces in Russia of purchasing wives. Even so late as the time of Peter I. the Russians married without seeing each other; and before solemnization the bride received from the bridegroom a present of sweetmeats, soap, and other little things.

The purchasing of wives made it a lawful prac­tice to lend a wife as one does a slave. The Spar­tans lent their wives to their friends; and Cato the elder is said to have done the same. The Indians of Calicut frequently exchange wives.

If brutish manners alone be sufficient to degrade the female sex, they may reckon upon extreme harsh treatment when purchased to be slaves. The Giagas, a fierce and wandering nation in the cen­tral parts of Africa, being supinely idle at home, subject their wives and their slaves to every sort of drudgery, such as digging, sowing, reaping, cut­ting wood, grinding corn, fetching water, &c. These poor creatures are suffered to toil in the fields and woods, ready to faint with excessive labour, while the monsters of men will not give themselves even the trouble of training animals for work, tho' they have the example of the Portuguese before their eyes. It is the business of the women among [Page 202] the wandering Arabs of Africa to card, spin, and weave, and to manage other household affairs. They milk the cattle, grind, bake, brew, dress the victuals, and bring home wood and water. They even take care of their husbands horses, feed, curry, comb, bridle, and faddle them. They would also be obliged, like Moorish wives, to dig, sow, and reap their corn; but luckily for them the Arabs live entirely upon plunder. Father Joseph Gu­milla, in his account of a country in South Ame­rica, bordering upon the great river Oroonoko, describes pathetically the miserable slavery of mar­ried women there, and mentions a practice that would appear incredible to one unacquainted with the manners of that country, which is, that mar­ried women frequently destroy their female infants. A married woman, of a virtuous character and good understanding, having been guilty of that crime, was reproached by our author in bitter terms. She heard him patiently to an end, with eyes fixed on the ground; and answered as follows. ‘"I wish to God, Father, I wish to God, that my mother had by my death prevented the manifold distresses I have endured, and have yet to endure as long as I live. Had she kindly stifled me at my birth, I should not have felt the pain of death, nor numberless other pains to which life hath subjected me. Consider, Father, our de­plorable condition. Our husbands go to hunt with their bows and arrows, and trouble them­selves no farther. We are dragged along, with one infant at our breast, and another in a basket. They return in the evening without any burden: we return with the burden of our children; and, tho' tired out with a long march, are not per­mitted to fleep, but must labour the whole night in grinding maize, to make chica for them. They get drunk, and in their drunkenness beat [Page 203] us, draw us by the hair of the head, and tread us under foot. And what have we to comfort us for slavery, perhaps of twenty years? A young wife is brought in upon us, who is per­mitted to abuse us and our children, because we are no longer regarded. Can human nature en­dure such tyranny! What kindness can we show to our female children equal to that of relieving them from such servitude, more bitter a thousand times than death? I say again, would to God that my mother had put me under ground the moment I was born."’ One would readily ima­gine, that the women of that country should have the greatest abhorrence at matrimony: but all-prevailing nature determines the contrary; and the appetite for matrimony overbalances every rational consideration.

Nations polish by degrees; and from the lowest state to which a human creature can be reduced, women came in time to be restored to their native dignity. Attention to dress is the first symptom of that progress. Male savages, even of the grossest kind, are fond of dress. Charlevoix mentions a young American hired as a rower, who adjusted his dress with great care before he entered the boat; and at intervals inspected his looking-glass, to see whether the violence of his motion had not discom­posed the red upon his cheeks. We read not of vanity sor dress in females of such savage nations: they are too much dispirited to think of being agree­able. Among nations in any degree humanized we find a different scene. In the isthmus of Darien government has made some progress, as a chieftain is elected for life: a glimmering of civility appears among the inhabitants; and as some regard is paid to women, they rival the men in dress. Both sexes wear rings in their ears and noses; and are adorned with many rows of shells hanging down from the [Page 204] neck. A female in a sultry climate submits to fry all day long under a load of twenty or thirty pounds of shells; and a male under double that load. Well may they exclaim with Alexander, ‘"Oh Athe­nians! what do I not endure to gain your ap­probation?"’ The female Caribbeans and Brasi­lians are not less fond of ornament than the males. Hottentot ladies are fond of dress; and strive to out-do each other in adorning their krosses, and the bag that holds their pipe and tobacco: Euro­pean ladies are not more vain of their silks and em­broideries. Women in Lapland are much addicted to finery. They wear broad girdles, upon which hang chains and rings without end, commonly made of tin, sometimes of silver, weighing perhaps twenty pounds. The Greenlanders are nasty and slovenly, eat with their dogs, make food of the vermin that make food of them, seldom or never wash themselves; and yet the women, who make some figure among the men, are gaudy in their dress. Their chief ornaments are pendents at their ears, with glass beads of various colours; and they draw lines with a needle and black thread between their eyes, cross the forehead, upon the chin, hands, and legs. The negroes of the kingdom of Ardrah in Guinea have made a considerable progress in po­lice, and in the art of living. Their women carry dress and finery to an extravagance. They are cloathed with loads of the finest satins and chintzes, and are adorned with a profusion of gold. In a fultry climate they gratify vanity at the expence of ease. Among the inland negroes, who are more polished than those on these a-coast, beside domestic concerns, the women sow, plant, and reap. A man however suffers in the esteem of the world, if he permits his wives to toil like slaves while he is in­dulging in ease. From that auspicious commence­ment, the female sex have risen in a slow but steady [Page 205] progress to higher and higher degrees of estimation. Conversation is their talent, and a display of delicate sentiments: the gentleness of their manners, and winning behaviour, captivate every sensible heart. Of such refinements savages have little conception: but when the more delicate senses are unfolded, the peculiar beauties of the female sex, internal as well as external, are brought into full light; and wo­men, formerly considered as objects of animal love merely, are now valued as faithful friends and agree­able companions. Matrimony assumes a more de­cent form, being the union, not of a master and slave, but of two persons equal in rank uniting to form a family. And it contributed greatly to this delicious refinement, that in temperate climes ani­mal love is moderate, and women long retain good looks, and power of procreation. Thus mar­riage became honourable among polished nations; which of course banished the barbarous custom of purchasing wives; for a man who wishes to have his daughter properly matched, will gladly give a dowry with her, instead of selling her as a slave.

Polygamy is found intimately connected with the purchasing wives. There is no limitation in pur­chasing slaves: nor has a woman, purchased as a wife or a slave, any just cause for complaining, that others are purchased as she was: on the contrary, she is in part relieved, by addition of hands for per­forming the servile offices of the family. Polygamy accordingly has always been permitted, where men pay for their wives. The Jews purchased their wives, and were indulged in polygamy ^m. Diodo­rus Siculus says, that polygamy was permitted in Egypt, except to priests ⁿ. This probably was the case originally; but when the Egyptian man­ners [Page 206] came to be polished, a man gave a dowry with his daughter, instead of receiving a price for her; witness Solomon, who got the city of Gazer in dowry with the king of Egypt's daughter. When that custom became universal, we may be certain that it would put an end to polygamy. And ac­cordingly Herodotus affirms, that polygamy was prohibited in Egypt ^o. Polygamy undoubtedly prevailed in Greece and Rome, while it was custo­mary to purchase wives; but improved manners put an end to the latter, and consequently to the former. Polygamy to this day obtains in the cold country of Kamskatka; and in the still colder country round Hudson's bay. In the land of Jesso, near Japan, a man may have two wives, who perform every sort of domestic drudgery. The negroes in general pur­chase their wives, and deal in polygamy. Polyga­my is the law in Monomotapa. Polygamy and the purchasing wives were customary among the origi­nal inhabitants of the Canary islands. The men in Chili buy their wives, and deal in polygamy.

The low condition of women among barbarians introduced polygamy, and the purchasing women to be wives. And the just respect paid to them among civilized nations, restored the law of nature, and confined a man to one wife. Their equality as to rank and dignity bars the man from taking another wife, as it bars the woman from taking another husband. We find traces in ancient history of polygamy wearing out gradually. It wore out in Greece, as manners refined; but such was the influence of long habit, that tho' a man was con­fined to one wife, concubines were indulged with­out limitation. In Germany, when Tacitus wrote, very few traces remained of polygamy. ‘"Severa illic matrimonia, nec ullam morum partem ma­gis laudaveris: nam prope soli barbarorum singu­lis [Page 207] uxoribus contenti sunt, exceptis admodum paucis, qui non libidine, sed ob nobilitatem, plu­rimis nuptiis ambiuntur ^*."’ When polygamy was in that country so little practised, we may be certain the purchasing wives did not remain in vi­gour. And Tacitus accordingly, mentioning the general rule, ‘"dotem non uxor marito, sed uxori maritus offert ^†,"’ explains it away by observing, that the only DOs given by the bridegroom were marriage-presents, and that he at the same time re­ceived marriage-presents, on the bride's part ^p. The equality of the matrimonial engagement, for the mutual benefit of husband and wife, was well understood among the Gauls. Caesar ^q says, ‘"Viri quantas pecunias ab uxoribus dotis no­mine acceperunt, tantas ex suis bonis, aestimati­one facta, cum dotibus communicant. Hujus omnis pecuniae conjunctim ratio habetur, fructus­que servantur. Uter eorum vita superarit, ad eum pars utriusque cum fructibus superiorum temporum pervenit ^‡."’ In Japan, and in Ni­caragua, a man can have but one wife; but he [Page 208] may have many concubines. In Siam, polygamy is still permitted, though the bride brings a dowry with her: but that absurdity is corrected by refined manners; it being held improper, and even dis­graceful, to have more than one wife. The pur­chasing wives wore out of fashion among the anci­ent Tuscans; for it was held infamous, that mar­riage should be the result of any motive but mutual love. This at the same time put an end to poly­gamy. Polygamy was probably early eradicated among the ancient Persians; for the bride's dowry was settled in marriage-articles, as among us. And there is the same reason for presuming, that it was not long permitted in Mexico; marriage there be­ing solemnized by the priest, and the bride's dower specified, which was restored in case of a separation. In the countries where the Christian religion was first propagated, women were fast advancing to an equality with the men, and polygamy was wearing out of fashion. The pure spirit of the gospel has­tened its downfal; and though not prohibited expressly, it was, however, held, that Christianity is a religion too pure for polygamy.

But, as hinted above, it was by slow degrees that the female sex emerged out of slavery, to pos­sess the elevated state they justly are intitled to by nature. The practice of exposing infants among the Greeks, and many other nations, is an invinci­ble proof of their depression, even after the custom ceased of purchasing them. It is wisely ordered by Providence, that the affection of a woman to her children commences with their birth, because, dur­ing infancy, all depends on her care. As, during that period, the father is of little use to his child, his affection is extremely slight till the child begins to prattle and shew some fondness for him. The ex­posing an infant, therefore, shows, that the mother was little regarded: if she had been allowed a vote, [Page 209] the practice never would have obtained in any country. In the first book of the Iliad, Achilles says to Agamemnon, who threatened to force from him his mistress Briseis, ‘"Another thing I will tell thee: record it in thy soul. For a woman these hands shall never fight, with thee nor with thy foes. Come, seize Briseis: ye Argives, take the prize ye gave. But beware of other spoil, which lies stowed in my ships on the shore. I will not be plundered farther. If other be thy thoughts, Atrides, come in arms, a trial make: these very slaves of thine shall behold thy blood pouring around my spear ^*."’ The comedies of Menander, Philemon, and Diphilus, are lost; but manners must have been little polished in their time, so far as can be conjectured from their translators or imitators, Plautus and Terence. Married women in their comedies are sometimes introduced, and treated with very little respect. A man commonly [Page 210] vents his wrath on his wife, and scolds her as the cause of the misconduct of their children. A lady, perhaps too inquisitive about her husband's amours, is scolded by him in the following words.

One will not be surprised, that women in Greece were treated with no great respect by their husbands. A woman cannot have much attraction who passes all her time in solitude: to be admired, she must receive the high polish of society. At the same time, men of fashion were so much improved in manners as to relish society with agreeable women, where such could be found. And hence the figure that courtezans made at that period, especially in Athens. They studied the temper and taste of the men, and endeavoured to gain their affection by every winning art. The daily conversations they listened to on philosophy, politics, poetry, enlight­ened their understanding and improved their taste. Their houses became agreeable schools, where eve­ry one might be instructed in his own arts. Socrates and Pericles met frequently at the house of Aspasia: from her they acquired delicacy of taste, and in re­turn procured to her public respect and reputation. [Page 211] Greece at that time was governed by orators, over whom some celebrated courtezans had great influ­ence, and by that means entered deep into the government. It was said of the famous Demosthenes, ‘"The measure he hath meditated on for a year, will be overturned in a day by a woman."’ It appears accordingly from Plautus and Terence, that Athenian courtezans lived in great splendor. See in particular Theautontimorumenos, act 3. scene 2.

I proceed to the other cause of polygamy, men­tioned also above, viz. opulence in a hot climate. Men there have a burning appetite for animal en­joyment; and women become old and lose the prolific quality, not long after the age of maturity in a temperate climate. These circumstances dis­pose men of opulence to purchase their wives, that they may not be confined to one; and purchase they must, for no man, without a valuable consideration, will surrender his daughter to be one of many who are destined to gratify the carnal appetite of one man. The numerous wives and concubines in Asi­atic harems are all of them purchased with money. In the hot climate of Hindostan, polygamy is uni­versal, and men buy their wives. The same obtains in China: after the price is adjusted and paid, the bride is conducted to the bride-groom's house locked in a sedan, and the key delivered to him: if he be not satisfied with his bargain, he sends her back at the expence of losing the sum he paid for her: if satisfied, he feasts his male friends in one room, and she her female friends in another. A man who has little substance takes a wife for his son from an hos­pital, which saves him a dowry.

It has been pleaded for polygamy in warm cli­mates, that women are fit for being married at or before the age of ten, and past child-bearing at twenty-five, while men are yet in the prime of life; and therefore that a second wife ought to be [Page 212] permitted, who can bear children. Is then the in­terest of the female sex to be totally disregarded in the matrimonial engagement, as if women were intended by nature for beasts of burden only? But even putting them out of the question, it ought to be considered, that a man, by taking a second wife, deprives some other of the privilege all men have to be married. The argument, indeed, would be con­clusive, were ten females born for one male, as is said to be the case in Bantam: but as an equality of males and females is the destination of nature, the argument has no force. All men are born equal by nature; and to permit polygamy in any degree, is to authorise some to usurp the privilege of others.

Thus in hot climates women remain in the same humble and dependent state, in which all women were originally, when all men were savages. Wo­men by the law of Hindostan are not admitted to be witnesses, even in a civil cause; and I blush to ac­knowledge, that in Scotland the same law has not been long in disuse.

In contradiction to the climate, Christianity has banished polygamy from Ethiopia, though the judges are far from being severe upon that crime. The heat of the climate makes them wish to indulge in a plurality of wives, even at the expence of pur­chasing each of them. Among the Christians of Congo polygamy is in use, as formerly when they were Pagans. To be confined to one wife during life, is held by the most zealous Christians there, to be altogether irrational: rather than be so con­fined, they would renounce Christianity.

Beside polygamy, many other customs depend on the nature of the matrimonial engagement, and va­ry according to its different kinds. Marriage-cere­monies, for that reason, vary in different countries, and at different times. Where the practice is to purchase a wife, whether among savages, or among [Page 213] pampered people in hot climates, the payment of the price completes the marriage, without any other ceremony. Other ceremonies, however, are sometimes practised. In old Rome, the bride was attended to the bridegroom's house with a female slave carrying a distaff and a spindle, importing that she ought to spin for the family. Among the savages of Canada and of the neighbouring countries, a strap, a kettle, and a faggot, are put in the bride's cabin, as symbols of her duty, viz. to carry bur­dens, to dress the victuals, and to provide wood. On the other hand, the bride, in token of her sla­very, takes her axe, cuts down timber, bundles it up, and lays it before the door of the bridegroom's hut. All the salutation she receives is, ‘"It is time to go to rest."’ The inhabitants of Sierra Leona, a negro country, have in all their towns a boarding­school, where young ladies are educated for a year under the care of a venerable old gentleman. When their education is completed, they are carried in their best attire to a public assembly; which may be termed a matrimonial market, because there young men convene to make a choice. Those who fit themselves to their fancy, pay the dowry, and over and above gratify the old superintendent for his extraordinary care in educating the bride. In the island of Java, the bride, in token of subjecti­on, washes the bridegroom's feet; and this is a capital ceremony. In Russia, the bride presents to the bridegroom a bundle of rods, to be used against her when she deserves to be chastised; and at the same time she pulls off his boots. The present Em­press, prone to reform the rude manners of her sub­jects, has discountenanced that ceremony among people of fashion. Very different were the man­ners of Peru before the Spanish conquest. The bridegroom carried shoes to the bride, and put them on with his own hands. But there purchasing of [Page 214] wives was unknown. Marriage-ceremonies in Lap­land are directed by the same principle. It is the custom there for a man to make presents to his chil­dren of rein-deer, and young women, such as have a large stock of rein-deer, have lovers in plenty. A young man looks for such a wife at a fair, or at their meetings for paying taxes. He carries to the house of the young woman's parents, some of his relati­ons; being solicitous in particular to chuse an elo­quent speaker. They are all admitted except the lover, who must wait till he be called in After drinking some spirits, brought along for the pur­pose, the spokesman addresses the father in the most humble terms, bowing the knee as if he were in­troduced to a prince. He styles him, the worship­ful father, the high and mighty father, the best and most illustrious father, &c. &c.

In viewing the chain of causes and effects, in­stances sometimes occur of bizarre facts, starting from the chain without any cause that can be dis­covered. The marriage-ceremonies among the Hottentots are of that nature. After all matters are adjusted among the old people, the young cou­ple are shut up in a room by themselves, where they pass the night in struggling for superiority, which proves a very serious work where the bride is reluctant. If she persevere to the last without yielding, the young man is discarded; but if he prevail, which commonly happens, the marriage is completed by another ceremony, not less singular. The men and women squat on the ground in diffe­rent circles, the bridegroom in the centre of one, and the bride in the centre of another. The Suri, or master of religious ceremonies, pisses on the bride­groom; who receives the stream with eagerness, and rubs it into the furrows of the fat with which he is covered. He performs the same ceremony on the bride, who is equally respectful. Marriage-ceremonies among the Kamskatkans are still more [Page 215] whimsical. A young man, after making his pro­posals, enters into the service of his intended father-in-law. If he prove agreeable, he is admitted to the trial of the touch. The young woman is swad­dled up in leathern thongs; and in that condition is put under the guard of some old women. He watches every opportunity of a slack guard to uncase her, in order to touch what is always the most concealed. The bride must resist, in appearance at least; and therefore cries out to summon her guards; who fall with fury upon the bridegroom, tear his hair, scratch his face, and act in violent opposition. The attempts of the lover prove sometimes unsuccessful for months; but the moment the touch is atchiev­ed, the bride testifies her satisfaction, by pronoun­cing the words Ni, Ni, with a soft and loving voice. The next night they bed together without any op­position. One marriage-ceremony among the in­land negroes is singular. So soon as preliminaries are adjusted, the bridegroom with a number of his companions set out at night, and surround the house of the bride, as if intending to carry her off by force. She and her female attendants, pretending to make all possible resistance, cry aloud for help, but no person appears. This resembles strongly a marriage-ceremony that is or was customary in Wales. On the morning of the wedding-day, the bridegroom, accompanied with his friends on horse­back, demands the bride. Her friends, who are likewise on horseback, give a positive refusal, upon which a mock scufflle ensues. The bride, mounted behind her next kinsman, is carried off, and is pur­sued by the bridegroom and his friends with loud shouts. It is not uncommon to see on such an oc­casion two or three hundred sturdy Cambro-Britons riding at full speed, crossing and jostling, to the no small amusement of the spectators. When they have fatigued themselves and their horses, the bride­groom [Page 216] is suffered to overtake his bride. He leads her away in triumph, and the scene is concluded with feasting and festivity. The same marriage-ceremony was usual in Muscovy, Lithuania, and Livonia, as reported by Olaus Magnus ^r.

Divorce also depends on the nature of the ma­trimonial engagement. Where the law is, that a man must purchase his wife as one does a slave; it follows naturally, that he may purchase as many as he can pay for, and that he may turn them off at his pleasure. This law is universal, without a single exception. The Jews, who purchased their wives, were privileged to divorce them, without being obliged to assign a cause ^s. The negroes purchase their wives, and turn them off when they think proper. The same law obtains in China, in Monomotapa, in the Isthmus of Darien, in Cari­beana, and even in the cold country round Hud­son's Bay. All the savages of South America, who live near the Oroonoko, purchase as many wives as they can maintain; and divorce them at their pleasure.

Very different is a matrimonial engagement be­tween equals, where a dowry is contracted with the bride. The nature of the engagement implies, that neither of them is privileged to dismiss the other without a just cause. In Mexico, where the bride brought a dowry, there could be no divorce but by mutual consent. In Lapland, the women who have a stock of rein-deer, as above-mentioned, make a considerable figure. This lays a foundation for a matrimonial covenant as among us, which bars polygamy, and, consequently, divorce, with­out a just cause. And when these are barred in se­veral [Page 217] instances, the prohibition in time becomes general.

I proceed to adultery, the criminality of which depends also in some measure on the nature of the matrimonial engagement. Where wives are pur­chased, and polygamy is indulged, adultery can scarce be reckoned a crime in the husband; and where there are a plurality of wives, sound sense makes it but a venial crime in any one of them. But, as men are the lawgivers, the punishment of female adultery, where polygamy takes place, is generally too severe. It is, however, more or less severe in different countries, in proportion as the men are more or less prone to revenge. The Chi­nese are a mild people, and depend more on locks and bars for preventing adultery, than on severity; the punishment being only to sell an adulteress for a slave. The same law obtains in the kingdom of Laos, bordering upon China. An adulteress among the ancient Egyptians was punished with the loss of her nose. In ancient Greece, a pecuniary penalty was inflicted on an adulterer ^t. An adulteress was probably punished more severely. Among the ne­groes, who have very little delicacy, adultery is but slightly punished; except in the kingdom of Benin. There an adulteress, after a severe whip­ping, is banished; and the adulterer forfeits his goods, which are bestowed on the injured husband. Among the ancient Germans, a grave and virtuous people, adultery was extremely rare. An adulte­ress was deprived of her hair, expelled from her husband's house, and whipped through the vil­lage ^u. In Japan, where the people are remark­ably fierce, female adultery is always punished with death. In Tonquin, a woman guilty of adultery [Page 218] is thrown to an elephant to be destroyed. By the law of Moses, an adulteress is punished with death, as also the adulterer ^x. Margaret of Burgundy, Queen to Lewis Hutin, King of France, was hanged for adultery; and her lovers were flead alive. Such were the savage manners of those times. There is an old law in Wales, that for defiling the prince's bed, the offender must pay a rod of pure gold, of the thickness of the fin­ger of a ploughman who has plowed nine years, and in length from the ground to the Prince's mouth when sitting.

Matrimony between a single pair, for mutual comfort, and for procreating children, implies the strictest mutual fidelity. Adultery, however, is a deeper crime in the wife than in the husband: in him it may happen occasionally, with little or no alienation of affection; but the superior modesty of the female sex is such, that a wife does not yield, till unlawful love prevails, not only over mo­desty, but over duty to her husband. Adultery, therefore, in the wife, is a breach of the matrimo­nial engagement in a double respect: it is an alie­nation of affection from the husband, which un­qualifies her to be his friend and companion; and it tends to bring a spurious issue into the family, betraying the husband to maintain and educate children who are not his own.

The gradual advance of the female sex to an equality with the male sex, is visible in the laws of female succession, that have been established at dif­ferent times, and in different countries. It is not probable, that, in any country, women were early admitted to inherit land: they are too much de­spised among savages for so valuable a privilege. The fierceness and brutality of the ancient Ro­mans, [Page 219] in particular, unqualified the women to be their companions: it never entered their thoughts, that women should inherit land, which they can­not defend by the sword. But women came to be regarded, in proportion as the national manners re­fined. The law prohibiting female succession in land, established in days of rusticity, was held to be rigorous and unjust, when the Romans were more polished. Proprietors of land, such of them as had no sons, were disposed to evade the law, by ample provisions to their daughters, which render­ed the land of little value to the collateral heir­male. To reform that abuse, as termed by the veterans, the Lex Voconia was made, confining such provisions within moderate bounds: and this regulation continued in force, till regard for the female sex broke through every legal restraint, and established female succession in land, as formerly in moveables ^*. The barbarous nations, who crushed the Roman power, were not long in adopting the mild manners of the conquered: they ad­mitted [Page 220] women to inherit land, and they exacted a double composition for injuries done to them. By the Salic law among the Franks, women were ex­pressly prohibited to inherit land; but we learn from the forms of Marculfus, that this proposition was in time eluded, by the following solemnity: The man who wanted to put his daughter upon a footing with his sons, carried her before the com­missary, saying, ‘"My dear child, an ancient and impious custom bars a young women from suc­ceeding to her father: but as all my children equally are given me by God, I ought to love them equally: therefore, my dear child, my will is, that my effects shall divide equally between you and your brethren."’ In polished states, women are not excluded from succeeding even to the crown. Russia and Britain afford ex­amples of women capable to govern, in an abso­lute as well as in a limited monarchy ^†.

[Page 221] What I have said regards those nations only, where polygamy is prohibited. I take it for grant­ed, that women are not admitted to inherit land where polygamy is lawful: they are not in such estimation as to be intitled to a privilege so il­lustrious.

Among the Hurons in North-America, where the regal dignity is hereditary, and great regard paid to the royal family, the succession is conti­nued through females, in order to preserve the blood untained. When the chief dies, his son succeeds not, but his sister's son; who certainly is of the royal blood, whoever be the father: and when the royal family is at an end, a chief is elect­ed by the noblest matron of the tribe. The same rule of succession obtains among the Natches, a people bordering on the Mississippi; it being an article in their creed, That their royal family are children of the sun. On the same belief was founded a law in Peru, appointing the heir of the crown to marry his sister; which, equally with the law mentioned, preserved the blood of the sun in the royal family, and did not encroach so much upon the natural order of succession.

Female succession depends in some degree on the nature of the government. In Holland, all the children, male and female, succeed equally. The Hollanders live by commerce, which women are capable of as well as men. Land at the same time is so scanty in that country, as to render it impracticable to raise a family by engrossing a great estate in land; and there is nothing but the ambition of raising a family that can move a man to prefer one of his children before the rest. The same law obtains in Hamburgh, for the same reasons. Extensive estates in land support great families in Britain, a circumstance unfavourable to younger children. But probably in London, and [Page 222] in other great trading towns, mercantile men take care to prevent the law, by making a more equal distribution of their effects among their children.

After traversing a great part of the globe with painful industry, will not one be apt to conclude, that originally females were every where despised, as they are at present among the savages of Ame­rica; that wives, like slaves, were procured by barter; that polygamy was universal; and that di­vorce depended on the whim of the husband? Such conclusion, however, would be rash; for upon a more accurate scrutiny, an extensive country is discovered, where polygamy never was in fashion, and where women were from the be­ginning courted and honoured as among the most po­lished nations. But the reader is humbly requested to suspend his curiosity, till he peruse the following sketch, concerning the progress of manners, which appears to be the proper place for that curious and interesting subject.

We proceed now to a capital article in the pro­gress of the female sex; which is, to trace the different degrees of restraint imposed upon mar­ried women in different countries, and at different times, in the same country; and to assign the causes of these differences. Where luxury is un­known, and where people have no wants but what are suggested by uncorrupted nature, men and wo­men live together with great freedom, and with great innocence. In Greece, anciently, even young women of rank ministred to men in bathing.

[Page 223] Men and women among the Spartans bathed pro­miscuously, and wrestled together stark naked. Tacitus reports, that the Germans had not even separate beds, but lay promiscuously upon reeds or heath along the walls of the house. The same custom prevails, even at present, among the tem­perate Highlanders of Scotland; and is not quite worn out in New England. A married woman is under no confinement, because no man thinks of an act so irregular, as to attempt her chastity. In the Caribbee Islands, adultery was unknown, till European Christians made settlements there. At the same time, there scarce can be any sewel for jealousy, where men purchase their wives, put them away at pleasure, and even lend them to a friend. But when, by ripening sensibility, a man puts a value on the affections of his wife, and on her attachment to him, jealousy commences; jea­lousy of a rival in her affections. Jealousy accor­dingly is a symptom of an encreasing esteem for the female sex; and that passion is visibly creeping in among the natives of Virginia. It begins to have a real foundation, when inequality of rank and of riches takes place. Men of opulence study pleasure: married women become objects of a cor­rupted taste; and often fall a sacrifice, where mo­rals are imperfect, and the climate favourable to animal love. Greece is a delicious country, the people handsome; and when the ancient Greeks made the greatest figure, they were extremely de­fective in morals. They became jealous of their honour and of rivals; which prompted them, ac­cording to the rough manners of those times, to exclude women from society with men. The wo­men, accordingly, were never seen in public; and, if my memory serve me, an accidental interview of a man and a woman on the public street brings on the catastrophe in a Greek tragedy. In Hecu­ba, [Page 224] a tragedy of Euripides, the Queen excuses herself for declining to visit Polymestor, saying, ‘"that it was indecent for a woman to look a man in the face."’ In the Electra of Sophocles, An­tigoné is permitted by her mother Jocasta totake a view of the Agrian army from a high tower: an old man who accompanies her, being alarmed at seeing some females pass that way, and afraid of censure, prays Antigoné to retire; ‘"for,"’ says he, ‘"women are prone to detraction; and to them the merest trifle is a fruitful subject of conver­sation ^*."’ Spain is a country that scarce yields to Greece in fineness of climate; and the morals of its people in the dark ages of Christianity, were not more pure than those of Greece. By a law of the Visigoths in Spain, a surgeon was prohibited to take blood from a free woman, except in pre­sence of her husband or nearest relations. By the Salic law ^z, he who squeezes the hand of a free woman, shall pay a fine of fifteen golden shillings. In the fourteenth century, it was a rule in France, That no married woman ought to admit a man to visit her in the absence of her husband. Female chastity must, at that time, have been extremely feeble, when so little trust was reposed in the fair sex.

To treat women in that manner, may possibly be necessary, where they are in request for no end but to gratify animal love. But where they are in­tended for the more elevated purposes, of being [Page 225] friends and companions, as well as affectionate mo­thers, a very different treatment is proper. Locks and spies will never answer; for these tend to de­base their minds, to corrupt their morals, and to render them contemptible. By gradual openings in the more delicate senses, particularly in all the branches of the moral sense, Chastity, one of these branches, acquires a commanding influence over females; and, when they are treated with humani­ty, becomes their ruling principle. In that refined state, women are trusted with their own conduct, and may safely be trusted: they make delicious companions, and uncorruptible friends; and that such at present is generally their case in Britain, I am bold to affirm. Anne of Britany, wife to Charles VIII. and to Lewis XII. Kings of France, introduced the fashion of ladies appearing pub­licly at court. This fashion was introduced much later in England: even down to the Revolution, women of rank never appeared in the streets with­out a mask. In Scotland, the veil, or plaid, con­tinued long in fashion, with which every woman of rank was covered, when she went abroad. That fashion has not been laid aside above forty years. In Italy, women were much longer confined than in France; and in Spain, the indulging them with some liberty, is but creeping into fashion at pre­sent. In Abyssinia, polygamy is prohibited; and married women of fashion have by custom obtain­ed the privilege of visiting their friends, though not much with the good-will of many husbands. It were to be wished, that a veil could be drawn over the following part of their history. The growth of luxury and sensuality, undermining every moral principle, renders both sexes equally disso­lute: wives, in that case, deserve to be again lock­ed up: but the time of such severity is past. Then, indeed, it becomes indecent for the two sexes to [Page 226] bathe promiscuously. The men in Rome, copying the Greeks, plunged together into the same bath, and became such proficients in assurance, that men and women did the same ^a. Hadrian prohibited that indecent custom. Marcus Antoninus renewed the prohibition; and Alexander Severus, a second time: but to so little purpose, that even the pri­mitive Christians made no difficulty to follow the custom: such appetite there is for being nudus cum nuda, when justified by fashion. This custom with­stood even the thunder of general councils; and was not dropped till people became more decent, in appearance at least.

In days of innocence, when modesty is the ruling passion of the female sex, we find great frankness in external behaviour; for women who are above suspicion are little solicitous about ap­pearances. At the same period, and for the same reason, we find great looseness in writing; witness, the Queen of Navarre's Tales. In the capital of France at present, chastity, far from being prac­tised, is scarce admitted to be a female virtue. But people who take much freedom in private, are ex­tremely circumspect in public: no indecent expres­sion nor insinuation is admitted, even into their plays or other writings. In England, the women are less corrupted than in France; and, for that reason, are not so scrupulous with respect to decency in writing.

Hitherto of the female sex in temperate climes, where polygamy is prohibited. Very different is their condition in hot climes, which inflame ani­mal love in both sexes equally. In the hot regions of Asia, where polygamy is indulged, and wives are purchased for gratifying the carnal appetite merely, it is vain to think of restraining them other­wise [Page 227] than by locks and bars, after having once tasted enjoyment. Where polygamy is indulged, the body is the only object of jealousy (not the mind), as there can be no mutual affection between a man and his instruments of sensual pleasure. And if women be so little virtuous, as not to be safely trusted with their own conduct, they ought to be locked up; for there is no just medium be­tween absolute confinement and absolute freedom. The Chinese are so jealous of their wives, as even to lock them up from their relations; and so great is their diffidence of the female sex in ge­neral, that brothers and sisters are not permitted to converse together. When women are permitted to go abroad, they are shut up in a close sedan, in­to which no eye can penetrate. The intrigues car­ried on by the wives of the Chinese Emperor, and the jealousy that reigns among them, render them unhappy. But luckily, as women are little re­garded where polygamy is indulged, their ambition and intrigues give less disturbance to the govern­ment, than in the courts of European princes. The ladies of Hindostan cover their heads with a gauze veil, even at home, which they lay not aside ex­cept in presence of their nearest relations. A Hin­doo buys his wife; and the first time he is permit­ted to see her without a veil, is, after marriage, in his own house. In several hot countries, women are put under the guard of eunuchs, as an additio­nal security; and black eunuchs are commonly preferred for their ugliness. But as a woman, de­prived of the society of a man, is apt to be in­flamed even with the appearance of a man, some jealous nations, refining upon that circumstance, employ old maids, termed duennas, for guarding their women. In the city of Moka, in Arabia Felix, women of fashion never appear on the street in day-light; but it is a proof of manners [Page 228] refined above those in neighbouring countries, that they are permitted to visit one another in the evening. If they find men in their way, they draw aside to let them pass. A French surgeon being called by one of the King of Yeman's chief officers, to cure a rheumatism which had seized two of his wives, was permitted to handle the parts affected, but he could not get a sight of their faces.

I proceed to examine more minutely the man­ners of women, as resulting from the degree of re­straint they are under in different countries. In the warm regions of Asia, where polygamy is in­dulged, the education of young women is extremely loose, being calculated for the sole end of animal pleasure. They are accomplished in such graces and allurements as tend to inflame the sensual ap­petite: they are taught vocal and instrumental mu­sic, with various dances that cannot stand the test of decency: but no culture is bestowed on the mind, no moral instruction, no improvement of the rational faculties; because such education, which qualifies them for being virtuous compani­ons to men of sense, would inspire them with ab­horrence at the being made prostitutes. In a word, so corrupted are they by vicious education, as to be unfit objects of any desire but what is merely sensual. The Asiatic ladies are not even trusted with the management of household affairs, which would afford opportunities for infidelity. In Persia, says Chardin, the ladies are not permitted, more than children, to chuse their own dress: no lady knows, in the morning, what gown she is to wear that day. The education of young women in Hin­dostan is less indecent. They are not taught music nor dancing, which are reckoned fit only for ladies of pleasure: they are taught all the graces of ex­ternal behaviour; particularly, to converse with [Page 229] spirit and elegance: they are taught also to few, to embroider, and to dress with taste. Writing is neglected; but they are taught to read, that they may have the consolation of studying the Alcoran; which they never open, nor would un­derstand if they did. Notwithstanding such care in educating Hindostan ladies, their manners, by by being shut up in a seraglio, become extremely loose: the most refined luxury of sense, joined with idleness, or with reading love-tales, still worse than idleness, cannot fail to vitiate the minds of persons deprived of liberty, and to prepare them for every sort of intemperance. The wives and con­cubines of grandees in Constantinople are permit­ted sometimes to walk abroad for air and exercise. A foreigner stumbling accidentally on a knot of them, about forty in number, attended with black eunuchs, was, in the twinkling of an eye, seized by a brisk girl, with the rest at her heels; she ac­costed him with loose, amorous expressions, at­tempting at the same time to expose his nakedness. Neither threats nor intreaties availed him against such vigorous assailants; nor could the vehemence of their curiosity be moderated, by representing the shame of a behaviour so grossly immodest. An old Janizary, standing at a little distance, was amazed: his Mahometan bashfulness would not suffer him to lay hands upon women; but, with a Stentorian voice, he roared to the black eu­nuchs, that they were guardians of prostitutes, not of modest women; and urging them to free the man from such harpies.—All in vain ^b.

Very different are female manners in temperate climes, where polygamy is prohibited, and women [Page 230] are treated as rational beings. These manners, however, depend, in some measure, upon the na­ture of the government. As many hands are at once employed in the different branches of republi­can government, and still a greater number by ro­tation, the males, who have little time to spare from public business, feel nothing of that languor and weariness, which, to the idle, make the most frivolous amusements welcome. Married women live retired at home, managing family-affairs, as their husbands do those of the state: whence it is, that simplicity of manners is more the tone of a re­public, than of any other government. Such were the manners of the female sex, during the flourish­ing periods of the Greek and Roman common­wealths; and such are their manners in Switzer­land and in Holland. In a monarchy, government employs but a few hands; and those who are not occupied with public business, give reins to gallan­try, and to other desires that are easily gratified. Women of figure, on the other hand, corrupted by opulence and superficial education, are more ambitious to captivate the eye than the judgment; and are fonder of lovers than of friends. Where a man and a woman, thus disciplined, meet toge­ther, they soon grow particular: the man is idle, the woman frank; and both equally addicted to plea­sure. Such commerce must, in its infancy be disguised under the appearance of virtue and religi­on: the mistress is exalted into a deity, the lover sinks into a humble votary; and this artificial rela­tion produces a bombast sort of love, with senti­ments that soar high above nature. Duke John de Bourbonnois, ann. 1414, caused it to be pro­claimed, that he intended an expedition to Eng­land with sixteen knights, in order to combat the like number of English knights, for glorifying the [Page 231] beautiful angel he worshipped. René, styled King of Sicily and Jerusalem, observes, in writing upon tournaments, that they are highly useful in furnish­ing opportunities to young knights and esquires to display their prowess before their mistresses. He adds, ‘"That every ceremony regarding tourna­ments is contrived to honour the ladies. It be­longs to them to inspect the arms of the comba­tants, and to distribute the rewards. A knight or esquire who defames any of them, is beat and bruised till the injured lady condescends to intercede for him."’ Remove once a female out of her proper sphere, and it is easy to convert her into a male. James IV. of Scotland, in all tour­naments, professed himself knight to Anne, Queen of France. She summoned him to prove himself her true and valorous champion, by taking the field in her defence against Henry VIII. of England. And, according to the romantic gallantry of that age, the Queen's summons was thought to have been his chief motive in declaring war against Henry his brother-in-law. The famous Gaston de Foix, who commanded the French troops at the battle of Ravenna, rode from rank to rank, calling by name the officers, and even some private men, recommending to them their country and their ho­nour; adding, ‘"That he would see what they would perform for the love of their mistresses."’ During the civil wars in France, when love and gallantry were carried to a high pitch, Monsieur de Chatillon, ready to engage in a battle, tied to his arm a garter of Mademoiselle de Guerchi, his mistress.

But when unlawful commerce between the sexes turns common, and, consequently, familiar, the bombast style appears ridiculous, and the sensual appetite is gratified with very little ceremony. No­thing [Page 232] of love remains but the name; and, as animal enjoyment without love is a very low pleasure, it soon sinks into disgust, when confined to one object. What is not found in one, is fondly expected in another; and the imagination, roving from object to object, finds no gratification but in variety. An attachment to a woman of virtue, or of talents, ap­pears absurd': true love is laughed out of counte­nance; and men degenerate into brutes. Women, on the other hand, regarding nothing but sensual enjoyment, become so careless of their infants, as even, without blushing, to employ mercenary nurses ^*. Such a course of life cannot fail to sink [Page 233] them into contempt: marriages are dissolved as soon as contracted; and the state is frustrated of that improvement in morals and manners, which is the never-failing product of virtuous love. A state, enriched by conquest or commerce, de­clines gradually into luxury and sensual pleasure: manners are corrupted, decency banished, and cha­stity becomes a mere name. What a scene of rank and dissolute pleasure is exhibited in the courts of Alexander's successors, and in those of the Roman emperors!

Gratitude to my female readers, if I shall be ho­noured with any, prompts me to conclude this sketch with a scene that may afford them in­struction, and cannot fail of being agreeable; which is, the figure a woman is fitted for making in the matrimonial state, where polygamy is ex­cluded. Matrimony, among savages, having no object but propagation and slavery, is a very hum­bling state for the female sex: but delicate orga­nization, great sensibility, lively imagination, with sweetness of temper above all, qualify women for a more dignified society with men; which is, to be their bosom-friends and companions. In the com­mon course of European education, young women are trained to make an agreeable figure, and to behave with decency and propriety: very little culture is bestowed on the head; and still less on the heart, if it be not the art of hiding passion. Education so slight and superficial is far from se­conding the purpose of nature, that of making wo­men fit companions for men of sense. Due culti­vation [Page 234] of the female mind would add greatly to the happiness of the males, and still more to that of the females. Time runs on; and, when youth and beauty vanish, a fine lady, who never enter­tained a thought into which an admirer did not en­ter, finds in herself a lamentable void, occasioning discontent and peevishness. But a woman who has merit, improved by virtuous and refined education, retains, in her decline, an influence over the men, more flattering than even that of beauty: she is the delight of her friends, as formerly of her ad­mirers.

Admirable would be the effects of such refined education, contributing no less to public good than to private happiness. A man, who at present must degrade himself into a fop or a coxcomb, in order to please the women, would soon discover, that their favour is not to be gained, but by ex­erting every manly talent in public and in private life; and the two sexes, instead of corrupting each other, would be rivals in the race of virtue. Mutual esteem would be to each a school of urbanity; and mutual desire of pleasing would give smoothness to their behaviour, delicacy to their sentiments, and tenderness to their passions.

Married women, in particular, destined by na­ture to take the lead in educating their children, would no longer be the greatest obstruction to good education, by their ignorance, frivolity, and dis­orderly manner of living. Even upon the breast, infants are susceptible of impressions ^*; and the [Page 235] mother hath opportunities without end of instil­ling into them good principles, before they are fit for a male [...]tor. Coriolanus, who made a capital figure in the Roman republic, never re­turned from war, without meriting marks of dis­tinction. Others behaved valiantly, in order to acquire glory; he behaved valiantly, in order to give pleasure to his mother. The delight she took in hearing him praised, and her weeping for joy in his embraces, made him, in his own opi­nion, the happiest person in the universe. Epa­minondas accounted it his greatest felicity, that his father and mother were still alive to behold his conduct, and enjoy his victory at Leuctra. In a Latin dialogue about the causes that cor­rupted the Roman eloquence, injudiciously ascrib­ed to Tacitus, because obviously it is not his style, the method of education in Rome, while it flou­rished as a commonwealth, is described in a lively manner. I shall endeavour to give the sense in English, because it chiefly concerns the fair sex. ‘"In that age, children were suckled, not in the hut of a mercenary nurse, but by the chaste mother who bore them. Their education, during nonage, was in her hands; and it was her chief care to instil into them every virtuous principle. In her presence, a loose word or an improper [Page 236] action were strictly prohibited. She superin­tended, not only their serious studies, but even their amusements; which were conducted with decency and moderation. In that manner the Gracchi, educated by Cornelia their mother, and Augustus, by Attia his mother, appeared in public with untainted minds: fond of glory, and prepared to make a figure in the world."’ In the expedition of the illustrious Bertrand du Gueselin against Peter the Cruel, King of Cas­tile, the governor of a town, upon being sum­moned to give it up, made the following answer: ‘"That they might be conquered, but would never tamely yield; that their fathers had taught them to prefer a glorious death before a dishonourable life; and that their mothers had not only edu­cated them in these sentiments, but were ready to put in practice the lessons they had incul­cated."’ Let the most profound politician say, what more efficacious incentive there can be to virtue and manhood, than the behaviour of the Spartan matrons, flocking to the temples, and thanking the gods, that their husbands and sons had died gloriously, fighting for their country. In the war between Lacedemon and Thebes, the Lacedemonians having behaved ill, the mar­ried men, as Plutarch reports, were so ashamed of themselves, that they durst not look their wives in the face. What a glorious prize is here exhibited to be contended for by the female sex!

By such refined education, love would take on a new form, that which nature inspires for making us happy, and for softening the distresses of chance: it would fill deliciously the whole soul with tender amity, and mutual confidence. The union of a worthy man with a frivolous woman can never, with all the advantages of fortune, be made com­fortable: [Page 237] how different the union of a virtuous pair, who have no aim but to make each other happy! Between such a pair emulation is reversed, by an ardent desire in each to be surpassed by the other.

Cultivation of the female mind is not of great importance in a republic, where men pass little of their time with women. Such cultivation where polygamy is indulged, would to them be a great misfortune, by opening their eyes to their mise­rable condition. But in an opulent monarchy where polygamy is prohibited, female education is of high importance, not singly with respect to private happiness, but with respect to the society in general.