This _slavery_ and _commerce_, which had continued for so long
a time, and which was thus practised in Europe at so late a period as
that, which succeeded the grand revolutions in the western world, began,
as the northern nations were settled in their conquests, to decline,
and, on their full establishment, were abolished. A difference of
opinion has arisen respecting the cause of their abolition; some having
asserted, that they were the necessary consequences of the _feudal
system_; while others, superiour both in number and in argument, have
maintained that they were the natural effects of _Christianity_.
The mode of argument, which the former adopt on this occasion, is as
follows. "The multitude of little states, which sprang up from one great
one at this Æra, occasioned infinite bickerings and matter for
contention. There was not a state or seignory, which did not want all
the hands they could muster, either to defend their own right, or to
dispute that of their neighbours. Thus every man was taken into the
service: whom they armed they must trust: and there could be no trust
but in free men. Thus the barrier between the two natures was thrown
down, and _slavery_ was no more heard of, in the _west_."

That this was not the _necessary_ consequence of such a situation,
is apparent. The political state of Greece, in its early history, was
the same as that of Europe, when divided, by the feudal system, into an
infinite number of small and independent kingdoms. There was the same
matter therefore for contention, and the same call for all the hands
that could be mustered: the Grecians, in short, in _heroick_, were
in the same situation in these respects as the _feudal barons_ in
the _Gothick_ times. Had this therefore been a _necessary_
effect, there had been a cessation of servitude in Greece, in those
ages, in which we have already shewn that it existed.