twenty years, when the valor and conciliation of the gallant Prince
Edward brought them to that submission which his royal parent had failed
in procuring.

Those "harum-scarum" expeditions, the Crusades, were perhaps influential
in checking piracy, although the rabble that composed the majority of
them had as little principle as the worst of the freebooters. From the
time that Peter the Hermit set Europe in a blaze, all ranks, and all
nations, streamed to the East, so that few vessels were otherwise
employed than in conveying the motly groups who sought the shores of
Palestine; some from religious zeal; some from frantic fanaticism; some
from desire of distinction; some for the numberless privileges which the
crusaders acquired; and the rest and greater portion, for the spoil and
plunder of which they had a prospect. The armaments, fitted in no fewer
than nine successive efforts, were mostly equipped with such haste and
ignorance, and with so little choice, that ruinous delays, shipwrecks,
and final discomfiture, were naturally to be expected. Still, the effect
of such incredible numbers of people betaking themselves to foreign
countries, advanced civilization, although vast means of forwarding its
cause were buried in the East; and those who assert that no benefit
actually resulted, cannot deny that at least some evils were thereby
removed. Montesquieu says, that Europe then required a general shock, to
teach her, but the sight of contrasts, the theorems of public economy
most conducive to happiness. And it is evident, that notwithstanding
these follies wasted the population of Europe, squandered its treasures,
and infected us with new vices and diseases, still the crusades
diminished the bondage of the feudal system, by augmenting the power of
the King, and the strength of the Commons; while they also occasioned a
very increased activity in commerce: thus taming the ferocity of men's
spirits, increasing agriculture in value from the safety it enjoyed, and