sovereigns, with hereditary, not delegated, right to own the people, to
tax their roads and rivers, to take tithings of their blood and sweat, to
harass them in all the relations of life. There is no longer a
metropolis to protect them from official oppression. Power, the more
sub-divided, becomes the more tyrannical. The sword is the only symbol
of law, the cross is a weapon of offence, the bishop is a consecrated
pirate, every petty baron a burglar, while the people, alternately the
prey of duke, prelate, and seignor, shorn and butchered like sheep,
esteem it happiness to sell themselves into slavery, or to huddle beneath
the castle walls of some little potentate, for the sake of his wolfish
protection. Here they build hovels, which they surround from time to
time with palisades and muddy entrenchments; and here, in these squalid
abodes of ignorance and misery, the genius of Liberty, conducted by the
spirit of Commerce, descends at last to awaken mankind from its sloth and
cowardly stupor. A longer night was to intervene; however, before the
dawn of day.

The crown-appointed functionaries had been, of course, financial
officers. They collected the revenue of the sovereign, one third of
which slipped through their fingers into their own coffers. Becoming
sovereigns themselves, they retain these funds for their private
emolument. Four principal sources yielded this revenue: royal domains,
tolls and imposts, direct levies and a pleasantry called voluntary
contributions or benevolences. In addition to these supplies were also
the proceeds of fines. Taxation upon sin was, in those rude ages, a
considerable branch of the revenue. The old Frisian laws consisted
almost entirely of a discriminating tariff upon crimes. Nearly all the
misdeeds which man is prone to commit, were punished by a money-bote
only. Murder, larceny, arson, rape--all offences against the person
were commuted for a definite price. There were a few exceptions,