of Siberia, in general, are servile and timid.] They have, in more
instances, fallen into that species of corruption which we have already
described in treating of barbarous nations; they have made rapine their
trade, not merely as a species of warfare, or with a view to enrich their
community, but to possess, in property, what they learned to prefer even to
the ties of affection or of blood.

In the lowest state of commercial arts, the passions for wealth, and for
dominion, have exhibited scenes of oppression or servility, which the most
finished corruption of the arrogant, the cowardly, and the mercenary,
founded on the desire of procuring, or the fear of losing, a fortune, could
not exceed. In such cases, the vices of men, unrestrained by forms, and
unawed by police, are suffered to riot at large, and to produce their
entire effects. Parties accordingly unite, or separate, on the maxims of a
gang of robbers; they sacrifice to interest the tenderest affections of
human nature. The parent supplies the market for slaves, even by the sale
of his own children; the cottage ceases to be a sanctuary for the weak and
the defenceless stranger; and the rights of hospitality, often so sacred
among nations in their primitive state, come to be violated, like every
other tie of humanity, without fear or remorse. [Footnote: Chardin's
travels through Mingrelia into Persia.]

Nations which, in later periods of their history, became eminent for civil
wisdom and justice, had, perhaps, in a former age, paroxysms of lawless
disorder, to which this description might in part be applied. The very
policy by which they arrived at their degree of national felicity, was
devised as a remedy for outrageous abuse. The establishment of order was
dated from the commission of rapes and murders; indignation, and private
revenge, were the principles on which nations proceeded to the expulsion of
tyrants, to the emancipation of mankind, and the full explanation of their