VII.
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 AEra, 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.