With these laws, the Malais are restless, fond of navigation, war, plunder, emigrations, colonies, desperate enterprises, adventures, and gallantry.They talk incessantly of their honour, and their bravery, while they are universally regarded, by those with whom they have intercourse, as the most treacherous ferocious people on the face of the globe; and yet, what appeared to me extremely singular, they speak the softest language of Asia.What the Count de Forbin has said, in his Memoirs, is exactly true, and is the reigning characteristic of all the Malay nations.More attached to the absurd laws of their pretended honour, than to those of justice or humanity, you always observe, that among them, the strong oppress the weak: their treaties of peace and friendship never subsisting beyond that self-interest by which they were induced to make them.They are almost always armed, and either at war among themselves, or employed in pillaging their neighbours.(12*)The remains of this feudal policy are also to be found in Turkey.The Zaims and Timariots, in the Turkish empire, are a species of vassals, who possess landed estates upon condition of their upholding a certain number of soldiers for the service of the grand seignior.The Zaims have lands of greater value than the Timariots, and are obliged to maintain a greater number of soldiers.The estates of both, are, in some cases, held during pleasure, and in others hereditary.It was computed, in the last century, that the whole militia maintained in this manner, throughout the Turkish empire, amounted to an hundred thousand men.
In the history of the ancient Persians, during the wars which they carried on with the Roman emperors, we may also discover some traces of a similar constitution of government; for it is observed that this nation had no mercenary troops, but that the whole people might be called out to war by the king, and upon the conclusion of every expedition, were accustomed to return, with their booty, to their several places of residence.
When a great and polished nation begins to relapse into its primitive rudeness and barbarism, the dominions which belong to it are in danger of falling asunder; and the same institutions may become necessary for preventing the different parts of the kingdom from being separated, which had been formerly employed in order to unite the several members of an extensive society.This was the case among the Romans in the later periods of the empire.
When the provinces became in a great measure independent, and the government was no longer able to protect them from the repeated invasions of the barbarians, the inhabitants were obliged to shelter themselves under the dominion of particular great men in their neighbourhood, whom the emperor put in possession of large estates, upon condition of their maintaining a proper armed force to defend the country.Thus, in different provinces, there arose a number of chiefs, or leaders, who enjoyed estates in land, as a consideration for the military service which they performed to the sovereign.The Abb?Du Bos has thence been led to imagine that the feudal policy of the German nations was copied from those regulations already established in the countries which they subdued.But it ought to be considered, that the growth and decay of society have, in some respects, a resemblance to each other;which independent of imitation, is naturally productive of similar manners and custom.
NOTES:
1.Odyss.lib.8, v.390.
2.Pope's Odyss.book 2, l.19.
3.See the account which is given of the forum originis, by the author of the historical law-tracts Kames; whose acute and original genius has been employed in uniting law with philosophy, and in extending the views of a gainful profession to the liberal pursuits of rational entertainment.Historical law-tracts, chap.
of courts.
4.'In every Gallic tribe, in every subdivision of the tribe, ind almost, one might say, in every household, there are rival factions controlled by men who are popularly supposed to be most influential with the group, and who therefore enjoy the last word in determining all questions of policy.This ancient practice seems to have originated in a desire to give the common folk protection against powerful individuals; for no leader will tolerate the oppression or defrauding of his supporters: if he does, his authority is gone.The same principle holds good for Gaul as a whole; for all the tribes are grouped in two factions or parties.' Caesar, de bell.Gall.lib.6, 1.See Treasurie of auncient and moderne Times, pub, 1619.
5.Different authors have entertained very different opinions concerning the primitive state of landed property, and the origin of feudal tenures, in the modern nations of Europe.The antiquaries who first turned their attention to researches on this subject, those of France in particular, living under an absolute monarchy, appear to have been strongly prepossessed by the form of government established in their own times, and their conjectures, with regard to the early state of the feudal institutions, were for a long time almost implicitly followed by later writers.They suppose that, when any of the German nations settled in a Roman province, the king seized upon all the conquered lands: that, retaining in his own possession what was sufficient to maintain the dignity of the crown, he distributed the remainder among the principal officers of his army, to be held precariously upon condition of their attending him in war.
and that these officers afterwards bestowed part of their estates upon their dependents or followers, under similar conditions of military service.
