very attempt at disobedience was punished with
severity. The chief warded off all principles dangerous to his own
monopoly of power. All struggles for general liberty were crushed with
an unrelenting hand. The great and only desire of the Baron was to
perpetuate the then existing system. Every attempt at amelioration was
alike inimical to his wishes and power.

The feudal dominion was also extremely prejudicial to the nation in the
inveterate hostility which it manifested to commerce, agriculture, and
productive industry. Military power and strength being its chief aim,
all pursuits which tended to divert the people from martial exercises and
display were discouraged by the feudal chiefs. Hence the cultivation and
improvement of the soil was but feebly prosecuted, while the pursuits of
commerce and mercantile enterprise were opposed and repressed, from a
suspicion of their antagonism to the feudal dominion. The Baron
delighted in extensive chases, and parks studded with trees, and covered
with brushwood, where game might take refuge; and in vast forests and
barren uplands, where the deer and the hare might wander undisturbed;
while the furrow of the corn-field and the hedge-row were restricted to
the smallest dimensions consistent with the necessities of the population
of the manor. The hound was more valued than the sheep-dog; the
fowling-piece than the sickle; while herds of wild deer browsing the
slopes were more estimated than the oxen on the plain. The huntsman and
gamekeeper held higher rank than the ploughman and reaper; while all the
prizes of ambition lay open to martial enterprise alone.

But to none was the hostility of the feudal chiefs more rancorous than to
the pursuits of commerce. The most odious of sights was the tall chimney
of a manufactory peering through the oak and elm of the chase; while the
pollution of mills and workshops on the banks of pellucid streams was not
to be borne. The mines of the mountain were closed, lest their produce
might destroy the salmon and trout of the rivers; while houses and ships
were left unbuilt, that the forests be not denuded of their stately
timber.

The hostility of the feudal chiefs to mercantile progress was the more
inveterate, from a feeling and knowledge of its antagonism to their own
irresponsible power. Every manufactory which was set up bore a brow of
hostility to the castle; while every town was in feud with the manor. In
every war or tumult