nt imposts which
they extorted from natives and foreigners under the various titles of
tolls, customs, highway rates, escort money, bridge tolls, market fees,
escheats, and so forth, were too valuable considerations to allow them
to remain indifferent to the sources from which they were derived..
Their own rapacity made them promoters of trade, and, as often happens,
barbarism itself rudely nursed it, until at last a healthier policy
assumed its place. In the course of time they invited the Lombard
merchants to settle among them, and accorded to the towns some valuable
privileges and an independent jurisdiction, by which the latter acquired
uncommon extraordinary credit and influence. The numerous wars which
the counts and dukes carried on with one another, or with their
neighbors, made them in some measure dependent on the good-will of the
towns, who by their wealth obtained weight and consideration, and for
the subsidies which they afforded failed not to extort important
privileges in return. These privileges of the commonalties increased as
the crusades with their expensive equipment augumented the necessities
of the nobles; as a new road to Europe was opened for the productions of
the East, and as wide-spreading luxury created new wants to their
princes. Thus as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries we find in
these lands a mixed form of governmeut, in which the prerogative of the
sovereign is greatly limited by the privileges of the estates; that is
to say, of the nobility, the clergy, and the municipalities.

These, under the name of States, assembled as often as the wants of the
province required it. Without their consent no new laws were valid, no
war could be carried on, and no taxes levied, no change made in the
coinage, and no foreigner admitted to any office of government. All the
provinces enjoyed these privileges in common; others were peculiar to
the various districts. The supreme government was hereditary, but the
son did not enter on the rights of his father before he had solemnly
sworn to maintain the existing constitution.

Necessity is the first lawgiver; all the wants which had to be met by
this constitution were originally of a commercial nature. Thus the
whole constitution was founded on commerce, and the laws of the nation
were adapted to its pursuits. The last clause, which excluded
foreigners from all offices of trust, was a natural consequence of the
preceding articles. So complicated a