Page:Political Tracts.djvu/202

 Columbus came five or ix hundred years too late for the candidates of overeignty. When he formed his project of dicovery, the fluctuations of military turbulence had ubided, and Europe began to regain a ettled form, by etablihed government and regular ubordination. No man could any longer erect himelf into a chieftain, and lead out his fellow-ubjects by his own authority to plunder or to war. He that committed any act of hotility by land or ea, without the commiion of ome acknowledged overeign, was conidered by all mankind as a robber or a pirate, names which were now of little credit, and of which therefore no man was ambitious.

in a remoter time would have found his way to ome dicontented Lord, or ome younger brother of a petty Sovereign, who would have taken fire at his propoal, and have quickly kindled with