Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/47

20 France and Spain wage on one another the most furious warfare, it would be the frontiers only of each State that would be touched, and that only at a small number of points. All the rest of the country would be quiet, and the small number of prisoners they could make on either side would be a very inadequate resource for the agriculture of any one of the three Nations.

S22
Cultivation by slaves cannot continue in the great Societies.

Thus, when men gather themselves together in great Societies, the slave-recruits cease to be sufficiently numerous to take the place of those used up by agriculture. And although the work of men is supplemented by that of beasts, there comes a time when the lands can no longer be worked by slaves. The employment of them is then retained only for domestic service; and at length it dies out entirely, because, in proportion as Nations become civilized, they enter into agreements for the exchange of prisoners of war. These conventions are arrived at the more easily, because each individual is greatly interested in removing from himself the danger of falling into slavery.

S23
Bondage to the soil follows slavery properly so-called.

The descendants of the first slaves, originally attached to the cultivation of the lands, themselves change their condition. As internal peace within the several Nations no