Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/48

Rh longer leaves commerce the wherewithal to satisfy an excessive consumption of slaves, the masters are obliged to show them more consideration. Those who are born in the house, as they are accustomed from infancy to their condition, are less irritated by it, and the masters have less need to employ severity in order to control them. Little by little the soil they cultivate becomes their fatherland. They have no other language than that of their masters; they become part of the same Nation; they get to be personally acquainted with one another, and, as a result, the masters begin to act with confidence and humanity towards them.

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''Vassalage succeeds bondage to the soil, & the slave becomes proprietor. Third method: alienation of the estate in return for a fixed payment.''

The administration of an estate cultivated by slaves requires an onerous care and an irksome residence. The master secures for himself a freer, easier, and safer enjoyment of his property by interesting his slaves in the cultivation of it, and giving up to each of them a certain extent of ground on condition of their paying him a portion of the fruits. Some have made this bargain for a time, and have left to their serfs only a precarious and revocable possession. Others have abandoned the estate in perpetuity, reserving an annual rent from it, payable in kind or in money, and exacting from the possessors the performance of certain duties. Those who receive these lands under the