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 lous at that time than they are at present. Religion, by allowing the men a plurality of wives, gave them an opportunity of furnishing the state with more subjects. The women themselves knew no reproach but that of sterility or idleness; and being as strong and as laborious as the men, they bore children faster and for a longer time. Sweden, however, with that part of Finland which it still retains, does not contain above four millions of inhabitants. The soil is poor and barren; Schonen is the only province that bears wheat. The current coin of the kingdom does not exceed nine millions of livres. The public bank, which is the oldest in Europe, was at first established from mere necessity; the copper and iron, in which their payments were formerly made, being too heavy to be transported.

Sweden preserved its freedom without interruption to the middle of the fourteenth century. During that long period, the form of government was more than once altered; but all these alterations were in favor of liberty. The first magistrate was invested with the name of king, a title which, in different countries, is attended with very different degrees of power. In France and Spain it signifies an absolute monarch; in Poland, Sweden, and England, it means the first man of the republic. This king could do nothing without the senate; and the senate depended upon the States-General, which were frequently assembled. The representatives of the nation, in these grand assemblies, were the gentry, the bishops, and the deputies of the towns; and in process of time, the very peasants, a class of people unjustly despised in other places, and sub-