356 THE YOUNG AMERICAN

can, by kindness, maintenance, and gifts; and as
long as war lasts, the nobles, who must be soldiers,
rule very Well. But when peace comes, the nobles
prove very whimsical and uncomfortable masters ;
their frolics turn out to be insulting and degrading
to the commoner. Feudalism grew to be a bandit
and brigand.

Meantime Trade had begun to appear: Trade, a
plant which grows wherever there is peace, as soon
as there is peace, and as long as there is peace.
The luxury and necessity of the noble fostered it.
And as quickly as men go to foreign parts in ships
0r caravans, a new order of things springs up ; new
command takes place, new servants and new mas-
ters. Their information, their wealth, their corre-
spondence, have made them quite other men than
left their native shore. They are nobles now, and
by another patent than the king’s. Feudalism
had been good, had broken the power of the kings,
and had some good traits of its own; but it had
grown mischievous, it was time for it to die, and as
they say of dying people, all its faults came out.
Trade was the strong man that broke it down and
raised a new and unknown power in its place. It
is a new agent in the world, and one of great func-
tion; it is a very intellectual force. This displaces
physical strength and instals computation, combin-
ation, information, science, in its room. It calls