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DECLINE OF THE

CHAP. VII.

open the communication with, and to conveyreci'uits to, the legions quartered in the British islands.

This contraction of naval intercourse naturallytended to diminish the numbers of that classof slaves which war and commerce had beforebrought to Rome from Arabia, from Egypt , fromCarthage, and other parts of the African conti-nent, as well as'from the islands in the Mediter-ranean sea. Slaves thus became scarce in Rome .They naturally increased in value. They be-came an object for luxurious gratification, andmuch too costly to be employed in offices so de-grading and so unprofitable as those of removingvast masses of earth and rocks to discover afew scattered particles of gold and silver. Asthe importation of slaves was checked, it becameprofitable to breed, rear, and educate them; andthe speculation of training up an expeditiousand correct amanuensis, a bookkeeper skilled inaccounts, a cook capable of producing luxuriousdelicacies, or a learned tutor for the rising ge-neration, must have presented more powerfulinducements than could be offered by any im-portation of rude and uncultivated savages, who,though possessed of the form and the strengthof human beings, were but little better in adroit-ness, in docility, or in disposition to labour, thanthe domestic animals.

The inducement to rear and educate slaves