The blood of the ancient English was not only tainted with the breath of that destructive age, but their lands also.  The powerful blast destroyed their ancient freehold tenures, reducing them into wretched copyholds:  and to the disgrace of succeeding ages, many of them retain this mark of Norman slavery to the present day.  How defective are those laws, which give one man power over another in neutral cases?  That tend to promote quarrels, prevent cultivation, and which cannot draw the line between property and property?

Though a spirit of bravery is certainly a part of the British character, yet there are two or three periods in English history, when this noble flame was totally extinguished.  Every degree of resolution seems to have been cut off at the battle of Hastings.  The English acted contrary to their usual manner:—­Danger had often made them desperate, but now it made them humble.  This conquest is one of the most extraordinary held forth in history; the flower of nobility was wholly nipped off; the spirit of the English depressed, and having no head to direct, or hand to cultivate the courage of the people and lead it into action, it dwindled at the root, was trampled under the foot of tyranny, and, according to Smollet, several generations elapsed before any one of the old English stock blossomed into peerage.

It is curious to contemplate the revolution of things—­Though the conquering Romans flood first in the annals of same at the beginning of the Christian era, yet they were a whole century in carrying their illustrious arms over the island, occupied only by a despicable race of Britons.  Though the Saxons were invited, by one false step in politics, to assist the Britons in expelling an enemy, which gave them an opportunity of becoming enemies themselves; yet it was 130 years before they could complete their conquest.  And though the industrious Dane poured incessant numbers of people into Britain, yet it cost them 200 years, and 150,000 men before they reduced it.  But William, at one blow, finished the dreadful work, shackled her sons to his throne, and governed them with a sceptre of iron.  Normandy, a petty dukedom, very little larger than Yorkshire, conquered a mighty nation in one day.  England seems to have been taken by storm, and her liberties put to the sword:  Nor did the miseries of this ill-fated kingdom end here, for the continental dominions, which William annexed to the crown, proved a whirlpool for 400 years, which drew the blood and treasure of the nation into its vortex, ’till those dominions were fortunately lost in the reign of Mary the First.

Thus the Romans spent one century in acquiring a kingdom, which they governed for four.  The Saxons spent 130 years, and ruled for 459.  The Danes spent 200 and reigned for 25—­But the Norman spent one day only, for a reign of 700 years:  They continue to reign still.

It is easy to point out some families of Norman race, who yet enjoy the estates won by their ancestors at the battle of Hastings.