Montesinos.—­And this I suppose began to be the case under Edward III.  The splendour of his court, and the foreign wars in which he was engaged, must have made money more necessary to the knights and nobles than it had ever been before, except during the Crusades.

Sir Thomas More.—­The wars of York and Lancaster retarded the process; but immediately after the termination of that fierce struggle it was accelerated by the rapid growth of commerce, and by the great influx of wealth from the new found world.  Under a settled and strong and vigilant government men became of less value as vassals and retainers, because the boldest barons no longer dared contemplate the possibility of trying their strength against the crown, or attempting to disturb the succession.  Four-legged animals therefore were wanted for slaughter more than two-legged ones; and moreover, sheep could be shorn, whereas the art of fleecing the tenantry was in its infancy, and could not always be practised with the same certain success.  A trading spirit thus gradually superseded the rude but kindlier principle of the feudal system:  profit and loss became the rule of conduct; in came calculation, and out went feeling.

Montesinos.—­I remember your description (for indeed who can forget it?) how sheep, more destructive than the Dragon of Wantley in those days, began to devour men and fields and houses.  The same process is at this day going on in the Highlands, though under different circumstances; some which palliate the evil, and some which aggravate the injustice.

Sir Thomas More.—­The real nature of the evil was misunderstood by my contemporaries, and for some generations afterward.  A decrease of population was the effect complained of, whereas the greater grievance was that a different and worse population was produced.

Montesinos.—­I comprehend you.  The same effect followed which has been caused in these days by the extinction of small farms.

Sir Thomas More.—­The same in kind, but greater in degree; or at least if not greater, or so general in extent, it was more directly felt.  When that ruinous fashion prevailed in your age there were many resources for the class of people who were thus thrown out of their natural and proper place in the social system.  Your fleets and armies at that time required as many hands as could be supplied; and women and children were consumed with proportionate rapidity by your manufactures.

Moreover, there was the wholesome drain of emigration open

“Facta est immensi copia mundi.”

But under the Tudors there existed no such means for disposing of the ejected population, and except the few who could obtain places as domestic servants, or employment as labourers and handicraftsmen (classes, it must be remembered, for all which the employ was diminished by the very ejectment in question), they who were turned adrift soon found themselves houseless and hopeless, and were reduced to prey upon that society which had so unwisely as well as inhumanly discarded them.