The condition of the Roman populace before the erection of the tribunitial power, seems, in my judgement, to have been little better than that state of vassalage, which the peasants groan under in Poland. The relation between patron and client amongst the Romans, seems to be something analogous to the relation between lord and vassal, with this difference, that the client had the free choice of his patron, which the vassal has not with respect to the lord. At least it is certain, if we may credit the Roman historians, that their people were subject to equal, if not greater exactions and oppressions from the Patricians. How heavy these were, we may learn from the numerous mutinies, insurrections, and that great secession, which compelled the Patricians to create the tribunitial office in their favour. This new office occasioned a great revolution in their new government, and produced those perpetual conflicts between the aristocratick and democratick powers, which fill the history of that republick. The Patricians had recourse frequently to their only resource a dictator with absolute power, to defend them from the insolence of the tribunes. But this was only a temporary expedient. The people renewed their attacks, until they had abolished the distinct prerogatives arising from birth and family, and laid open all honours, even the consulship, and dictatorship, the supreme magistracy of all, to the free admission of their own body. The people were highly elated with these repeated victories, as they imagined them, over their old enemies the Patricians, but they were quickly sensible, that in fact, they were only the dupes of their ambitious leaders. The most opulent and powerful of the Plebeians, by serving the high offices of the state, acquired the title of nobles, in contradistinction to those, who were descended from the Patrician families, who still retained their ancient appellation. These new nobles, many of whom had crept into the senate, sided constantly with the Patricians in all disputes and contests with their former friends, the people, and were generally their greatest enemies. The Patricians, strengthened by this new acquisition of power, were frequently too hard for the tribunes. In those memorable contests with the two Gracchi, who endeavoured in their tribuneship to revive the Agrarian law (calculated to divide the conquered lands among the poor citizens) the dispute seems to have lain wholly between the rich and the poor: for the nobles and rich Plebeians were as unwilling to part with their land, as the Patricians. This strengthened the Patricians so much, that they were able in each of those contests, to quell the efforts of the people by force, and quash the whole affair by the death of both the Gracchi.