280 HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

c nA p . The air was inclement; the soil was generally such as re-

-quired skilful and industrious cultivation; and there could

be little skill or industry' in a tract which was often the theatreof war, and which, even when there was nominal peace, wasconstantly desolated by bands of Scottish marauders. Beforethe union of the two British crowns, and long after thatunion, there was as great a difference between Middlesexand Northumberland as there now is between Massachusettsand the settlements of those squatters who, far to the westof the Mississippi, administer a rude justice with the rifleand the dagger. In the reign of Charles the Second, thetraces left by ages of slaughter and pillage were still distinctlyperceptible, many miles south of the Tweed, in the face ofthe country and in the lawless manners of the people. Therewas still a large class of moss-troopers, whose calling was toplunder dwellings and to drive away whole herds of cattle.It was found necessary, soon after the Restoration, to enactlaws of great severity for the prevention of these outrages.The magistrates of Northumberland and Cumberland wereauthorised to raise bands of armed men for the defence ofproperty and order; and provision was made for meeting theexpense of these levies by local taxation.* The parisheswere required to keep bloodhounds for the purpose ofhunting the freebooters. Many old men who were livingin the middle of the eighteenth century could well rememberthe time when those ferocious dogs were common.** Yet,even with such auxiliaries, it was often found impossible totrack the robbers to their retreats among the hills and mo-rasses. For the geography of that wild country was veryimperfectly known. Even after the accession of George theThird, the path over the fells from Borrowdale to Ravenglas

* Statutes 14 Car.II. c.22. ; 18&19 Car. II. c. 3.; 29& 30 Car. II. c. 2.

’* Nicholson and Bourne, Discourse on the Ancient Stale of theBorder, 1111,