The different degrees were those social of slave, freedman, tenant-farmer and great landowner.
By this law a tenant-farmer is able to bequeath his farm, that is to say, he holds his lease in perpetuity.
He was the first tenant farmer to represent a Scottish constituency, and was returned to parliament, unopposed, as Liberal member for the western division of Aberdeen in 1868.
His father, Vincenzo, a tenant farmer on a large scale at La Manziana, had taken part in the defence of the Roman Republic under Garibaldi in 1849, was exiled by Pius IX., and reentered Rome in 1870 through the breach of Porta Pia.
