They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a cypher--or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery
Cypher
"A person who fills a place, but is of no importance or worth, a nonentity, a ‘mere nothing’ "
"cipher | cypher, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2020, www.oed.com/view/Entry/33155. Accessed 9 September 2020.