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other part of the produce of the farm, by the c HAP. abfurd laws against engroffers, regraters, and foreftallers, and by the privileges of fairs and markets. It has already been observed in what manner the prohibition of the exportation of corn, together with fome encouragement given to the importation of foreign corn, obstructed the cultivation of ancient Italy, naturally the moft fertile country in Europe, and at that time the feat of the greatest empire in the world. To what degree fuch restraints upon the inland commerce of this commodity, joined to the general prohibition of exportation, must have difcòuraged the cultivation of countries less fertile, and lefs favourably circumftanced, it is not perhaps very easy to imagine.

CHA P. III.

Of the Rife and Progrefs of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire.

HE inhabitants of cities and towns were,

TH

after the fall of the Roman empire, not more favoured than thofe of the country. They confifted, indeed, of a very different order of people from the first inhabitants of the ancient republics of Greece and Italy. These last were compofed chiefly of the proprietors of lands, among whom the public territory was originally divided, and who found it convenient to build their

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BOOK their houses in the neighbourhood of one ano→ III. ther, and to furround them with a wall, for the fake of common defence. After the fall of the Roman empire, on the contrary, the proprietors of land feem generally to have lived in fortified caftles on their own eftates, and in the midst of their own tenants and dependants. The towns were chiefly inhabited by tradefmen and mechanics, who feem in those days to have been of fervile, or very nearly of fervile condition. The privileges which we find granted by ancient charters to the inhabitants of fome of the principal towns in Europe, fufficiently fhew what they were before thofe grants. The people to whom it is granted as a privilege, that they might give away their own daughters in marriage without the confent of their lord, that upon their death their own children, and not their lord, fhould fucceed to their goods, and that they might difpofe of their own effects by will, muft, before thofe grants, have been either altogether, or very nearly in the fame ftate of villanage with the occupiers of land in the country.

THEY feem, indeed, to have been a very poor, mean fet of people, who ufed to travel about with their goods from place to place, and from fair to fair, like the hawkers and pedlars of the prefent times. In all the different countries of Europe then, in the fame manner as in feveral of the Tartar governments of Afia at prefent, taxes ufed to be levied upon the perfons and goods of travellers, when they paffed through certain manors, when they went over certain bridges, when

they

they carried about their goods from place to place CHA P. in a fair, when they erected in it a booth or ftall to fell them in. Thefe different taxes were known in England by the names of paffage, pontage, laftage, and ftallage. Sometimes the king, fometimes a great lord, who had, it feems, upon fome occafions, authority to do this, would grant to particular traders, to fuch particularly as lived in their own demefnes, a general exemption from fuch taxes. Such traders, though in other refpects of fervile, or very nearly of fervile condition, were upon this account called Free-traders. They in return usually paid to their protector a fort of annual poll-tax. In those days protection was feldom granted without a valuable confideration, and this tax might, perhaps, be confidered as compensation for what their patrons might lofe by their exemption from other taxes. At first, both thofe poll-taxes and thofe exemptions feem to have been altogether perfonal, and to have affected only particular individuals, during either their lives, or the pleasure of their protectors. In the very imperfect accounts which have been published from Domesday-book, of feveral of the towns of England, mention is frequently made fometimes of the tax which particular burghers paid, each of them, either to the king, or to fome other great lord, for this fort of protection; and fometimes of the general amount only of all thofe taxes*.

See Brady's hiftorical treatife of Cities and Burroughs, P. 3, &c.

BUT how fervile foever may have been originally the condition of the inhabitants of the towns, it appears evidently, that they arrived at liberty and independency much earlier than the occupiers of land in the country. That part of the king's revenue which arofe from fuch poll-taxes in any particular town, used commonly to be let in farm, during a term of years for a rent certain, fometimes to the fheriff of the county, and fometimes to other perfons. The burghers themselves frequently got credit enough to be admitted to farm the revenues of this fort which arofe out of their own town, they becoming jointly and severally anfwerable for the whole rent *. To let a farm in this manner was quite agreeable to the ufual œconomy of, I believe, the fovereigns of all the different countries of Europe; who used frequently to let whole manors to all the tenants of those manors, they becoming jointly and feverally answerable for the whole rent; but in return being allowed to collect it in their own way, and to pay it into the king's exchequer by the hands of their own bailiff, and being thus altogether freed from the infolence of the king's officers; a circumftance in those days regarded as of the greatest importance.

At first, the farm of the town was probably let to the burghers, in the fame manner as it had been to other farmers, for a term of years only. In procefs of time, however, it seems to

See Madox Firma Burgi, p. 18. alfo Hiftory of the Exchequer, chap. 10. fect. v. p. 223, first edition.

have become the general practice to grant it to them in fee, that is for ever, referving a rent certain never afterwards to be augmented. The payment having thus become perpetual, the exemptions, in return, for which it was made, naturally became perpetual too. Thofe exemptions, therefore, ceased to be personal, and could not afterwards be confidered as belonging to indiv duals as individuals, but as burghers of a particular burgh, which, upon this account, was called a Free burgh, for the fame reafon that they had been called Free-burghers or Freetraders.

ALONG with this grant, the important privileges above mentioned, that they might give away their own daughters in marriage, that their children fhould fucceed to them, and that they might difpofe of their own effects by will, were generally bestowed upon the burghers of the town to whom it was given. Whether fuch privileges had before been ufually granted along with the freedom of trade, to particular burghers, as individuals, I know not. I reckon it not improbable that they were, though I cannot produce any direct evidence of it. But however this may have been, the principal attributes of villanage and flavery being thus taken away from them, they now, at least, became really free in our prefent fense of the word Freedom.

CHAP.

NOR was this all. They were generally at the fame time erected into a commonalty or corporation, with the privilege of having magiftrates and a town-council of their own, of making

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