124

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

rather for extorting money from the subject, than for the de-fence of the common liberty against such oppressive mono-polies. Upon paying a fine to the king, the charter seemsgenerally to have been readily granted ; and when any par-ticular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as acorporation without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as theywere called, were not always disfranchised upon that account,but obliged to fine annually to the king for permission to ex-ercise their usurped privileges.* The immediate inspectionof all corporations, and of the by-laws which they mightthink proper to enact for their own government, belonged tothe town corporate in which they were established; andwhatever discipline was exercised over them, proceeded com-monly, not from the king, but from that greater incorporationof which those subordinate ones were only parts or members.

The government of towns corporate was altogether in thehands of traders and artificers; and it was the manifest in-terest of every particular class of them, to prevent the marketfrom being over-stocked, as they commonly express it, withtheir own particular species of industry; which is in realityto keep it always under-stocked. Each class was eager toestablish regulations proper for this purpose, and provided itwas allowed to do so, was willing to consent that every otherclass should do the same. In consequence of such regula-tions, indeed, each class was obliged to buy the goods theyhad occasion for from every other within the town, some-what dearer than they otherwise might have done. But inrecompense, they were enabled to sell their own just as muchdearer; so that so far it was as broad as long, as they say;and in the dealings of the different classes within the townwith one another, none of them were losers by these regu-lations. But in their dealings with the country they were allgreat gainers; and in these latter dealings consists the wholetrade which supports and enriches every town.

Every town draws its whole subsistence, and all the ma-terials of its industry from the country. It pays for thesechiefly in two ways: first, by sending back to the country apart of those materials wrought up and manufactured; inwhich case their price is augmented by the wages of the work-men, and the profits of their masters or immediate employers;secondly, by sending to it a part both of the rude and manu-factured produce, either of other countries, or of distant parts

* See Madox Finna Hurgi, p, 26, &c»