msecurity it was impossible the pursuits of indus try should thrive without special protection. But by the immunities granted to merchants and manufacturers of making by-laws for their own government, and of raising troops for their own defence, they were enabled to taste the blessings of order and protection, and acquired the means of enriching themselves, while the occupiers of land were languishing in poverty and servitude. The superior comforts enjoyed in towns no doubt inspired the dependents of a manor with ideas of emancipating themselves from a state in which they could scarcely obtain the necessaries, and certainly none of the conveniences of life. If in the hands of a poor cultivator, oppressed with the services of villanage, some little stock should accumulate, he would naturally conceal it with care from his master, by whom it would otherwise have been claimed, and take the first opportunity of escaping to a town. The law too was so indulgent to the inhabitants of towns, and so favourable to diminishing the authority of the lord over those of the country, that if a vassal could conceal himself from the pursuit of his lord for a year he was free for ever.

By this and similar practices, suggested perhaps originally by the hardships of servitude, and promoted by the demand for manufacturing labour, á large portion of villains were converted into the more useful class of free labourers: The number was also no doubt increased during the beginning of Edward the Third's reign from his long wars in

France, which must have obliged him to manumit many of his villains to recruit his exhausted armies. They are for the first time specifically noticed as a distinct class of people by the legislature in 1350, whose regulations, however unjust and impolitic, afford at least the important information, that la bourers in husbandry, as well as those employed at the loom, equally worked for hire.

Another cause operated favourably for the labouring classes. In 1349 the earth was visited with a dreadful pestilence, which swept from its surface nearly one-half the inhabitants. After this terrible calamity labour became extremely dear, and labourers demanded unusual wages. To remedy this evil a proclamation was issued to fix the price of labour; this not being attended to, the famous Statute of Labourers was enacted to enforce obel dience by fines and corporal punishment. The sta tute states, that since the pestilence no person would serve unless he was paid double the usual wages allowed five years before, to the great detriment of the lords and commons; it then provides that in futuré carters, ploughmen, plough-drivers, shepherds, and swineherds and other servants, should be content with such liveries and wages as they received in thè 20th year of the king's reign and two or three years before; and that in districts where they had been severally paid in wheat, they should receive wheat or money at the rate of tenpence a bushel, at the option of their employers; they were to be hired by the year and other accustomed periods, and not by

the day; weeders and haymakers were to be paid at the rate of one penny, mowers fivepence per acre, or fivepence a day; reapers during the first week in August twopence a day, and from that time till the end of the month threepence a day, without diet or other perquisite. Labourers of this description were enjoined to carry their implements of husbandry openly in their hands to market-towns, and to apply for hire in a public quarter of the town.

This unjust interference with the freedom of industry was repeatedly confirmed by succeeding parliaments; and the same erroneous principle of legislation, further extended by the law of 1363, which regulates the diet and apparel of labourers; and that of 1388, which prohibits servants from removing from one place to another; and finally, to conclude those oppressive enactments, justices of peace were empowered to fix the price of labour every Easter and Michaelmas, by proclamation.

As a specimen of the absurd system of legislation prevalent at this time, we may mention the minute regulations of the statute of 1363; which directs that artificers and servants shall be served once a day with meat and fish, or the waste of other victuals, as milk and cheese, according to their station; and that they should wear cloth of which the whole piece did not cost more than twelvepence per yard. The cloth of yeomen and tradesmen was not to cost more than one shilling and sixpence per yard. Carters, ploughmen, ox-herds, neat-herds, shepherds, and all others employed in husbandry, were to use no kind

of cloth but that called black russet, twelvepence per yard. Clothiers were commanded to manufac ture the necessary kind of cloth, and tradesmen to have a sufficient stock upon hand at the established legal prices.

It would be superfluous enlarging on a species of law-making so obviously at variance with the feelings and intelligence of the present age. It cannot, however, be denied that these enactments were in good keeping, for it was not more preposterous to fix the rate at which a labourer should work than what he should eat, or wherewithal be clothed, and one is almost surprised the legislators of the day did not descend to regulations still more minute and intrusive. One important fact may be elicited from these provisions, namely, the evidence they afford of the new social elements that had risen into importance. A great portion of the labourers had clearly extricated themselves from the grasp of their feudal masters, who in lieu of the direct power of compul sory servitude, were compelled to resort to acts of parliament, which, though partial, had the semblance of law in place of the arbitrary will of their employers.

Upon the whole it may be safely affirmed that, before the end of the fourteenth century, the benefits attendant on freedom, order and industry, had made considerable progress: there can be little doubt but that in 1400 the great mass of the people were, in comparison with their forefathers at the Conquest, rich, thriving, and independent; and although his

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torians are silent on many points which are intimately connected with an investigation of this nature, their general information will still afford us competent evidence that the sphere of domestic happiness was greatly extended. The various immunities granted to cities and boroughs, the introduction and firm establishment of the woollen manufacture, the dawning, however faint, of the polite arts, and the humanizing tendency of Christianity, are causes which must have powerfully and beneficially operated towards the amelioration of the condition of the community. It is principally to their effect that we are to ascribe the important alteration that appears to have taken place before the time of Richard II.; not only in the personal dependence, but in the political opinions of the labouring classes of society. In the insurrection of Wat Tyler, in the year 1381,. the language of the rebels, who were chiefly villains, bespeaks men not unacquainted with the essentials of rational liberty. They required from the king the abolition of slavery, freedom of commerce in markettowns, without tolls or imposts, and a fixed rent on land instead of services due by villanage. These requests (Mr. Hume observes), though extremely reasonable in themselves, the nation was not sufficiently prepared to receive, and which it were dangerous to have yielded to intimidation, were however complied with charters of manumission were granted, and although they were revoked after the rebellion was crushed, and many hundreds of the insurgents executed as traitors, it is probable that