Our Legal Heritage Part 106

The capitalist organization of the mining, gla.s.s manufacture, salt, soap, wire and other monopolized industries was made possible only by government support. Salt and gla.s.s manufacture expanded. Gla.s.s drinking vessels were in common use. Mirrors of blown plate gla.s.s were manufactured in England. In 1670, Vauxhall gla.s.s works were opened with workmen brought from Venice to blow their fine gla.s.s and make mirrors.

Some plate gla.s.s by casting was imported. Plate gla.s.s was a large and strong gla.s.s piece, which was formed by the liquid gla.s.s being poured on a table. This gla.s.s was not distorted, so mirrors could be made perfectly reflective. Then plate gla.s.s for coaches, mirrors, and windows became manufactured in England; this new industry was organized on capitalist lines.

The domestic or "putting out" system came into use. In this system, the worker usually owned his own machinery and the capitalist owned the material, which he put out to the worker at home. The merchant manufacturer bought raw wool and had it carded, spun, woven, fulled, and dressed at his own expense. Some farmers became spinners in the winter when outside work was impossible. The manufacture of nails was also done by this system. Accordingly, the guilds and munic.i.p.al corporations in towns ceased to control the recruiting, conditions of work, and pay of industries. Only a quarter of 200 towns had any organized guilds at all.

The growing town of Birmingham was not a chartered borough, so never was enc.u.mbered with guild regulations. Overall, the guild and apprentice regulations were effectively enforced only in agriculture work. Artisans became known as tradesmen. Work was usually irregular, some seasonal. In bad years, when a worker had to borrow money, he used work tools, such as his loom, as security. In this way, one's work tools often became the property of a merchant. Some merchant clothiers also owned a fulling mill and a shop where the cloth was sold. The capitalists first became owners of the materials, then of the implements, and then of the work places. But production was still confined to the known wants of its habitual market. Men used to working at home were generally not inclined to go to work in a factory. So there was an a.s.sortment of unskilled factory labor, such as country people driven from their villages by the growth of large estates, disbanded soldiers, and paupers. They had to be taught, trained, and above all disciplined.

Smiths used trip hammers powered by watermills which turned axles with cams on them. They made iron gates, fences, balconies, and staircases with hammer, anvil, and chisel. Cast iron was made by running liquefied metal into molds. This was harder but more brittle than the tough but malleable wrought iron. Tinkers went from house to house to repair metal items such as pots and pans.

The East India Company had about half the trade of the nation. Its shares were frequently bought and sold. It responded to anger over its semi-monopoly status by granting liberty to all English subjects below the age of forty to live in its Indian settlements and to trade practically everywhere. Bombay, India became subject to the East India Company. Charters gave the East India Company the right to coin money, to exercise jurisdiction over English subjects, to levy taxes, to build and command fortresses, to command English and Indian troops, to make peace and war, and to enter into alliances with Indian rulers. The Company always paid high dividends and the market price of its shares generally rose. 100 pound stock was worth 130 pounds in 1669, 245 pounds in 1677, 280 pounds in 1681, 360 and even up to 500 pounds in 1683, and then fell to 190 pounds in 1692. In 1693 a new charter for the Company included loss of monopoly status by resolution of the Commons. With this resolution, Parliament a.s.sumed the right of regulating commerce, now no longer the king's province. Thereafter the Commons regulated trade with India and determined who could partic.i.p.ate in trade there. Political issues developed, which initiated corruption at elections by entertainment and bribes to candidates, which were later proscribed. The trade opened up to many more traders and investors. Ordinary investors came to include women and Quakers. The Stock Exchange was incorporated about 1694.

Exports included grain, silk, metal wares, foodstuffs, lead, and tin.

Cloth and manufactures were exported to America. Dyeing and dressing of cloth became the norm and undressed cloth exports fell sharply. Imports included linen; flax; hemp; timber; iron; raw, thrown, and woven silk; wine; brandy; fruit; coffee; chocolate, served as a drink or used in cooking; cauliflower; and oil. From America came mola.s.ses, sugar, tobacco, and dyes. Sugar was in great demand for tea, coffee, and chocolate. The East India Company imported calico, silk, pepper, spices, China tea, potions, and saltpeter. Tonnage of English s.h.i.+pping doubled by 1688 Exports and imports increased 50% by 1700.

When there was a surplus of grain, it was exported. About 1696, the king set up a board of trade of eight paid members and great officers of state, who nominally belonged to it, and a staff. This was to achieve a favorable balance of trade. For instance, it imposed tariffs to protect internal markets and put restraints on imports of goods producible in the country, e.g. live cattle, dairy products, and woolen goods. It also restricted the export of raw wool. England led the way in protectionist measures.

Parliament required an oath of allegiance to the new sovereigns William and Mary from all those in public functions, including the clergy. By extending this rule to the clergy, Parliament a.s.serted a supremacy of Parliament over the church. It also a.s.serted a supremacy over the king by requiring all monarchs to take a coronation oath promising to govern according to the statutes, laws, and customs of Parliament, to make judgments with law and justice in mercy, and to maintain the Protestant religion established by law.

England competed with other nations for land in the New World.

Carolina, named for Charles II, was colonized for commerce in 1663. The Episcopal Church, an a.n.a.logue of the Church of England, was established there by law. The whole coast became English after war with the Netherlands gave New York, named for Charles II's brother the Duke of York, and New Jersey to England in 1667. Presbyterians and Baptists fled from religious tests and persecutions in England to colonize New Jersey.

For free pa.s.sage to the English colonies, people became indentured servants, agreeing to serve the master of the s.h.i.+p or his a.s.signs with a certain kind of labor for a term of a few years according to a written contract made before departure. Also, various statutes made transportation to any part of America available to any person who would pay for his transportation, for a term of years, usually seven, as a new possible penalty for offenses. In 1636, Harvard College was founded in New England to advance literature, arts, and sciences, as well as to train ministers. Some American colonists sent their sons to be educated at the Inns of Court in London.

In 1682, Quaker William Penn, son of an Admiral, founded the colony of Pennsylvania for Quakers in a "Holy Experiment" in political and religious freedom. The king had granted proprietary rights to this land to him to discharge a Crown debt to his father. When Penn refused to take off his hat before King Charles and asked why Charles took off his own, Charles, unruffled, replied that "It's the custom of this place that only one man should remain uncovered at a time". The Pennsylvania Charter of 1701 went beyond Magna Carta and England's law in guaranteeing right to counsel and giving a right to defendants to summon witnesses in all criminal cases. It gave Penn absolute authority and he established liberty of conscience, i.e.freedom of religion, and freedom from arbitrary arrest. In 1751, some Quakers founded a small hospital in Pennsylvania as an asylum for the insane, where they would be treated humanely.

Proprietary colonies, in which an individual or syndicate held under the crown a sort of feudal overlords.h.i.+p, were founded in America: namely, Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, New York and New Jersey in 1663, and Pennsylvania and Delaware in 1682. New Hamps.h.i.+re was made a royal province in 1680 to cut off the expansion of Ma.s.sachusetts, which had been avoiding the trade laws. These colonies were distinguished from the corporate colonies of Ma.s.sachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, which made their own arrangements for internal government without a royal executive. Charles persuaded the Chancery Court to declare the charter of Ma.s.sachusetts void; it was given a new charter in 1691 which made it a royal province. New York was made a royal province in 1691. Maryland's proprietor gave way to a royal governor in 1692.

Soon all colonies except Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania were royal provinces, with governors nominated by the Crown. This bringing of union to the colonies was done for maintenance of order, to coordinate defense, and to enforce trade laws.

In 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated to engage in fur trade with Indian trappers in the Hudson Bay and to find a northwest pa.s.sage to China.

In 1701 the founding of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts" by the Church of England created many missionaries in the colonies, where they called their churches "Episcopalian".

Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather were Puritan ministers in colonial Boston. Increase was for a time the President of Harvard College and partic.i.p.ated in obtaining the new charter of colonial Ma.s.sachusetts of 1691. He and his son tried to maintain the principles of the Puritan founders of Ma.s.sachusetts, which included the theories of diabolical possession and witchcraft. But the thought of Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists became influential also. In 1692 in the small town of Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, some hysterical girls showing strange spasms and sounds charged they had been bewitched by certain other residents. Victims were deceived, flogged, or tortured into forced confessions and then excommunicated from the church. They were then hanged and their property confiscated. One man endured being pressed to death for refusal to plead so that his property would be inherited by his family rather than confiscated due to being convicted. Eventually, some prominent citizens including judges were accused. Then the more thoughtful people began to doubt the whole phenomenon and admitted error. The excommunications were revoked. Cotton Mather came to accept Newton's science and advocated inoculation. He encouraged Puritanism into a simpler piety and charity. This influenced American Protestantism toward a generalized concern with good works, morality, and social leaders.h.i.+p.

- The Law -

Treason to the king is to compa.s.s, imagine, or intend death or any bodily harm tending to death, or maiming or wounding, or imprisonment, or restraint as well as trying to depose him or levy war against him.

Also included is printing, writing, preaching, or malicious speaking.

Traitors shall suffer death and forfeiture as in high treason.

The fine for having, buying, or selling clipped coins is 500 pounds, one-half going to the informer, and one-half going to the king. The offender shall also be branded in the right cheek with the letter "R".

He shall be imprisoned until he pays the 500 pounds. No hammered coins are lawful. Anyone except a smith in the king's mint making tools or presses or other machines that can make counterfeit coins or having such which were stolen from the mint shall be guilty of high treason.

Any malicious and willful burning or destroying of stacks of hay, grain, or barns, or killing any horses, sheep, or cattle at nighttime shall be felony and punished by transportation to the American colonies for seven years.

Any person apprehending a thief or robber on the highway will be rewarded 40 pounds from the local sheriff, to discourage the many robberies and murders which have made travel dangerous. Also, executors of persons murdered while trying to apprehend a robber shall have the reward.

Anyone killing, hurting, or taking away deer from any forest or park or other ground without consent of the owner or custodian shall pay a 20 pound fine. This was later increased to 20 pounds for hunting deer and 30 pounds for wounding or killing deer, with the pillory for one hour on market day and gaol for a year without bail for those who couldn't pay.

Any person privately and feloniously stealing any goods, including horses, by day or night, in any shop, warehouse, coach stable, or stable, whether there is a break-in or not, and whether or not the owner is present, or anyone a.s.sisting or hiring such person may not have benefit of clergy. Any person who apprehends and prosecutes such person is excused from having to serve in parish and ward offices. An offender being out of prison who informs against two other offenders who are convicted is to be pardoned. Any person convicted of theft or larceny and having benefit of clergy is to be burnt in the cheek nearest the nose instead of on the hand.

When a bill of exchange drawn to at least five pounds is not paid on demand at the time it is made payable, the person who accepted it may make a protest in writing before a notary public, which shall be served on the maker of such bill, who must pay it and all interest and charges from the date of the protest. But if a bill of exchange is lost or miscarried, another shall be given in its place.

No one may take more than 6 pounds in interest for a 100 pound loan.

Persons seeking election to Parliament may not give or promise money, meat, drink, entertainment, present or gift to any elector.