offering the king a sum, from which, if he accepted it, the citizens
were not at liberty to recede; and in either case the demand was exacted
with severity, and even cruelty. A great difference is made between
taxing them and those who cultivate lands: because, says my author,
their property is easily concealed; they live penuriously, are intent by
all methods to increase their substance, and their immense wealth is not
easily exhausted. Such was their barbarous notion of trade and its
importance. The same author, speaking of the severe taxation, and
violent method of extorting it, observes that it is a very proper
method,--and that it is very just that a degenerate officer, or other
freeman, rejecting his condition for sordid gain, should be punished
beyond the common law of freemen.

I take it that those who held by ancient demesne did not prescribe
simply not to contribute to the expenses of the knight of the shire; but
they prescribed, as they did in all cases, upon a general principle, to
pay no tax, nor to attend any duty of whatever species, because they
were the king's villains. The argument is drawn from the poverty of the
boroughs, which ever since the Conquest have been of no consideration,
and yet send members to Parliament; which they could not do, but by some
privileges inherent in them, on account of a practice of the same kind
in the Saxon times, when they were of more repute. It is certain that
many places now called boroughs were formerly towns or villages in
ancient demesne of the king, and had, as such, writs directed to them to
appear in Parliament, that they might make a free gift or benevolence,
as the boroughs did; and from thence arose the custom of summoning them.
This appears by sufficient records. And it appears by records also, that
it was much at the discretion of the sheriff what boroughs he should
return; a general writ was directed to him to return for all the
boroughs in a shire; sometimes boroughs which had formerly sent members