ater, and again under Richard II in 1391;
and their right to carry away one-half the value of their imports in
money, spending the other half in English commodities, in 1401.

This general right of trade may be defined as the right of any man
to work at what trade he chose, and to buy or sell what and where he
will, in the cheapest market. This right was indeed fundamental and
needed no express statute. But all these laws concerning by-laws or
combinations to prevent people from exercising their trade, or showing
what were the liberties of trade in London and other towns (of which
there are many) are exemplifications of it. That this law is far older
than the statutes is well shown by an actual law report of a case
decided in 1221 and first published by the Selden Society in 1877:

"The Abbot of Lilleshall complains that the bailiffs of Shrewsbury
do him many injuries against his liberty, and that they have caused
proclamation to be made in the town that none be so bold as to sell
any merchandise to the Abbot or his men upon pain of forfeiting ten
shillings, and that Richard Peche, the bedell of the said town, made
this proclamation by their orders. And the bailiffs defend all of it,
and Richard likewise defends all of it and that he never heard any
such proclamation made by anyone. It is considered that he do defend
himself twelve-handed (with eleven compurgators), and do come on
Saturday with his law."

This is a remarkable report, for in twelve lines (ten lines of the law
Latin) we have here set forth all the important principles of the law
of boycott. The abbot complains that the Shrewsbury people do him
many injuries "against his liberty," _i.e._, the abbot claims a
constitutional right to freely conduct his own business; then we have
the recognition of the threat of a boycott as a particularly illegal
act: "They have caused _proclamation_ to be made that none sell
merchandise to the abbot." This is nothing but our modern "unfair
list." The defendants admit the illegality of their conspiracy,
because they deny it as a fact; and the bedell likewise denies that he
ever made such proclamation or threat, whereupon (the plaintiff being
a man of the church) they are set to trial by wager of law instead of
by actual battle, neither party nor the court making any question of
the illegality both of the conspiracy and of the act complained of.

There is no question then that all contracts in unreasonable restraint
of tra