_Guildhall MSS. Journal_ 18, fol. 157, etc.

[35] 4 Hen. VII. cap. 16. By the same parliament these provisions were
extended to the rest of England. 4 Hen. VII. cap. 19.

[36] HALL, p. 863.

[37] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 22.

[38] There is a cause of difficulty "peculiar to England, the increase of
pasture, by which sheep may be now said to devour men and unpeople not only
villages but towns. For wherever it is found that the sheep yield a softer
and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even
those holy men the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their
farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do
no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the
course of agriculture.... One shepherd can look after a flock which will
stock an extent of ground that would require many hands if it were ploughed
and reaped. And this likewise in many places raises the price of corn. The
price of wool is also risen ... since, though sheep cannot be called a
monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one person; yet they are in so
few hands, and these are so rich, that as they are not prest to sell them
sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they have
raised the price as high as possible."--Sir THOMAS MORE'S _Utopia_,
Burnet's Translation, pp. 17-19.

[39] I find scattered among the _State Papers_ many loose memoranda,
apparently of privy councillors, written on the backs of letters, or on
such loose scraps as might be at hand. The following fragment on the
present subject is curious. I do not recognise the hand:--

"Mem. That an act may be made that merchants shall employ their goods
continually in the traffic of merchandise, and not in the purchasing of
lands; and that craftsmen, also, shall continually use their crafts in
cities and towns, and not leave the same and take farms in the country; and
that no merchant shall hereafter purchase above L40 lands by the
year."--_Cotton MS._ Titus, b. i. 160.

[40] When the enclosing system was carried on with greatest activity and
provoked insurrection. In expressing a sympathy with the social policy of
the Tudor government, I have exposed myself to a charge of opposing the
received and ascertained conclusions of political economy. I disclaim
entirely an intention so foolish; but I believe that the science of
political economy came into being with the state of things to which alone
it is