First, the eſtabliſhment of public marts, or places of buying and ſelling, ſuch as markets and fairs, with the tolls thereunto belonging. Theſe can only be ſet up by virtue of the king's grant, or by long and immemorial uſage and preſcription, which preſuppoſes ſuch a grant[1]. The limitation of theſe public reſorts, to ſuch time and ſuch place as may be moſt convenient for the neighbourhood, forms a part of economics, or domeſtic polity; which, conſidering the kingdom as a large family, and the king as the maſter of it, he clearly has a right to diſpoſe and order as he pleaſes.
Secondly, the regulation of weights and meaſures. Theſe, for the advantage of the public, ought to be univerſally the ſame throughout the kingdom; being the general criterions which reduce all things to the ſame or an equivalent value. But, as weight and meaſure are things in their nature arbitrary and uncertain, it is therefore expedient that they be reduced to ſome fixed rule or ſtandard: which ſtandard it is impoſſible to fix by any written law or oral proclamation; for no man can, by words only, give another an adequate idea of a foot-rule, or a pound-weight. It is therefore neceſſary to have recourſe to ſome viſible, palpable, material ſtandard; by forming a compariſon with which, all weights and meaſures may be reduced to one uniform ſize: and the prerogative of fixing this ſtandard, our antient law veſted in the crown; as in Normandy it belonged to the duke[2]. This ſtandard was originally kept at Wincheſter: and we find in the laws of king Edgar[3], near a century before the conqueſt, an injunction that the one meaſure, which was kept at Wincheſter, ſhould be obſerved throughout the realm. Moſt nations have regulated the ſtandard of meaſures of length by compariſon with the parts of the human body; as the palm, the hand, the ſpan, the foot, the cubit, the ell, (ulna, or arm) the pace, and the fathom. But, as theſe are of different dimenſions in men of diffe-
