part of the family; concerning whom the ſtatutes before cited[1] have made many very good regulations; 1. Directing that all perſons who have no viſible effects may be compelled to work; 2. Defining how long they muſt continue at work in ſummer and winter: 3. Puniſhing ſuch as leave or deſert their work: 4. Empowering the juſtices at ſeſſions, or the ſheriff of the county, to ſettle their wages: and 5. Inflicting penalties on ſuch as either give, or exact, more wages than are ſo ſettled.
4. There is yet a fourth ſpecies of ſervants, if they may be ſo called, being rather in a ſuperior, a miniſterial, capacity; ſuch as ſtewards, factors, and bailiffs: whom however the law conſiders as ſervants pro tempore, with regard to ſuch of their acts, as affect their maſter's or employer's property. Which leads me to conſider,
II. The manner in which this relation, of ſervice, affects either the maſter or ſervant. And, firſt, by hiring and ſervice for a year, or apprenticeſhip under indentures, a perſon gains a ſettlement in that pariſh wherein he laſt ſerved forty days[2]. In the next place perſons, ſerving as apprentices to any trade, have an excluſive right to exerciſe that trade in any part of England[3]. This law, with regard to the excluſive part of it, has by turns been looked upon as a hard law, or as a beneficial one, according to the prevailing humour of the times: which has occaſioned a great variety of reſolutions in the courts of law concerning it; and attempts have been frequently made for it's repeal, though hitherto without ſucceſs. At common law every man might uſe what trade he pleaſed; but this ſtatute reſtrains that liberty to ſuch as have ſerved as apprentices: the adverſaries to which proviſion ſay, that all reſtrictions (which tend to introduce monopolies) are pernicious to trade; the advocates for it allege, that unſkilfulneſs in trades is equally detrimental to the public, as monopolies. This reaſon indeed only extends to ſuch trades, in the exerciſe
