enacted, with the addition of some new regulations, by the present militia laws; the general scheme of which is to discipline a certain number of the inhabitants of every county, chosen by lot for three years; and officered by the lord lieutenant, the deputy lieutenants, and other principal landholders, under a commission from the crown. They are not compellable to march out of their own counties, unless, in case of invasion, or actual rebellion within the realm or any of its dominions or territories, nor in any case compellable to march out of the kingdom. They are to be exercised at stated times; and their discipline, in general, is liberal and easy; but, when drawn out into actual service, they are subject to the rigours of martial law, as necessary to keep them in order. This is the constitutional security which our laws have provided for the public peace, and for protecting the realm against foreign or domestic violence.

The petition of right enacts, that no soldier shall be quartered on the subject without his consent; and that no commission shall issue to proceed within this land according to martial law. And whereas, after the restoration, king Charles the Second kept up above five thousand regular troops, by his own authority, for guards and garrisons; which king James the Second by degrees increased to no less than thirty thousand, all paid from the civil list it was made one of the articles of the bill of rights, that the raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of parliament, is against law.

But as the fashion of keeping standing armies, which was first introduced by Charles VII. in France, A. D. 1445, has, of late years, universally prevailed over Europe: it has also, for many years past, been annually judged necessary by our legislature, for the safety of the kingdom, the defence of the possessions of the crown of Great Britain, and the preservation of the balance of power in Europe, to maintain, even in time of peace, a standing body of troops, under the command of the crown; who are, however, ipso facto disbanded at the expiration of every year, unless continued by parliament.

To keep this body of troops in order, an annual act of parliament likewise passes, "to punish mutiny and desertion, and for the better payment of the army and their quarters." This regulates the manner in which they are to

be dispersed among the several innkeepers and victuallers throughout the kingdom; and establishes a law martial for their government. By this, among other things, it is enacted, that if any officer or soldier shall excite, or join any mutiny, or, knowing of it, shall not give notice to the commanding officer; or shall desert or list in any other regiment, or sleep upon his post, or leave it before he is relieved, or hold correspondence with a rebel or enemy, or strike or use violence to his superior officer, or shall disobey his lawful commands; such offender shall suffer such punishment as a court martial shall inflict, though it extend to death itself.

The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence and ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating bulwark of the island; an army from which, however strong and powerful, no danger can ever be apprehended to liberty; and accordingly it has been assiduously cultivated, even from the earliest ages. To so much perfection was our naval reputation arrived in the twelfth century, that the code of maritime laws, which are called the laws of Oleron, and are received by all nations in Europe as the ground and substruction of all their marine constitutions, was confessedly compiled by our king Richard the First, at the isle of Oleron on the coast of France, then part of the possessions of the crown of England. And yet, so vastly inferior were our ancestors in this point to the present age, that, even in the maritime reign of queen Elizabeth, sir Edward Coke thinks it matter of boast that the royal navy of England then consisted of three-andthirty ships. The present condition of our marine is in great measure owing to the salutary provisions of the statutes called the navigation acts; whereby the constant increase of English shipping and seamen was not only encouraged, but rendered unavoidably necessary *.

The method of ordering seamen in the royal fleet, and keeping up a regular discipline there, is directed by certain express rules, articles, and orders, first enacted by the

The present Navigation Act is the stat. 3 & 4 W. 4. cap. 54. Its provisions, together with those of the Ship Registry Act, passed in the same session, will be found abridged and explained in Smith's Compendium of Mercantile Law, p. 87. There are two very recent Acts for the regulation and encouragement of seamen in the King's and Merchant Service, viz. 5 & 6 W. 4. cap. 19, and 5 & 6 W. 4. c. 24.

authority of parliament soon after the restoration, but since new modelled and altered, after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, to remedy some defects which were of fatal consequence in conducting the preceding war.

QUESTIONS.

In whose hands were the military forces of the kingdom in the time of the Saxons?

Who were their officers, and how appointed?

Who first settled a national militia in the kingdom?

By what means was Harold enabled to usurp the throne in prejudice of Edgar Atheling?

How did William the Conqueror secure an army of 60,000 men constantly at his command, without any expense?

Was there any other method resorted to than this, to keep the peace?

What were commissions of array ?

When were lieutenants introduced, and how?

What was the great question that was the immediate cause of the fatal rupture between Charles I. and his parliament ?

How did the parliament act upon that occasion?

How are the militia now constituted?

What did the petition of right, and the bill of rights, enact concerning a standing army?

When, and by whom, were the laws of Oleron framed?.

MASTER AND SERVANT.

THE three great relations in private life are, 1. That of master and servant; which is founded in convenience, whereby a man is directed to call in the assistance of others, where his own skill and labour will not be sufficient to answer the cares incumbent upon him. 2. That of husband and wife; which is founded in nature, but modified by civil society the one directing man to continue and multiply his species, the other prescribing the manner in which that natural impulse must be confined and regulated. 3. That of parent and child; which is consequential to that of marriage, being its principal end and design and it is by virtue of this relation that infants are protected, maintained, and educated. But, since the parents, on whom this care is primarily incumbent, may be snatched away by death before they have completed their duty, the law hath therefore provided a fourth relation. 4. That of guardian and ward; which is a kind of artificial parentage, in order to supply the deficiency, whenever it happens, of the natural. Of all these relations in their order.

As to the several sorts of servants: I have formerly observed that pure and proper slavery does not, nay cannot, subsist in England; such, I mean, whereby an absolute and unlimited power is given to the master over the life and fortune of the slave. Indeed it is repugnant to reason, and the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist anywhere. It is laid down that a slave or negro the instant he lands in England becomes a freeman; that is, the law will protect him in the enjoyment of his and his property.

person

1. The first sort of servants, therefore, acknowledged by the laws of England, are menial servants; so called from being intra mania, or domestics. The contract between them and their masters arises upon the hiring. If the hiring be general, without any particular time limited, the

law construes it to be a hiring for a year; upon a principle of natural equity, that the servant shall serve, and the master maintain him, throughout all the revolutions of the respective seasons; as well when there is work to be done, as when there is not: but the contract may be made for any larger or smaller term *.

2. Another species of servants are called apprentices, (from apprendre, to learn,) and are usually bound for a term of years, by a deed indented or indentures, to serve their masters, and be maintained or instructed by them. This is usually done to persons of trade, in order to learn their art and mystery; and sometimes very large sums are given with them, as a premium for such their instruction: but it may be done to husbandmen, nay to gentlemen, and others. And children of poor persons may be apprenticed out by the overseers, with consent of two justices, till twenty-one years of age, to such persons as are thought fitting; who are also compellable to take them: and it is held, that gentlemen of fortune, and clergymen, are equally liable with others to such compulsion; for which purposes, our statutes have made the indentures obligatory, even though such parish apprentice be a minor.

3. A third species of servants are labourers, who are only hired by the day or the week, and do not live intra mania, as part of the family.

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.

The master may maintain, that is, abet and assist his servant, in any action at law against a stranger: whereas, in general, it is an offence against public justice to encourage suits and animosities, by helping to bear the expense of them, and is called in law maintenance. A master also may bring an action against any man, for beating or maiming his servant: but in such case he must assign, as a special reason for so doing, his own damage by the loss

*There is a peculiar rule relating to domestic servants which empowers the master to part with them on giving a month's warning or a month's wages. Robinson v. Hindman, 3 Esp. 235.