514 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the Bound Tower was the product of skilled artisans im 

 pressed in various parts of the kingdom : Henry VIII doing 

 in a small way what Koofoo did in a large way. And we 

 have always seen that in those days bodies of burghers or 

 gild-brethren of walled towns were forced to labour on the 

 fortifications. 



Indeed a few centuries ago nothing else could have hap 

 pened. There did not exist in each locality the numbers of 

 free labourers required for uniting in the execution of large 

 works. 



817. One of the earliest forms of combination among 

 free workers, or rather semi-free workers, occurred in the 

 manning of ships. The crews of war-vessels during war 

 time cannot indeed be all of them thus classed; since im 

 pressed sailors are slaves in respect of their compulsory ser 

 vice worse than slaves, because they are liable to be killed. 

 But merchant seamen come in a qualified way within the 

 class we are considering. I say in a qualified way, because 

 they, too, during their engagements stand in the position of 

 slaves; being under despotisms, and liable to severe punish 

 ments for disobedience. They are free labourers only in so 

 far that they are free to accept or refuse these temporary 

 contracts of bondage : usually having to choose between one 

 of them and another of the same kind. Moreover their 

 labour is otherwise scarcely of the kind we are contemplat 

 ing; since, being variously occupied, they stand to their 

 captain in individual relations, rather than as workers who 

 in bodies do the same kind of thing. 



Among united workers thus distinguished, the first to be 

 here named are those employed on the semi-public works 

 undertaken by joint-stock companies roads, canals, rail 

 ways. Of the masters and men who, generations ago, made 

 turnpike roads we know little. It is tolerably clear, how 

 ever, that the required money was subscribed locally, with 

 the prospect of interest to be paid out of the proceeds of 



