THE PROr.LF.M OF LYKCHETS. 79 



terraces are to be seen ? It Avould appear from the preamble to 

 an Act passed in the twenty-first year of Hen. VIII. that the 

 inhabitants of that town claimed that they " out of time that no 

 man's mind is to the contrary, have used and exercised to make 

 the most part of all the great cables, halsers, ropes, and all other 

 tackling aswel for your Royal ships and Navie as for the most 

 part of all other ships within this Realme." And they point out 

 that divers persons had withdrawn themselves into the country, 

 there taking farms and using husbandry, to the injury of their 

 town. And it was enacted that no person dwelling within five 

 miles of the borough of Bridport should henceforth sell, out of 

 the town's market, any hemp that should happen to grow within 

 the said five miles. 



The natural result of this paternal legislation would be to 

 enhance the price of cordage and to enrich Bridport at the 

 expense of the Navy, for it is clear that almost all the hemp 

 required was grown in that neighbourhood. Accordingly, we 

 find after a lapse of three years, a further and a very remarkable 

 enactment. High prices had been tempting importers, who 

 were flooding the market, so that men, women, and children 

 were thrown out of employment. 



The Act required that " all manner of persons having to their 

 occupation threescore acres of errable lantl or pasture, or three- 

 score acres of errable land and pasture, being apt for tillage, 

 shall yearely after the feast of S. Michael the archangcll next 

 coming, at their proper costs and charges, till and sowe, or 

 cause to be tilled and sowen, in seasonable time, one rode, that 

 is to say the fourth part of an acre of land, with line seed, 

 otherwise called flax seed, or hemp seed, or with both, the said 

 rod to be sowen in one place together, or in severall places at 

 their pleasure, one rod for every fortie acres." This was 

 re-enacted by each Parliament during Henry's reign, and in 

 the thirty-third year it was forbidden " to water hempe or flax in 

 any streame or common-pond which beasts use, but only in the 

 pits for the same ordeined." This, indeed, was no hardship, 

 since the used water was found to have good manurial 



