The armed force, with which the towns now furnished themselves, must have produced a very material change in the state of the kingdom. This new order of warriors, or trained bands of the towns, seem not to have been inferior to those of the country; and as they could be more readily assembled on any emergency, they are said to have frequently had the advantage in their disputes with the neighbouring lords. In some parts of the continent they became so powerful and successful as to subdue the nobles in their vicinity, and enable the cities to which they belonged to form themselves into independent republicks. But in England, the cities and burghs had no opportunity to become entirely independent. They became, however, so considerable, as Dr. Smith observes, that the sovereign could impose no tax upon them, beside the stated farm-rent of the town, without their own consent. They were, therefore, called upon to send deputies to the general assembly of the states of the kingdom, where they might join with the clergy and the barons in granting, upon urgent occasions, some extraordinary aid to the king. Being generally, too, more favourable to his power, their deputies seem, some times, to have been employed by him as a counterbalance, in those assemblies, to the authority of the great lords. {384} Hence, as it seems, the origin of the representation of burghs in our parliaments. However useless or objectionable our modern burghs or corporate towns may be, it must be allowed that they were originally productive of no inconsiderable national advantages. In them, as has been observed by the writer last mentioned, order and good government together with the liberty and security of individuals, were established at a time when the occupiers of land in the country were exposed to every kind of violence. That industry also, which aims at something more than necessary subsistence was found in them before it was commonly practised, or did exit among the country farmers. “If in the hands of a poor cultivator, oppressed with the servitude of villanage, some little stock should accumulate, he would naturally conceal it, with great care, from his master, to whom it would otherwise have belonged, and take the first opportunity of running away to a town. The law was, at that time, so indulgent to the inhabitants of towns, and so desirous of diminishing the authority of the lords, over those of the country, that if he could conceal himself there, from the pursuit of the lord, for a year, he was free for ever. Whatever stock therefore accumulated in the hands of the industrious part of the inhabitants of the country, naturally took refuge in cities, as the only sanctuaries in which it could be secure to the person that acquired it.” {385}