any city or borough shall choose such
a one, however reluctant he appear, he may be obliged to attend, and be
forcibly brought to his duty by the sergeant-at-arms.

Again, there are numbers of subordinate offices, some of which are of
burden, and others of expense, in the civil government--all of which
persons who are qualified are liable to have imposed on them, may be
obliged to undertake and properly execute, notwithstanding any bodily
labor, or even danger, to which they may subject themselves, under the
penalty of fines and imprisonment; nay, and what may appear somewhat
hard, may be compelled to satisfy the losses which are eventually
incident, to that of sheriff in particular, out of their own private
fortunes; and though this should prove the ruin of a family, yet the
public, to whom the price is due, incurs no debt or obligation to
preserve its officer harmless, let his innocence appear ever so clearly.
I purposely omit the mention of those military or military duties
which our old constitution laid upon its greatest members. These might,
indeed, supply their posts with some other able-bodied men; but if no
such could have been found, the obligation nevertheless remained, and
they were compellable to serve in their own proper persons. The only
one, therefore, who is possessed of absolute liberty is the lowest
member of the society, who, if he prefers hunger, or the wild product of
the fields, hedges, lanes, and rivers, with the indulgence of ease and
laziness, to a food a little more delicate, but purchased at the expense
of labor, may lay himself under a shade; nor can be forced to take the
other alternative from that which he hath, I will not affirm whether
wisely or foolishly, chosen.

Here I may, perhaps, be reminded of the last Vagrant Act, where all
such persons are compellable to work for the usual and accustomed wages
allowed in the place; but this is a clause little known to the justices
of the peace, and least likely to be executed by those who do know it,
as they know likewise that it is formed on the ancient power of the
justices to fix and settle these wages every year, making proper
allowances for the scarcity and plenty of the times, the cheapness and
dearness of the place; and that THE USUAL AND ACCUSTOMED WAGES are words
without any force or meaning, when there are no such; but every man
spunges and raps whatever he can get; and will haggle as long and
struggle as hard to cheat his employer of