, to the passing of the Act which I have
quoted, a very curious complaint is entered in the statute book, from the
surface of which we should gather, that so far from increasing,
manufactures had alarmingly declined. The fact mentioned may bear another
meaning, and a meaning far more favourable to the state of the country;
although, if such a phenomenon were to occur at the present time, it could
admit of but one interpretation. In the 18th and 19th of the 32nd of Henry
VIII., all the important towns in England, from the Tweed to the Land's
End, are stated, one by one, to have fallen into serious decay. Usually
when we meet with language of this kind, we suppose it to mean nothing more
than an awakening to the consciousness of evils which had long existed, and
which had escaped notice only because no one was alive to them. In the
present instance, however, the language was too strong and too detailed to
allow of this explanation; and the great body of the English towns
undoubtedly were declining in wealth and in the number of their
inhabitants. "Divers and many beautiful houses of habitation," these
statutes say, "built in tyme past within their walls and liberties, now are
fallen down and decayed, and at this day remain unre-edified, and do lie as
desolate and vacant grounds, many of them nigh adjoining to the
High-streets, replenished with much uncleanness and filth, with pits,
sellers, and vaults lying open and uncovered, to the great perill and
danger of the inhabitants and other the King's subjects passing by the
same; and some houses be very weak and feeble, ready to fall down, and
therefore dangerous to pass by, to the great decay and hinderance of the
said boroughs and towns."[4]

At present, the decay of a town implies the decay of the trade of the town;
and the decay of all towns simultaneously would imply a general collapse of
the trade of the whole country. Walled towns, however, before the
Reformation, existed for other purposes than as the centre points of
industry: they existed for the protection of property and life: and
although it is not unlikely that the agitation of the Reformation itself
did to some degree interrupt the occupation of the people, yet I believe
that the true account of the phenomenon which then so much disturbed the
parliament, is, that one of their purposes was no longer required; the
towns flagged for a time because the country had become secure. The woollen
manufacture in Worcesters