City-prentises as is most plainly prov'd And therefore they must alledged somewhat else besides subjection of Body to draw the estate of Apprentiship into that degree of reproach which as they cannot do we having prevented those Objections so must they leave it clear from taint or scandal 8. We lay it down therefore out of all the antecedences for a clear Conclusion That Apprentices are so far from being a kind of Bondmen as that in our Common-weal they then first begin habere caput and to be aliqui to be of account and some body For Apprentiship in London is a degree or order of good regular Subjects and out of whose as it were Nurseries or Colledges Citizens are supplied We call them Colledges according to the old Roman Law-phrase or Fellowships of men for so indeed they are comprehended within several Corporations or Bodies of free persons intended to be consociated for Commerce according to Conscience and Justice and named Companies each of them severally bearing the Titles of their several worthy Companies or Corporations as Drapers Salters Cloth-workers and so forth And we say as before that Apprentices in the reputation of our Common-weal when first they came to be Apprentices then first begin to be somebody and that Apprentiship is a degree to which out of Youth and young men who have no vocation in the World they are advanced and that out of Apprentices by other ascents or steps as donari civitate to come to be free of LONDON or Citizens from thence to be of their Companies Livery the Governors of Companies as Wardens and Masters and Governors in the City as Common-Council-men Aldermens Deputies Sheriffs and Aldermen and lastly the principal Governor or Head of the City the Lord Mayor yea sometimes also Counsellors of State to the Prince whereof Stow hath Examples are very orderly elected and the whole Policy disposed after as excellent a form as most at this day under Heaven 9. True it is that Apprentiship as it is a Degree so is it the lowest Degree or Class of Men in London lowest we say that it may come to the highest according to that of S. Augustin and of common sense That those Buildings rise highest and stand fastest whose Foundations are deepest And as Apprentiship is the first in order and meanest in dignity so can that be no title to embase the vocation because there must be a first in all things Of this degree anciently the flat round Cap Hair close-cut narrow falling Band course side-Coat close Hose Cloth-stockings and the rest of that severe Habit was in Antiquity not more for Thrift and Usefulness than for Distinction and Grace and were original Arguments or tokens of Vocation or Calling which point of ancient Discipline the Catoes of England grave common Lawyers to their high commendation therein retain in their Profession and Professors at this present even to the particoloured Coats of Serjeants at Law during the first year after they are made or called an object far more ridiculous among the new Mode of our time enemies of rigor and discipline than that of Apprentices At which retained signs and distinctive notes as among Lawyers though younglings and frivolous Novices may somewhat wonder 'till the cause be understood yet is the thing it self so far in it self from deserving contempt as that they who should offer it would themselves be counted ignorant For Sir Edward Coke in the Preface of his third Book of Reports hath affirmed for the dignity of the word Apprentice that a double Reader whose degree is next to that of a Serjeant at Law who is only inferiour to a Judge and to no other degree of Lawyers is but an Apprentice at Law 10. Here now let me be bold to say that Apprentices of late seem to have drunk and sacrificed too deeply to their new Goddess Saint Fashion a French Idol which was always noted fatal to the English as at the Periods or universal concussions of Empire in our portion of Great Brittain may in old Writers be observed This they do not without wrong in our opinions to the honesty of their degree at least wise in so far abandoning their proper Ornament the Cap anciently a note of Liberty among the Romans as not to have one day at least in the year wherein to celebrate the Feast of their Apprentiship in the peculiar Garb thereof which they should do well and wisely to frequent for the suppression and beating down of that ungrounded Contumely and scorn by making profession in this wise that they glory in the Ensigns of their honest Calling 11. For revocation of which into use though we see no manner of hope yet are those late Magistrates of the City who laboured to reduce Apprentiship to practice this laudable point of outward Conformity not the less to be commended And it were to be wished perhaps that instead of scattering Libels and of discovering Inclinations to Tumult Apprentices had rather submitted their Understandings and resigned their wills in this particular to their loving Superiors making humble and wise Obedience the glory of their Persons much rather than Apparrel in the fashion For they who are not ashamed of their Professions ought not to be ashamed of the Ensigns and Tokens of their Profession or Degree They indeed are out of fashion who are not in the fashion which is proper to their quality the flat round Cap in it self considered as a Geometrical figure is far more worthy than the square according to that ground in the Mathematicks Figurarum sphaerica est optima and in Hieroglyphicks is a Symbol of Eternity and Perfection and a resemblance of the World's rotundity but I will make no Encomium for Caps This I say that as the square Cap is retained not onely in the Universities and Chancery but also abroad among us as well by Ecclesiastical persons in high places as by Judges of the Land when they sit in Court so the round Cap being but a note in London of Apprentices and Citizens of London as it is of Students Barresters Benchers and Readers in the Inns of Courts and chief Officers in the Court-royal so the wearing thereof by Londoners cannot be a Reproach but an Ornament But communis error facilius and how freely soever these thoughts come from me out of affection to the preservation of Virtue in that most Honourable City which civil Discipline is ablest to do and howsoever it may be to wish the best yet some busy Censurer may think it to be a vanity to hope to stop the general stream of predominant Custom by private wishes Apprentices moreover and Citizens because they are always conversant in the light of action and concourse and not shut up in Colledges for Studies sake may think by this contrary way the more to honour their City and to enjoy themselves 12. Well may they in the mean time blush at their temerity who by teaching that Apprentices are called Apprentices as if they were pares
denominates the Action and proves Apprentiship not to be base The contrary Opinion pernicious to Manners and good Common-wealth among us chiefly now The different face of both Opinions in daily Experience Whether APPRENTISHIP extinguisheth GENTRY THE FIRST PART THE present Question whether Apprentiship extinguisheth Gentry being now not so much a Paradox as grown in secret to be of late a common Opinion I am bold to call it a weighty and important Question unjustly grounded upon the learned folly of Erasmus of Roterdam and the incircumspection of Sr. Thomas Smith Knight in his Book de Republica Anglorum and out of certain wandring conceits hatcht among Trees and Tillage as shall appear hereafter Weighty and Important I call it and it is so because in looking out upon the concernings of the Case I find that prospect so specious that within the compass thereof as well the greater as the lesser Nobility of England are very notably and very inexplicably enwrapped what do I say of the subalternate Nobility when the Royal Name it self was deeply interessed in the Proposition For Queen Elizabeth though a free Monarch and chief of the English in her turn was a Party to the Cause which she ingenuously and openly acknowledged calling Sir Martin Calthrope Kinsman as indeed he was being at that time Knight and Lord Mayor of London as also Sir Godfrey Bullen Knight and Lord Mayor of London was lineal Ancestor to Queen Anne Mother to Queen Elizabeth no longer before than in the Reign of Henry the sixth King of England Both which Knights being also Gentlemen born and of right worthy Families ascended by due degrees from the condition of Apprentices to the greatest Annual Honour in this Kingdom It is Weighty and Important because without much impropriety of speech it may be called Quaestio status which in the ancient phrase of the Emperor Justinian is as much as to say a Tryal whether one is to be adjudged bond or free servile or ingenuous and implieth that odious and unnatural sequel which by Textuists is named Capitis diminutio whereof though the Roman Laws make a threefold division yet in this our question is but only whether the third and lowest degree were incurred which happeneth cum qui sui juris fuerunt coeperunt alieno juri subjecti It is weighty and important and can appear none other because it directly tends to darken and as it were to intercloud the luminous body of that beautious Planet Honour with foul and lasting Spots For what can lightly be a more disparagement than for the Free-born to become a kind of Bond-men or to come of such nay there is nothing without it which can be of so great disparagement Finally it is weighty and important for very many other reasons and particularly because it is not only fit that states of Opinions should be rectified in this kind as breeding bad affections among people of this Nation from whence great mischiefs often arise even to hatred quarrels and homicides but that such also as through vanity or other distempers of the wit or judgment disdain to seem either City-born or bred or to own any thing of their Worship or Estate either to the City or Citizens may understand their own place and true condition lest they be convinced to be among them who are unworthy of so honest either Original or Accession as the City yeildeth 2. But let us first behold the Cities Honour in Arms as it stands displayed in Ancient Heraldry and as it is commented upon out of Authentick Monuments in that commendable Survey of London comprised by its Chronologer and Citizen Stowe The present figure with the same words as here they stand is a copy of that which an old imperfect Legier volumn at the Office of Arms containeth There needeth no greater demonstration of the Cities ancient Honour and of her peoples free quality than this that a principal Baron of the Realm of England was by Tenure her Standard-bearer being the Lord Fitz-Water from whence the now Lord Fitz-Water is descended The figure of St. Paul advanced it self in the Standard and upon the Shield those famous well known Armouries of the Cross and Weapon The like Picture of which Apostle was also embroidered in the Caparisons of that Horse of War which for the purpose of the Cities Service he received of Gift at the hands of the Lord Mayor Upon the Standard-bearers Coat Armour are painted the Hereditary Ensigns of his own Illustrious Family viz. Or a Fesse between two Cheverons Gules Which kind of Field the Ancients called Clauric perhaps à claritate because such Fields as were all of one colour made their Charges more cleerly seen and perspicuous And as they gave to that species of Blazon a peculiar Name for the Dignity so did they also assign to this manner of bearing two Cheverons the term Bialle or a Coat Bialle à numero binario In which brave times had that noble Gentleman but slightly and far off suspected that he displayed that Banner for a kind of Bondmen or as for their Service his great Heroick spirit would rather have troden such an offer under foot In good Assurance therefore of this common Causes justice we proceed 3. Sound Opinion meaning Doctrine is the Anchor of the World and Opinion meaning a worthy conceit of this or that person is the principal Ingredient which makes words or actions rellish well and all the Graces without it are little worth To take the fame from any man that is a Gentleman born is a kind of disablement and prejudioe at least wise among the weak who consider no farther than Seemings that is among almost all consequently a wrong and if a wrong then due to be redressed To find the Injury we must first enquire Whether Apprentiship extinguisheth Gentry 4. The main reason certainly the most generally used to prove it doth is That Apprentiship is a kind of Bondage and Bondage specially voluntary in which case the Imperial Law-rule Non officit natalibus in servitute fuisse may be perhaps defective doth not extinguish Native-Gentry But I deny that Apprentiship is either vera servitus Or omnino servitus For explanation of this difficulty I will set before your eyes the Case as it is A Gentleman hath a Son whom he means to breed up in an Art of thrift not rising meerly out of a stock of Wit or Learning but out of a stock of Money and Credit managed according to that Art and for this cause he brings his Child at fifteen or sixteen years of age more or less to the City of London provides him a Master and the Youth by his Father's counsel willingly becomes an Apprentice that is he interchangeably seals a written Instrument that he for his certain years of true and faithful Service shall learn that precious Mystery of how to gain honestly and to raise himself Let the legal and ordinary form of that Instrument extant in Wells's Presidents and familiar every
now and then as Offences happen he may chance to be terribly chidden or menaced or which must sometime be deservedly corrected though all this onely in ordine and in the way to Mastership or to the estate of a Citizen which last worst state of this Apprentice's Condition continues peradventure for a Year or two and while he is commonly but at the age of a Boy or at the most but of a Lad or Stripling and take things at the very worst he doth nothing as an Apprentice under his Master which when himself comes to be a Master his Apprentices shall not do or suffer under him Such or the like is the bitterest part of an Apprentice's happy estate in this world being honestly provided at his Master's charge of all things necessary and decent The Master in the mean while serving his Apprentice's turn with Instruction and universal Conformation or Moulding of him to his Art as the Apprentice serves his Master's turn with Obedience Faith and Industry 3. Here have we a Representation of an Apprentice's being or rather the well-being of a Child under his Father who hath right of Correction Upon view whereof we demand why it should be supposed that Apprentiship extinguisheth Gentry For if an Apprentice in London since to have Apprentices is a power not derived to Corporations out of Prerogative Royal Priviledge but out of Common Law be in their conceits a kind of Bondmen it must either be ratione generis obsequii or ratione temporis adjecti or contractûs or conditionis or for all together a fifth Cause being hard to be either assigned or imagined For the first point ratione generis which is in regard of the Kind of Service that is but an effect of the Contract or Bargain and consequently depends thereon or participates in nature with it which not importing any kind of Bondage neither can the Service it self due by that Agreement be the Service of a Bondman so that as on the one side we grant that Apprentices as Apprentices do some things which Gentlemen would not do that lived sui juris specially upon a necessity to obey yet on the other side we constantly deny that they do any of them either as servile or as servilely but propter finem nobilem that is to learn an honest Mystery to enable them for the Service of God and their Country in the station place or calling of a Citizen For the second ratione adjuncti which is in respect of a certain time as of seven years at least added and limited in the Contract that is meerly but a Circumstance of the Question For if Apprentices are not a kind of Bondmen abstracting from the time which they are bound to serve the addition of Time addeth nothing to the quality of the Contract to make it servile For the third the Contract which is in regard of the Contract as it raiseth a relation or the titles between two of Master and Servant if the very Art of binding to performance be a sufficient reason to make Apprentices a kind of Bondmen and so to disenable them to Gentry either derivative or acquisitive the Masters themselves are also a kind of Bondmen because suo genere they as well were and are bound as the Apprentices one to the other For the fourth conditionis which is in respect of the Conditions either literally or vocally expressed or virtually implied in the Contract there is in it no proof of Bondage but the contrary for in that the Obligation is mutual it proves the Apprentice free as from Bondage though for the Apprentice's own good not free from Subjection to his Master or Discipline because only Freemen can make Contracts and challenge the benefit of them The Verb is not servire but the Verb deservire which is of far less weight comprised in the Instrument or Indenture and containing the whole force of the Obligation hath only in that place the sense of obsequi facere to obey and do as an Apprentice and not according to the ancient sense which it had among the Romans This ought not to seem a Paradox for the word Dominus to which Service is a relative and the word Servus have in tract of time been so softned and familiarized as they are grown to be words of singular humanity And what so common among the Noble as to profess to serve one another But the relation constituted in this Case is peculiar and proper The word Dominus is not there at all nor Servus no nor famulus the relation constituted is directly named between Master and Apprentice a clear case that all Injuries to Blood and Nature are of purpose avoided in the Interchangeable sealed Instrument it self so clear a case that in the Oath which all Freemen make in the Chamber of London at their first Admission this Clause among many others is sworn unto by them That they shall take none Apprentices unless they are free born that is to say no Bondman's son which are the very words of the Oath And by an Act of Parliament made in the fifth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth it is expresly provided That no Merchant Mercer Draper Goldsmith Ironmonger or Clothier shall take any Apprentice except it be his Son whose Father or Mother shall at the time of taking such Apprentice have in Lands Tenements and Hereditaments of Inheritance of the cleer yearly value of Forty Shillings the Children of Labourers and of persons not being Freemen or occupying Husbandry Thus carefully open was the Eye of Institution in this Noble point of the Cities Policy to prevent that no stain no blemish nor indignity should wrong the Splendor thereof a thing which could not but follow inevitably if when it was provided that no Bondmen's Issue into the estate of Apprentiship should themselves by making Apprentices make Bondmen or should in any sort embase their Blood whose Masters they were to be as to the purpose of coming to be Citizens in time They never meant to make any man Bond who would have none but the Sons of free-born persons bound Apprentices and therefore it shall be wilful ignorance or malice from henceforth to maintain the contrary 4. A most memorable example in Scripture to the purpose of the present Question is that of Jacob and Laban Genesis 29. where the time seven years yea and the very word servire are plain in that Contract which was made between the Uncle and the Nephew yet who did ever say that Jacob was for this a kind of Bondman The reason why he was not ariseth from consideration of the final Cause or intention of the Contract which is recorded to have been worthy and unblameable the obtaining of a virtuous Wife and of an Estate to maintain her with Neither when he was no longer defrauded of Rachel than seven days after his first seven years and when for the fruition of Rachel he served also other seven years was he a Bondman by as it were a