[No corporation implied by the farming of the borough.]
Returning, however, to the case of Northampton, it certainly seems to tell us of a composition, not indeed between the burgesses and the king, but between the burgesses and the sheriff. 'The burgesses of Northampton pay to the sheriff £30. 10_s._' We may believe that 'the burgesses' who pay this sum have a chance of making a profit. If so, 'the burgesses' are already beginning to farm 'the borough.' From this, nevertheless, we must not leap to corporate liability or corporate property. Very likely the sheriff regards every burgess of Northampton as liable to him for the whole £30. 10_s._; very certainly, as we think, he does not look for payment merely to property which belongs, not to any individual burgess nor to any sum of individual burgesses, but to 'the borough' of Northampton. Nor if the burgesses make profit out of tolls and fines, does it follow that they have a permanent common purse; they may divide the surplus every year[803], or we may suspect them of drinking the profits as soon as they are made.
Entries which describe the limits that are set to the duty of military or of naval service may seem more eloquent. Thus of Dover we are told that the burgesses used to supply twenty ships for fifteen days in the year with twenty-one men in each ship, and that they did this because the king had released to them his sake and soke[804]. Here we seem to read of a definite transaction between the king of the one part and the borough of the other part, and one which implies a good deal of governmental organization in the borough. We would say nothing to lessen the just force of such a passage, which does not stand alone[805]; but still there need be but little more organization in the borough of Dover than there is in Berkshire. It was the custom of that county that, when the king summoned his host, only one soldier went from every five hides, while each hide provided him with four shillings for his equipment and wages[806]. We may guess that in a county such a scheme very rapidly 'realized' itself and took root in the soil, that in a borough there was less 'realism,' that there were more frequent readjustments of the burden; but the difference is a difference of degree.