Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind1, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labour. Their usual pretences2 are, sometimes the high price of provisions3; sometimes the great profit which their masters make by their work. But whether their combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard of. The masters upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen.
1 particular combinations [of the masters] to sink the wages of labour ibid.
2 [In the 18th century a pretence was simply something put forward or offered as Bonnie Prince Charlie was the Pretender to the Throne. L prae before tendere stretch]
3 cost of living
and
