Fathers themselves to believe what he teaches to follow what he advises and obey what he commands Thus the Father by a natural Right as well as Authority becomes a Governour in this little State and if his life be long and his generations many as well as those of his Children He grows the Governour or King of a Nation and is indeed a Pater patriae as the best Kings are and as all should be and as those which are not are yet content to be called Thus the peculiar compellation of the Kings in France is by the name of Sire which in their ancient language is nothing else but Father and denotes the Prince to be the Father of the Nation For a Nation properly signifies a great number of Families derived from the same Blood born in the same Countrey and living under the same Government and Civil Constitutions As Patria does the land of our Father and so the Dutch by expressions of deerness instead of our Countrey say our Father-land With such Nations we find in Scripture all the Lands of Judea and the adjacent Territories were planted of old With such the many several Provinces of Greece and Italy when they began first to appear upon the Records of Ancient Story or Tradition And with such was the main Land of Gaul inhabited in the time of Caesar and Germany in that of Tacitus Such were the many Branches of the old British Nation the Scepts among the Irish. And such the infinite variety and numbers of Nations in Africa and America upon the first discoveries distinguisht by their several names and living under their several Kings or Princes till they came to be swallowed up by greater Empires These seem to have been the natural and original Governments of the World springing from a tacite deference of many to the Authority of one single Person Under Him if the Father of the Family or Nation the elder of his Children comes to acquire a degree of Authority among the younger by the same means the Father did among them and to share with him in the consultation and conduct of their common affairs And this together with an opinion of Wisdom from experience may have brought in the Authority of the Elders so often mentioned among the Jews and in general of aged men not only in Sparta and Rome but all other places in some degree both civil and barbarous For the names of Lord Signior Seigneur Senor in the Italian French and Spanish Languages seem to have at first imported only elder men who thereby were grown into Authority among the several Governments and Nations which seated themselves in those Countreys upon the fall of the Roman Empire This perhaps brought in Vogue that which is called the Authority of the Ancients in matters of opinion though by a mistaken sense for I suppose Authority may be reasonably allowed to the opinions of ancient men in the present age but I know not why it should be so to those of men in general that lived in ages long since past nor why one age of the World should be wiser than another or if it be why it should not be rather the latter than the former as having the same advantage of the general experience of the World that an old man has of the more particular experiments of life THus a Family seems to become a little Kingdom and a Kingdom to be but a great Family Nor is it unlikely that this Paternal Jurisdiction in its successions and with the help of accidents may have branched out into the several heads of Government commonly received in the Schools For a Family Governed with order will fall naturally to the several Trades of Husbandry which are Tillage Gardening and Pasturage the product whereof was the original riches For the managing of these and their encrease and the assistance of one man who perhaps is to feed twenty it may be a hundred children since it is not easily told how far Generations may extend with the Arbitrary choice and numbers of women practised anciently in most Countries the use of servants comes to be necessary These are gained by victory and captives or by fugitives out of some worse governed Family where either they cannot or like not to live and so sell their liberty to be assured of what is necessary to life Or else by the debased nature of some of the Children who seem born to drudgery or who are content to encrease their pains that they may lessen their cares and upon such terms become servants to some of their brothers whom they most esteem or chuse soonest to live with The Family thus encreased is still under the Fathers common though not equal care that what is due to the servants by Contract or what is fit for them to enjoy may be provided as well as the portions of the Children And that whatever they acquire by their industry or ingenuity beyond what the Masters expect or exact from them by the conditions of their servitude should be as much their property as any divisions of Land or of Stock that are made to the Sons and the possession as secure unless forfeited by any demerit or offence against the customs of the Family which grow with time to be the orders of this little State Now the Father of a Family or Nation that uses his Servants like Children in point of Justice and Care and advises with his Children in what concerns the Commonweal and thereby is willingly followed and obeyed by them all Is what I suppose the Schools mean by a Monarch And he that by harshness of nature wilfulness of humour intemperance of passions and arbitrariness of commands uses his Children like Servants is what they mean by a Tyrant And whereas the first thought himself safe in the love and obedience of his Children the other knowing that he is feared and hated by them thinks he cannot be safe among his children but by putting arms into the hands of such of his Servants as he thinks most at his will which is the original of Guards For against a Forreign Enemy and for defence of evident Interest all that can bear Arms in a Nation are Soldiers Their Cause is common safety their Pay is Honour And when they have purchased these they return to their homes and former conditions of peaceable lives Such were all the Armies of Greece and of Rome in the first Ages of their States Such were their Gens d' ordonnance in France and the Trainbands in England but standing Troops and in constant pay are properly Servants armed who use the Lance and the Sword as other servants do the Sickle or the Bill at the command and will of those who entertain them And therefore Martial Law is of all other the most absolute and not like the Government of a Father but a Master And this brings in another sort of Power distinct from that already described which follows Authority and consists in the willing obedience of the
people But this in the command of Soldiers who as Servants are bound to execute the Will and Orders of those that Lead them And as Authority follows the qualities before-mentioned so this Power follows Riches or the opinion of it a multitude of Servants being his that is able to maintain them And these kind of forces come to be used by good Princes only upon necessity of providing for their defence against great and armed neighbours or enemies But by ill ones as a support of decayed Authority or as they lose the force of that which is Natural and Paternal and so grow to set up an Interest of those that Govern different from that of those that are Governed which ought ever to be the same Yet this seems a much weaker principle of Government than the other for the number of Soldiers can never be great in proportion to that of People no more than the number of those that are idle in a Country to that of those who live by labour or industry so as if the people come to unite by any strong passion or general interest or under the wise conduct of any Authority well rooted in their minds They are Masters of Armies Besides the humour of the People runs insensibly among the very Soldiers so as it seems much alike to keep off by Guards a general infection or an universal sedition for the distemper in both kinds is contagious and seizes upon the defenders themselves Besides common pay is a faint principle of Courage and Action in comparison of Religion Liberty Honour Revenge or Necessity which make every Soldier have the quarrel as much at heart as their Leaders and seem to have spirited all the great Actions and Revolutions of the World And lastly without the force of Authority this Power of Soldiers grows pernicious to their Master who becomes their Servant and is in danger of their mutinies as much as any Government can be of the seditions of a people If the Father of our Family govern it with Prudence Goodness and Success and his eldest Son appear Heir to the virtues and worth of his Father He succeeds in the Government by a Natural Right and by the Strength of an Authority both derived from his Father and acquired by His own personal qualities but if either the eldest Son by qualities degenerate and ill happen to lose all trust and opinion and thereby Authority in the Family Or else to dye before his time and leave a Child in his room when the Father comes to fail then the Children fall into Councils of Election and either prefer the eldest of the Sons then living or perhaps one later and so remoter in birth according as He may have acquired Authority by those qualities which naturally produce it and promise the best conduct and protection to the common affairs of the Family Where the Father comes to lose his Authority many of the elder or wiser or braver of the Sons increase in theirs by the same degree and when both these arrive at a certain heighth the Nature of the Government is ready for a change and upon the Fathers death or general defection of the Family they succeed in his Authority whil'st the humour of the whole body runs against the succession or election of any single person which they are grown weary of by so late an example And thus comes in what they call an Aristocracy But Authority contracting it self as it seems naturally to do till it ends in a point or single Person this Government falls sometimes into the hands of a few who establish it in their Families and that is called an Oligarchy If the Authority come to be lost in either of these forms while the Children of the Family grow into the manners and qualities and perhaps into the condition and poverty of Servants and while many of the Servants by industry and virtue arrive at riches and esteem then the nature of the Government inclines to a Democracy or Popular State which is nearest confusion or Anarchy and often runs into it unless upheld or directed by the Authority of one or of some few in the State though perhaps without Titles or marks of any extraordinary Office or Dignity GOvernments founded upon Contract may have succeeded those founded upon Authority But the first of them should rather seem to have been agreed between Princes and Subjects than between men of equal Rank and Power For the original of Subjection was I suppose when one Nation warring against another for things necessary to Life or for Women or for extent of Land overcame their enemies if they only won a Battel and put their enemies to flight those they took Prisoners became their Slaves and continued so in their Generations unless infranchized by their Masters But if by great slaughter or frequent victories they subdued the very courages of their enemies while great numbers of them remained alive then the vanquisht Nation became subject to the Conquerors by Agreement and upon certain conditions of safety and protection and perhaps equal enjoyment of liberties and customs with the common Natives under the other Government If by such frequent successes and additions a Nation extended it self over vast Tracts of Land and numbers of People it thereby arrived in time at the ancient name of Kingdom or Modern of Empire After such a victory the chiefest of the conquering Nations become Rich and Great upon the divisions of Lands of Spoils and of Slaves By all which they grow into Power are Lords in their own Lands and over those that inhabit them with certain Rights or Jurisdictions and upon certain homages reserved to the Prince The custom of imploying these great persons in all great Offices and Councils grows to pass for a Right as all Custom does with length and force of time The Prince that Governs according to the conditions of subjection at first agreed upon of which Use is the Authentique record and according to the ancient Customs which are the original Laws and by which the Right of succession in the Crown as well as private Inheritance and Common Justice is directed and establisht is called a Lawful Sovereign He that breaks and violates these ancient Constitutions especially that of Succession is termed an Usurper A Free Nation is that which has never been conquered or thereby enter'd into any conditions of Subjection as the Romans were before they were subdued by the Goths and Vandals and as the Turks seem to be at this time who having been called from Scythia to assist the Grecian Empire against that of the Saracens made themselves Masters of both In Countreys safer from Forreign Invasions either by Seas or Rivers by Mountains and Passes or great Tracts of rough barren and uninhabited Lands People lived generally in scattered dwellings or small Villages But where Invasion is easie and passage open and bordering Nations are great and valiant men croud together and seek their safety from number better united and from
of a Government establisht without first gaining new Authority by the steps already traced out and in some degree debasing the old by appearance or impressions of contrary qualities in those who before enjoyed it This induces a general change of opinion concerning the person or party like to be obeyed or followed by the greatect or strongest part of the people according to which the power or weakness of each is to be measured So as in effect all Government may be esteemed to grow strong or weak as the general opinion of these qualities in those that Govern is seen to lessen or increase And Power must be allowed to follow Authority in all Civil Bodies as in Natural the motions of the body follow those of the mind great numbers ever acting and pursuing what the few whom they trust begin or advise FRom this Principle and from the discovery of some natural Authority may perhaps be deduced a truer original of all Governments among men than from any Contracts though these be given us by the great Writers concerning Politicks and Laws Some of them lay for their foundation That men are sociable creatures and naturally disposed to live in numbers and troops together Others That they are naturally creatures of prey and in a state of war one upon another so as to avoid confusion in the first case and violence in the other they found out the necessity of agreeing upon some Orders and Rules by which every man gives up his common Right for some particular possession and his power to hurt and spoil others for the priviledg of not being hurt or spoiled himself And the agreement upon such Orders by mutual Contract with the consent to execute them by common strength and endeavours They make to be the rise of all Civil Governments I know not whether they consider what it is that makes some creatures sociable and others live and range more alone or in smaller companies but I suppose those creatures whose natural and necessary food is easie and plentiful as Grass or Plants or Fruits the common product of the earth are the sociable creatures because where-ever they go they usually find what they want and enough for them all without industry or contention And those live more alone whose food and therefore prey is upon other sensitive creatures and so not attained without pursuit and violence and seldom in such quantities at once as to satisfy the hunger of great numbers together Yet this does not hold so far but that Ravens are seen in flocks where a Carrion lies and Wolves in herds to run down a Deer Nay they feed quietly together while there is enough for them all Quarrel only when it begins to fail and when 't is ended they scatter to seek out new encounters Besides those called sociable quarrel in hunger and in lust as well as the others and the Bull and the Ram appear then as much in fury and war as the Lyon and the Bear So that if Mankind must be ranged to one of these sorts I know not well to which it will be and considering the great differences of customs and dispositions in several men and even in the same men at several times I very much doubt they must be divided into several forms Nor do I know if men are like sheep why they need any Government or if they are like Wolves how they can suffer it Nor have I read where the Orders of any State have been agreed on by mutual Contract among great numbers of men meeting together in that natural state of War where every man takes himself to have equal right to every thing But often where such Orders have been invented by the Wisdom and received by the Authority of some one man under the name of a Law-giver And where this has not happened the original of Government lyes as undiscovered in story as that of Time All Nations appearing upon the first Records that are left us under the Authority of Kings or Princes or some other Magistrates Besides this principle of contract as the original of Government seems calculated for the account given by some of the old Poets of the original of man whom they raise out of the ground by great numbers at a time in perfect Stature and Strength Whereas if we deduce the several races of mankind in the several parts of the World from generation we must imagine the first numbers of them who in any place agree upon any civil constitutions to assemble not as so many single heads but as so many heads of families whom they represent in the framing any Compact or common accord and consequently as persons who have already an Authority over such numbers as their families are composed of For if we consider a Man multiplying his Kind by the birth of many Children and his Cares by providing even necessary food for them till they are able to do it for themselves which happens much later to the generations of men and makes a much longer dependance of children upon Parents than we can observe among any other creatures If we consider not only the cares but the industry he is forced to for the necessary sustenance of his helpless brood either in gathering the natural fruits or raising those which are purchased with labour and toil if he be forced for supply of this stock to catch the tamer creatures and hunt the wilder sometimes to exercise his courage in defending his little Family and fighting with the strong and Savage Beasts that would prey upon him as he does upon the weak and the mild if we suppose him disposing with discretion and order what-ever he gets among his Children according to each of their hunger or need sometimes laying up for to morrow what was more than enough for to day at other times pinching himself rather than suffering any of them should want And as each of them grows up and able to share in the common support teaching him both by lesson and example what he is now to do as the Son of this family and what hereafter as the Father of another instructing them all what qualities are good and what are ill for their health and life or common Society which will certainly comprehend whatever is generally esteemed virtue or vice among men cherishing and encouraging dispositions to the good disfavouring and punishing those to the ill And lastly Among the various accidents of Life lifting up his eyes to Heaven when the earth affords him no relief and having recourse to a higher and a greater nature whenever he finds the frailty of his own We must needs conclude that the Children of this Man cannot fail of being bred up with a great opinion of his Wisdom his Goodness his Valour and his Piety And if they see constant plenty in the Family they believe well of his fortune too And from all this must naturally arise a great paternal Authority which disposes his Children at least till the age when they grow
after that was ended upon Spain In both which he fell in with the current humour and dispositions of the People which with the prosperous successes of both those enterprises helped to bear up him and the Government against all the hatred and continual practices of the great Ones in the Kingdom But the two freshest examples may be drawn from the Revolutions of England in the year Sixty and of Holland in Seventy two In the First The usurped Powers that had either designed no Root or at least drawn none but only in the affections and interests of those that were engaged with the Government thought themselves Secure in the Strength of an unfoiled Army of above Sixty thousand men and in a Revenue proportionable raised by the awe of their Forces though with the mock-forms of Legal Supplies by pretended Parliaments Yet we saw them forced to give way to the bent and current humour of the People in favour of their Ancient and Lawful Government and this mighty Army of a sudden lose their Heart and their Strength abandon what they had so long called their Cause and their Interest and content themselves to be moulded again into the Mass of the People and by conspiring with the general humour of the Nation make way for the Kings glorious restauration without a drop of blood drawn in the end of a quarrel the beginning and course whereof had been so fatal to the Kingdom For the other in Holland the constitution of their Government had continued Twenty years in the hands of their Popular Magistrates after the exclusion or intermission of the Authority of the House of Orange upon the death of the last Prince and infancy of this The chief direction of their affairs had for Eighteen years lain constantly in the hands of their Pensioner de Witt a Minister of the greatest Authority and Sufficiency the greatest Application and Industry that was ever known in their State In the course of his Ministry He and his Party had reduced not only all the Civil charges of the Government in his Province but in a manner all the Military Commands in the Army out of the hands of persons affectionate to the House of Orange into those esteemed sure and fast to the Interests of their more Popular State And all this had been attended for so long a course of years with the perpetual success of their affairs by the growth of their Trade Riches and Power at home and the consideration of their Neighbours abroad Yet the general humour of kindness in the people to their old form of Government under the Princes of Orange grew up with the Age and Virtues of the young Prince so as to raise the prospect of some unavoidable revolutions among them for several years before it arrived And we have seen it grow to that heighth in this present year upon the Princes coming to the Two and twentieth of his Age the time assigned him by their Constitutions for his entring upon the publick charges of their Milice that though it had found them in Peace it must have occasioned some violent sedition in their State But meeting with the conjuncture of a Forreign Invasion It broke out into so furious a rage of the People and such general tumults through the whole Countrey as ended in the Blood of their chief Ministers In the displacing all that were suspected to be of their party throughout the Government In the full restitution of the Princes Authority to the highest point any of his Ancestors ever enjoyed But withall in such a distraction of their Councils and their Actions as made way for the easie successes of the French Invasion for the loss of almost Five of their Provinces in Two months time and for the general presages of utter ruin to their State Dublin July 22d 1673. AN ESSAY UPON THE ADVANCEMENT OF TRADE in IRELAND Written to the Earl of Essex Lord Lieutenant of that Kingdom My LORD I Know not what it was that fell into discourse t'other day and gave your Excellency the occasion of desiring me to digest into some Method and upon Paper the means and ways I esteemed most proper for the advancing of Trade in Ireland This I know very well that you did it in a manner and with Expressions too obliging to be refused and out of a design so publick and generous as ought not to be discouraged I had therefore much rather obey your Lordship in this point how ill soever I do it than excuse my self though never so well which were much easier than the other For I might alledg that neither my Birth nor my Breeding has been at all in this Countrey That I have passed only one short period of my life here and the greatest part thereof wholly out of business and publick thoughts That I have since been Ten years absent from it and am now here upon no other occasion than of a short Visit to some of my Friends Which are all Circumstances that make me a very improper subject for such a command But I suppose the vein I have had of running into speculations of this kind upon a greater scene of Trade and in a Countrey where I was more a stranger and the too partial favour your Lordship has exprest to another Discourse of this nature have cost me this present service and you have thought fit to punish me for one folly by engaging me to commit another like the Confessor that prescribed a Drunkard the penance of being drunk again However it is your Lordship shall be obeyed and therein I hope to be enough excused which is all I pretend to upon this occasion Before I enter upon the considerations of Trade which are more general and may be more lasting in this Kingdom I will observe to your Lordship some particular Circumstances in the Constitution and Government which have been hitherto and may be long the great discouragers of Trade and Riches here And some others in the present Conjuncture which are absolutely mortal to it that so you may not expect to find remedies where indeed there is none nor suffer men like busie ignorant Physicians to apply such as are contrary to the disease because they cannot find such as are proper for it The true and natural ground of Trade and Riches is number of People in proportion to the compass of Ground they inhabit This makes all things necessary to life dear and that forces men to industry and parsimony These Customs which grow first from necessity come with time to be habitual in a Countrey And where-ever they are so that place must grow great in Traffick and Riches if not disturbed by some accidents or revolutions as of Wars of Plagues or Famines by which the People come to be either scattered or destroyed People are multiplied in a Countrey by the temper of the Climate favourable to Generation to Health and long-life Or else by the Circumstances of safety and ease under the Government the credit whereof invites
men over to it when they cannot be either safe or easie at home When things are once in motion Trade begets Trade as fire does fire and People go much where much People are already gone So men run still to a crowd where they see it in the streets or the fields though it be only to do as others do to see or to be entertained The want of Trade in Ireland proceeds from the want of People and this is not grown from any ill qualities of the Climate or Air but chiefly from the frequent Revolutions of so many Wars and Rebellions so great Slaughters and Calamities of Mankind as have at several Intervals of time succeeded the first Conquest of this Kingdom in Henry the Seconds time until the year 1653 Two very great Plagues followed the two great Wars those of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and the last which helped to drain the current stream of Generation in the Countrey The discredit which is grown upon the Constitutions or Settlements of this Kingdom by so frequent and unhappy Revolutions that for many ages have infested it has been the great discouragement to other Nations to transplant themselves hither and prevailed further than all the invitations which the cheapness and plenty of the Countrey has made them So that had it not been for the numbers of the British which the necessity of the late Wars at first drew over and of such who either as Adventurers or Soldiers seated themselves here upon account of the satisfaction made to them in Land the Countrey had by the last War and Plague been left in a manner desolate Besides the subordinancy of the Government changing hands so often makes an unsteddiness in the pursuit of the publick Interests of the Kingdom gives way to the emulations of the different Factions and draws the favour or countenance of the Government sometimes to one party or interest sometimes to another this makes different motions in mens minds raising hopes and fears and opinions of uncertainty in their possessions and thereby in the peace of the Countrey This subordinacy in the Government and emulation of parties with the want sometimes of Authority in the Governour by the weakness of his credit and support at Court occasions the perpetual agencies or journeys into England of all persons that have any considerable pretences in Ireland and money to pursue them which end many times in long abodes and frequent habituating of Families there though they have no money to support them but what is drawn out of Ireland Besides the young Gentlemen go of course for their breeding there some seek their health and others their entertainment in a better Climate or Scene By these means the Countrey loses the expence of many of the richest persons or families at home and mighty sums of money must needs go over from hence into England which the great stock of rich Native Commodities here can make the only amends for These Circumstances so prejudicial to the encrease of Trade and Riches in a Countrey seem natural or at least have ever been incident to the Government here and without them the Native fertility of the Soil and Seas in so many rich Commodities improved by multitude of people and industry with the advantage of so many excellent Havens and a Scituation so commodious for all sorts of forreign Trade must needs have rendred this Kingdom one of the richest in Europe and made a mighty encrease both of strength and revenue to the Crown of England whereas it has hitherto been rather esteemed and found to be our weak side and to have cost us more blood and treasure than 't is worth Since my late arrival in Ireland I have found a very unusual but I doubt very just complaint concerning the scarcity of Money which occasioned many airy Propositions for the remedy of it and among the rest that of raising some or all of the Coyns here This was chiefly grounded upon the experience made as they say about the Duke of Ormonds coming first over hither in 1663 when the Plate-pieces of Eight were raised three pence in the piece and a mighty plenty of money was observed to grow in Ireland for a year or two after But this seems to me a very mistaken account and to have depended wholly upon other circumstances little taken notice of and not at all upon the raising of the Money to which it is by some great men attributed For first there was about that time a general peace and serenity which had newly succeeded a general trouble and cloud throughout all His Majesties Kingdoms then after two years attendance in England upon the settlement of Ireland there on the forge by all persons and parties here that were considerably interested in it the Parliament being called here and the main settlement of Ireland wound up in England and put into the Duke of Ormonds hands to pass here into an Act all persons came over in a shoal either to attend their own concernments in the main or more particularly to make their Courte to the Lord Lieutenant upon whom His Majesty had at that time in a manner wholly devolved the care and disposition of all affairs in this Kingdom This made a sudden and mighty stop of that issue of Money which had for two years run perpetually out of Ireland into England and kept it all at home Nor is the very expence of the Duke of Ormonds own great Patrimonial estate with that of several other Families that came over at that time of small consideration in the stock of this Kingdom Besides there was a great sum of Money in ready Coyn brought over out of England at the same time towards the arrears of the Army Which are all circumstances that must needs have made a mighty change in the course of ready money here All the effect that I conceive was made by crying up the pieces of Eight was to bring in much more of that Species instead of others current here as indeed all the Money brought from England was of that sort and complained of in Parliament to be of a worse allay and to carry away much English Money in exchange for Plate-pieces by which a Trade was driven very beneficial to the Traders but of mighty loss to the Kingdom in the intrinsick value of their Money The Circumstances at this time seem to be just the reverse of what they were then The Nations engaged in a War the most fatal to trade of any that could arise The settlement of Ireland shaken at the Court and falling into new disquisitions whether in truth or in common opinion is all a case This draws continual Agencies and Journeys of People concerned into England to watch the motions of the main wheel there Besides the Lieutenants of Ireland since the Duke of Ormond's time have had little in their disposition here and only executed the resolutions daily taken at Court in particular as well as general affairs which has drawn thither the