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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31146	A letter to a friend concerning usury wherein are mentioned all the arguments formerly written for and against the abatement of interest / collected out of four tracts on that subject, one by Sir Thomas Culpeper, Senior, in 1621, another by Sir Thomas Culpeper, Junior, in 1668, the third by Sir Josiah Child in 1668, and the fourth by Mr. Thomas Manley in 1669, by R.C.	R. C.	1690 (1690)	Wing C106; ESTC R35829	9,394	33

much more than it sold Sweden a meer Limb of the French Interest we alone sitting under the Shaddow of our own Vines might afford to give them all great odds for all the Markets of the World were full of our Growth and thin of theirs The Kings Customs yearly greatly advanced the Gentleman daily raised his Rent yet duly received it which the Farmer chearfully paid and the Merchant their Factor thrived with his Principal Our Land was yearly improved and with it Our Manufacture increased Our poor generally employed and not turned a Charge upon the Land Our Debtors daily cleared themselves either by sale of Land or fortunate Industry So as in a short time There would have been no decay no leading into Captivity and no complaining in our Streets Betwixt 1640 and 1660 was a vast Gulf of Twenty Years ruine and distraction in this Kingdom during which time not to mention our own Declination viz. Anno 1647 happened the Peace at Munster whereby the Dutch being unmolested and secured from Spanish pretence were at leisure to intend their Trade and undermine Ours Germany hath had time to Re-people Re-build and Re-plant Sweden is become an Independent Power of much weight in the Ballance of Christendom And France first making Peace with the Emperor then with Spain by the Sovereignty of its Dominion the largeness and compactness of its Territory and the preheminence of its Soil and Climate is in a few Years become dangerous to us all Anno 1652. The Grandees of that Junto found themselves in a dangerous Dilemma For as on the side they saw That without encouraging Trade and Navigation their New Machine of a Commonwealth must soon fall so neither without the utter Oppression of the Nobility and Gentry could it long stand They therefore for the present Exigence contrived an Expedient by continuing all the Burthens upon Land and abating Interest to Six per Cent. They meant no question when they had once accomplished their purpose of ruining their Enemy the Landlord to bring it lower as yet it was not seasonable for scarce any Land-Taxes with very low Interest would greatly and suddenly hurt him But sure they were short-sighted if they did not see That Land-Taxes would destroy Trade though not so immediately yet as effectually as high Interest And that if by Embasing our Land we discourage its Improvement we nip our Trade in its very Bud. Anno. 1660. His Majesty being happily restored and the Kingdom settled my Father forthwith resumed his design of further abating Interest as the greatest of Blessings both to King and Kingdom But my Lord Culpeper dying who he knew had the same Thoughts and through whose Assistance only he hoped to effect it he soon gave it over finding as he said that the World was then intent upon other Game than Trade and despairing that himself should live to see it Yet before his death he recommended the Prosecution of it to me his Executor together with the Payment of his Debts Adding sometimes in jest That the Usurer and he were not yet even for he had only scratched the Usurer the Usurer had stab'd him but he hoped he might without Breach of Charity will me if I could to revenge his quarrel by doing good to the Usurer against his will Accordingly he made it the main drift of his private discourses with me in the last period of his Age being 87 Years old when he died about six Years since to arm me for his Encounter by possessing me not only with the Evidence but the Importance of the Argument by telling me frequently That when he was forgotten it would be revived That he wished it were not too late considered That it would at once Reform a thousand Abuses That he did not see how a Register could be till low Interest first made way for it by clearing Incumbrances That he marvelled Sir Walter Raleigh who wrote so many notable things concerning Trade Navigation and Fishing never harped upon this String That he could boast to have been happily instrumental in the recovery and preservation of many thousand Acres of excellent Marsh-Land but to his own loss by unhappily exposing himself to the Canker of Interest that Interest being high borrowing chargeable and all the burthens laid upon Land it was time for Gentlemen in debt if they meant honestly to wear Linsey-Woolsey and eat Eggs and Sallets to which we must all come by degrees for so the wary Spaniard in a barren Country supports himself against the extremity of Taxes In the same Year viz. 12 Car. 2. Six per Cent. being then generally practised That Convention holding it necessary to continue the said practice confirmed it by a Statute Intituled An Act for Restraining Excessive Usury The Preamble whereof is as followeth Forasmuch as the Abatement of Interest from ten in the Hundred in former times hath been found by notable Experience beneficia to the Advancement of Trade and Improvement of Lands by good Husbandry with many other considerable Advantages to this Nation especially in the Reducing of it to a nearer proportion with other States with whom we Traffick And whereas in fresh memory the like fall from Eight to Six in the Hundred by a late constant practice hath found the like success to the general Contentment of this Nation as is visible by several Improvements And whereas it is the endeavour of some at present to reduce it back again in practice to the allowance of the Statute still in force to Eight in the Hundred to the great discouragement of Ingenuity and Industry in the Husbandry Trade and Commerce of this Nation Be it therefore c. Confirmed 13 Car. 2. Cap. 14. After my Fathers decease I endeavoured what I could to propagate so fruitful a Plant and try if it would grow at London which I take it is not so far Northward as Amsterdam but for want of Eloquence I found my self always contradicted and foiled though I must needs say never convinced The most popular Argument I met with was this That Eight per Cent. were far more seasonable in our scarcity of Money Since 1. High Interest brings Money 2. Money brings Trade To the first of these Propositions I could have answered That the Money mentioned must be either Gotten Given or Lent Gotten I fear it cannot be at Eight per Cent. because I see that even at Six per Cent. our wisest Traders who both by their Stocks and Experience are best able to manage Trade daily decline it and betake themselves to Interest as a more steady Income leaving younger Men who commonly are more sanguine to feast themselves with Hope and buy their Experience Given I doubt it is not for I hear of slender Charity now stirring If it be Lent it must be re-paid with greater Interest than the Use of it will yield and that mars all To the second I could have shewn the vast difference where Trade brings Money as it doth in Holland and once did here and

where Money brings Trade as it doth still in Spain But I found the Torrent was not to be stemm'd and so reserved my Purpose for a calmer Season By this time the War with Holland was begun and all Discourses silenced with the Sound of Cannon the Event whereof was neither so good as we sometimes hoped nor so bad as once we feared but compounded of strange Disappointments and Deliverances Of all which the most profitable Use we can make is this That though we prevailed sufficiently by Blows and Booties yet we were first wearied with the Expence And no marvel if we duly consider the vast disproportion of our respective Charges For 3 to 6 or 4 to 8 bears the same Analogy as 30 to 60 or 40 to 80. Now if the States by commanding Money at 4 per Cent. could in Building Rigging Victualling Paying c. do that for 40 l. which must cost His Majesty 80 l. and I wish he had Money so cheap I suppose the Forces being otherwise reasonably ballanced scarce any Goodness of Ships Valour of Seamen or Advantage of Situation and Ports will countervail such Odds. Some Months after the Peace was proclaimed presuming that our late Experience and present Exigence could not but conduce to my Design by disposing many who were averse to receive Impressions contrary to their former Judgments and affording me at least some Illustrations I went to London with full purpose to promote it but found my self happily prevented by one Mr. Child a Merchant of known Abilities in Trade and choice Conversation who rising as it were out of my Father's Dust did by his own Sagacity find out this hidden Vein and lighting afterwards by meer chance upon one of my Father's Treatises modestly reprinted it with its proper Date and annexed it to his own excellent Treatise entituled Brief Considerations concerning Trade and Interest of Money Whose honest Endeavours for his King and Countries Service I am bound to assist with my utmost Skill and Power and in pursuance thereof have composed this Tract which with all humility I present to your Wisdoms In a Post-script he takes notice of this Objection That since the Law of the Land has setled the Rate of Interest the Usurer has a Property by Law to Interest and it would be as much wrong to make a Law to abate Interest as to take away so much of the Rent of every Man's Land And such a Law would be a great Prejudice to Widows Orphans and others who live upon Interest and know not how otherwise to employ their Stock To this he answers That as to Orphans it can be no prejudice because as the Law of England now stands Executors are not obliged to pay Interest Secondly That there is no Property or Right to Interest by the Laws of the Land but the Right doth solely arise by the Covenant and Agreement of the Party Both by Ecclesiastical and Statute-Law Usury was counted unlawful and those Statutes that afterwards limited Interest to 10 8 and 6 per Cent. did only take away the Penalties from the former Statutes but did not make it more lawful By the ancient Canons of the Church the Usurers were in the same Condition with the Excommunicated They were denied the Sacraments disabled to make Wills and not permitted Burial in Church or Church-yard By the Statute of the 3 of H. 7. it was Ordained That all Usury should be extirpated By the 11 of H. 7. He that lendeth his Money upon Usury shall forfeit one half thereof The Statute made in the 3 of H. 8. takes off the former Penalties and limits Interest to 10 per Cent. but in the same Statute declares Usury unlawful In the 5 of E. 6. the Law of H. 8. was Repealed and it was then Enacted That no Person should take Interest upon the Penalties of losing the Principal be Imprisoned and Fined at the King's Pleasure In the 13 of Eliz. the Law of E. 6. was Repealed and that of H. 8. was reinforced But in that Statute Usury is called a Vice and a detestable Sin and provides That it may be punished by the Ecclesiastical Law The Statute in the 21 of King James the First by which Interest was reduted from 10 to 8 relates the great Mischiefs from high Interest and provides That no Words in the said Act should be construed to allow the Practice of Usury as to the Point of Religion The Law made in 1652. being the same with that of the 12th and 13th of Car. 2. which reduced Interest from 8 to 6 takes notice in the Preamble of the great Advantage to the Nation by the bringing down of Interest and restrains under Penalties the taking above 6 per Cent. but gives no more Legal nor Ecclesiastical Right than the former Statutes By this it appears that Usury was accounted a Crime so that the abating of it is but the lessening of the Sin and if there was any Right from those Laws it was very uncertain And how severe soever the Lowering of Interest from 6 to 4 per Cent. may be to Widows Orphans and Younger Brothers yet they will still have as much Rent for their Money as the Gentry and their Elder Brothers have for their Land for the Land of England does not yield more than 4 per Cent. The next Remarks are from Brief Observations concerning Trade and Interest of Money written as is supposed by Sir Josiah Child in 1668. Amongst the several Means which he recites for the promoting of Trade he concludes That a Low Interest is the chiefest and lays down this Position That the Abatement of Interest is the Cause of the Prosperity and Riches of the Nation and that the bringing down of Interest in this Kingdom from Six to Four or Three per Cent. will necessarily in less than twenty Years time double the Capital Stock of the Nation He proves this very clearly by several Arguments which will be too long to recite I shall therefore only mention two of his Instances First That where Interest is high the People are poor and Money scarce as to instance in Spain Scotland and Ireland where Money is at 10 and 12 per Cent. the Inhabitants are poor ill fed and clad though Ireland and Spain are both very fertile Countries and to the latter all the Gold and Silver of the Indies are brought and yet there is seldom any but Brass Money seen in the Country On the contrary in Italy and Holland where Money yields not above Three per Cent. the People are Rich full of Trade and their Land sells from Thirty five to Forty Years Purchase Secondly That by the several Abatements of Interest in England we have so increased in Riches that now 2000 l. is esteemed no greater Portion than 500 l. was Fifty Years ago and a Knight now exceeds a Lord of those days in rich Clothes Plate Jewels c. and that we have almost a hundred Coaches for one we had then And if Interest were lowered