bounty and to cure that wound which others have made almost incureable through their insincerity and preferring of their perillous and desperate counsels before safe and faithfull advise And for the better explanation of the even and just rating of lands If the Parliament shall thinke fit to sesse every 100. l. land a yeare that a man hath to pay 20. s. for a Subsidy Then if Iohn a Nokes hath 100. l. a yeare wherof 50. l. a yeare lies at Lambeth there hee must pay 10. s. hath 25. l. land a yeare at Kensington there he must pay 5. s. and other 25. l. at Islington where he must pay the other 5. s. And this proportion to be sessed ratably for every mans estate in severall parts where it lyes Some considerations which have not as yet beene spoken of in Parliament from whence both the King and the Subject as they may be handled may reape both infinite profit and contentment whereof two principals are here offered to your consideration The first is touching the Court of Wards which concernes none but the rich men of the Kingdome The second is touching such a Manufacture as concernes both all the poore and rich men of the Kingdome which introduced will necessarily set all the idle and poore people of the land to worke and inable them to get an honest living after the patterne of Edward the third who first introduced the woollen Manufacture which to this day imployes a Million of poore People which without it within 3. Monthes would starue for want of a subsistance for let no man flatter himselfe that the wools in England were they double in quantity to that which now they are can imploy all the people of the land for that the fourth part of the Inhabitants of most of the parishes of England are miserable poore people and harvest time excepted without any subsistance the number whereof daily grow and increase without any regard to the redresse And therefore there can be no such prevention so ready and profitable both for the inriching of the King and the subject as the re-inforcing of the sowing of hempe and flaxe throughout every parish of the Kingdome which amongst divers others I know not on what ground were repeald ultimo of the late Queene the effects whereof would be many both pious and profitable as First this manufacture alone would without doubt imploy all the poore people of the land in the very places of their aboade Secondly in very short time wee might all weare our owne lynnen and therewithall export some Thirdly wee might use our owne sayles and cordage and as good as any is in Europe Fourthly wee might save the Kingdome 500000. per annum with the least expence for lynnen and cordage to forraigne nations And of both these as you shall approve you may receive many notable remembrances both concerning this Manufacture and the proceedings of this Parliament touching the Court of Wards about 11. Iacobi where it was then in question to be compounded for by the Parliament with divers passages therein not unfit for your present consideration if compared with the excessive compositions there now imposed with what in future they may come unto to the utter ruine of your posterities Since the world knowes that the undoing of poor Orphanes committed by the lawes of the land to the Kings Protection suits not with the noblenesse and goodnesse of the Kings nature Besides the worke-manship of Feoders and Escheators in the inthraling of the subject and deflowring of the ancient Tenures of the Kingdom and in drawing in of all the lands as in short time it may be expected held in soccage within the Tenure of military service For if his Majesty may have more rent then now is raysed by the Compositions and the subject better concented when in his life time he knowes both his owne and his sonnes payment I see no reason but this proposition may bee acceptable both to the Soveraigne and subject especially when you shal not only know the utter-most of your paines but preserve your posterity from falling into a more intricate Laborinth then is commonly taken into every mans regard FINIS
CONSIDERATIONS TOVCHING TRADE VVith the advance of the Kings Revenue and present Reparation of His MAIESTIE Containing these foure Heads viz. 1 From the Customes 2 From Fines and Confiscations 3 From Acts of Resumptions 4 And from Subsidies Humbly Represented to the view of the Right Honourable high Court of Parliament Printed in the yeare 1641. CONSIDERATIONS TOVCHING TRADE With the advance of the Kings Revenue and present Reparation of His MAIESTIE RIGHT HONOVRABLE AS one of the meanest amongst millions carried in the publike Barke so lately in an impetuous storme neither can I as yet say secured from the Naufrage I have taken the boldnesse to present your Honours the members of the great Councell of the King and Kingdome with some considerations touching the heads of the title which as you like them dispose as you please and suffer me to be as I desire obscured and to stand in the darke as a well Wisher to my King and Countrey hoping that you will pardon my boldnesse if I present you with the publike feare which is that this Parliament will not be so propitious as it hath beene hoped through your own faults and the desire that transports many of you to save his friend whereby the reformation cannot have the full effect which it ought to have which may cast a brand on your endeavours in frustrating the publike worke or at least leave an aspersion on you for a lame and imperfect emendation It was the late Kings Oracle that the seate of Iustice which now you hold in the greatest Iudicatory of the Kingdome is neither a place to pleasure friends nor to wrong enemies for you are suum cuique tribuere without respect of persons And then as soone as you can to remember the Kings graces in conferring power upon you whereby to right the publiques who in respect of his reparation hath hitherto beene left out of your first considerations which in due time is hoped shall neither be forgotten nor so stinted that the Limitation may leave behind it the least resentment of your neglect towards his Majesties particular The advance of the Kings Revenue with the payment of his debts is doubtlesse a taske of very great difficulty so to doe it as that the subject in generall of late yeares strangely opprest may not againe sinke under that burthen which may be imposed by the Parliament but that the house in Iustice will endeavour to saddle the right horse Wherefore it is conceived that there are but foure wayes how as from foure Fountaines this worke may bee best done and with least grutch to set the King upright And these are first 1. From the Customes 2. From Fines and Confiscations 3. From Acts of Resumptions 4. From Subsidies Now the greatest of any one Income of the Kings that which may be much more if well managed without doubt is that which issueth from the trade and commerce of the Kingdom which are the customes so that if trade be opprest or imprisoned as now it is and the monies of the Kingdome imbeziled and carried out as since the last three yeares troubles it hath beene most excessively both by the Dutch and French you may be sure to see in a very short space all the land in a generall Indigency and Beggery For remedy whereof besides divers peeces tending to this purpose I have surveyed three Gentlemens honest endeavours First that of Sir Ralph Maddisons 2. Secondly that of Captaine Roberts both in print Thirdly a short paper in Manuscript of master William Turnours And from these you may draw excellent instructions but I presume Master Turnours paper of heads will yeeld you more and by farre the best furnishments both for home and forraine trade with the advance thereof if the over-merit of them hurt not and that they bee well understood and secretly carried with this Maxime that a rich subject makes a rich Prince That the customes in future shall be executed by Commission is already conceived to be resolved by the wisdome of the House for by this way the King shall be sure to have all that which the Farmers and some others have for many yeares past shared and taken from His Majesty by a great deale of Artifice and to the great dammage of the universall trade of the Kingdome The whole proceedings whereof during these fourty yeares and upwards no man knowes so well as Master Turnour as one long versed in trade and studied in the advance thereof together with the secrets of the Farmes and wayes of the Farmers The Contents of Master Turnours secrets are as followeth 1. An evident way how to advance the trade of the kingdome 2. An infallible way how to preserve the Kings customes from stealing which should it be put in practise and presently to vindicate the man or the party from whence it was stolne 3. How to vent all the native commodities of this Kingdome were they farre more then now they are at reasonable and gayning rates both to the Gentleman Merchant and countrey man and therewith to buy up all strangers commodities which may lye on their hands and to serve the subject at reasonable prises with as much as may suffice the Kingdome and to vent and transport the rest with advantage How to supply His Majesty within ten dayes warning with the value of his whole Revenue on any sudden occasion or forraine Enterprise gratis and so from yeare to yeare on the onely credit of his owne Revenue How to make the citie of London the great Mart and Empory of the world How to manage the fishing busines with ease and to the incredible inriching of the King and the Kingdome and to the perpetuall honour of the English Nation These are Master Turnours principals besides some particulars which are utterly lost if but publikely disputed For furtherance whereof a principall consideration will be how to settle a Commission for trade by the authority of the King and the Parliament with correspondency to the Commissioners for managing the Kings Revenue wherein it is further to bee considered what the house shall thinke fit to leave on His Majesty of the present Impositions lest by taking away too much before it be consulted by the Commissioners for trade when and where to take it the Kings Revenue may bee made of little consideration especially when you shall looke backe to the many Alienations and diminutions of the Crowne Lands and the house thereof may be deprived of doing that service which it is presumed they meane to doe and in that bountifull measure as that it may remaine unparaleld to posterity Wherefore it is conceived that excepting some Monopolies which invade the liberty of the land and intrench on the native commodities of the Kingdome you can not well as yet and at present take away much but rather leave it to bee taken away by the Commissioners for trade which should be most of them of both houses with some Merchants whereby as occasion shall present it selfe
both the native and forraine Merchant might be encouraged and the King with the subject in generall well pleased with your discreet and provident proceedings for as one of our weightiest Authors observes it cannot be well with a state where the Prince and people seeke but to obtaine their severall ends and to worke upon the advantages of each others necessities where they should go hand in hand in a reciprocall co-operation for the advance of the publike wherein the benevolence of the subject should ever preceed the better to draw on the Prince to a Royall retribution and to comply with his people in all just and honorable conjectures The second Fountaine from whence His Majestie may best cheape bee repaied is from fines and confiscations which in the Iustice of the house may bee laid on delinquents without partiality and for the ease of the subject in generall since it is impossible to set the King upright onely by subsidies without beggering of the Countrey-man Wherefore it is presumed that such will be the wisdome of the house that they will lay a good part of the burthen on those which would have laid perpetuall slavery and bondage on us all 3. The third Fountaine from whence to repaire the King is from Acts of Resumptions and these are of two sorts 1. First Bargaines and sales made by the late Commissioners for sale of His Majesties lands wherein if it may bee made apparent that the King hath beene abused and cousened in any particular of consequence and that there hath beene divers Bargaines not legally contracted for and according to the limitation and warrant of His Majesties Coâ—… 〈…〉 King ought to be righted since 〈…〉 that in this way there hath biâ—… 〈…〉 fraudulent conveyance A second sort of Resâ—… 〈…〉 â—…ch you account mee no Heretikâ—… 〈…〉 I doe not say ought to be takeâ—… 〈…〉 â—…ch for that were sacriledge should be the Bishops lands which in the potency of the 〈…〉 â—…apacy have beene quo jure ingrossed God knowâ—s and cui bono-with-held judge you and to what end more then to the perpetuall disturbance of this Kingdome and all the world where a needlesse superfluity of temporall fortune hath been ever the bellowes to pride and arrogancy and a restlesse ambition throughout all Ages inseparable incident to the pontificiall Clergy which can never be extinguished till the originall cause abundance of temporall fortune be removed which hath ever bin the poyson of the Church But with this proviso that the Church may first be righted I meane that all the Impropriations of the land heretofore meerly raped by the excesse of Episcopall power from the church and annexed to their owne fees or to the uselesse and idle Monasteries may be first redeemed out of the Bishops lands and resetled in the old and right place for the better maintenance and encouragement of Schollers and able Divines whereby the cures and chappels of Ease converted into Barnes and Stables in many places of the Kingdom as well as the Mother Churches may be better served then they have beene the remainder to bee setled on the Duke of Yorke And of this with the many and further reasons thereof both for the security of the King and quiet of the Kingdome May you be pleased to receive fuller satisfaction from a few papers apart which happily may not be altogether unworthy of yours and the Parliaments serious and second consideration 4. The fourth Fountaine from whence to repaire the King is from subsidies which should they not be sparingly imposed It must necessarily begger most of the poore inferiour Yeomandry of the Kingdome Since it is conceived that 20. subsidies cannot set the King upright which I say should they be levyed upon poore Renters and Farmers generally indebted and of late yeares much cast behind hand through the late troubles and fall of their commodities would ruine many a poore man For twenty Subsidies amounts to 20. markes to him that is rated at 5 l. goods and to 20. l. to him that is rated at 4 l. lands which must inforce one of these evils if he bee not aforehand to sell halfe his Cowes or halfe his Teame to pay the King who may perhaps owe the Vsurer for all the stock he imployes And here the inequality and unconscionable disproportion of rating of the subsidies may be opportunely presented unto your consideration wherin the old Riddle is fully verified that Dewce ace cannot sice sinke will not but cater trey must the poorer sort cannot pay the King the greater sort as having the law in their owne hands will pay but what they please but the middle sort they must and shall pay and in such a disproportion as is insufferable for demonstration whereof Iohn a style hath in the parish of Alcat 100 l. land per annum And it is all the estate hee hath the Sessors rates him at 5. l. lands which is the usuall ratement for men of that quality Sir William a Downes hath in severall counties and parishes 1000. l. per annum resides at Grantham where he is of the Commission of the peace and can ease himselfe and is rated at 20. l. lands and sends his Certificate from Grantham how he hath there paid the subsidies which acquits him in all other places Sir Iohn a Nokes hath in divers counties and parishes 10000. l. land per annum and is rated 100. l. lands Now the Parliament for reliefe of the King grants His Majesties tenentire subsidies which for Iohn a styles payment ariseth to ten pounds Sir William a Downes payment whose estate in true valuation is ten times to that of Iohn a styles ariseth to 40. l. which ratably should be 100. l. so that the King is cousned by Sir William a Downes 60. l. in one hundred And Sir Iohn a Nokes payment ariseth to 200. l. which rateably to Sir William a Downes true valuation and to Iohn a styles sesment it should be 1000. l. So that on true valuation the King is cousned in 11000. l. land per annum and held by great men 860. l. declaro which through the Kingdome looseth the King two thirds at the least of that which of right his Majesty should have which would treble his Majesties Subsidies were he well dealt with all and this is without all contradiction the remedy whereof is easie let every mans estate where so ever it lyes bee made liable to pay proportionably And as your Cater treys and middle sort of people are usually rated by the Iustices or their appointment then shall you doe right both to the King and the middle sort of subjects Wherefore you can never doe your selves more right then to redresse this abuse where you may doe such a service for the King as that his Majesty may bee brought in love with you and with Parliaments and therewith manifest it to the world that you came not to the house to contest and capitulate with Soveraignty but to winne his Majesty your loyaltie and