Hides and put to them the seal or mark of the Corporation without which none shall be suffer'd to go abroad Nor shall this mark be affixed to any parcels by those Officers but such as they have viewed and found agreeable to the rules set forth for that purpose Whereof one ought to be certain That every Barrel be of the same constant weight or something over If this were observed for a small course of time under any certain marks the credit of them both as to quality and weight would rise to that degree that the Barrels or Packs would go off in the Markets they used abroad upon sight of the mark like silver-plate upon sight of the Cities mark where 't is made The great difficulty will lie in the good execution of the Offices But the interest of such Corporations lying so deep in the credit of their mark will make emulation among them every one vying to raise their own as high as they can and this will make them careful in the choice of men fit for that turn Besides the Offices ought to be made beneficial to a good degree by a certain fee upon every seal and yet the Office to be forfeited upon every miscarriage of the Officer which shall be judged so by the chief Magistrates of the Town and thereupon a new Election be made by the body of the Corporation Cattel for Exportation are Sheep Bullocks Horses and of one or other of these kinds the Countrey seems to be full-stockt no ground that I hear of being untenanted the two first seem sufficiently improved in the kinds as well as the number most of both being of the English breed And though it were better for the Countrey if the number of Horses being lessened made room for that of encreasing Sheep and great Cattel yet it seems indifferent which of these two were most turn'd to and that will be regulated by the liberty or restraint of carrying live Cattel into England When the passage is open Land will be turned most to great Cattel when shut to Sheep as it is at present though I am not of opinion it can last because that Act seems to have been carried on rather by the interest of particular Counties in England than by that of the whole which in my opinion must be evidently a loser by it For first the fraight of all Cattel that were brought over being in English Vessels was so much clear gain to England and this was one with another near a third or at least a fourth part of the price Then there coming over young and very cheap to the first Market made them double the price by one years feeding which was the greatest improvement to be made of our dry Pasture-land in England The Trade of Hides and Tallow or else of Leather was mightily advanced in England which will be beaten down in forreign Markets by Ireland if they come to kill all their Cattel at home The young Irish Cattel served for the common consumption in England while their own large old fat Cattel went into the Barrel for the forreign Trade in which Irish Beef had in a manner no part though by the continuance of this restraint it will be forced upon improvement and come to share with England in the Beef-Trade abroad Grounds were turned much in England from breeding either to feeding or Dairy and this advanced the Trade of English Butter which will be extreamly beaten down when Ireland turns to it too and in the way of English Huswifery as it has done a great deal since the restraint upon Cattel And lastly whereas Ireland had before very little Trade but with England and with the Money for their Cattel bought all the Commodities there which they wanted By this restraint they are forced to seek a forreign Market and where they sell they will be sure to buy too and all the forreign Merchandize which they had before from Bristow Chester and London they will have in time from Roan Amsterdam Lisbon and the Streights As for the true causes of the decay of Rents in England which made the occasion of that Act they were to be found in the want of People in the mighty consumption of forreign Commodities among the better sort and in a higher way of living among all and not in this Transportation of Irish Cattel which would have been complained of in former times if it had been found a prejudice to England Besides the Rents have been far from encreasing since and though that may be by other accidents yet as to what concerns Ireland it comes all to one unless Wool be forbidden as well as Cattel for the less Cattel comes over from thence there comes the more Wool which goes as far as t'other towards beating down the price of Pasture-lands in England and yet the Transportaion of Wool cannot be forbidden since that would force the Irish Wool either by stealth into forreign Markets or else in Cloth by the advance of that Manufacture either of which would bring a sudden decay upon the principal branch of the English Trade Horses in Ireland are a drug but might be improved to a Commodity not only of greater use at home but also fit for Exportation into other Countrys The Soil is of a sweet and plentiful grass which will raise a large breed and the Hills especially near the Sea-coast are hard and rough and so fit to give them shape and breath and sound feet The present defects in them are breeding without choice of Stallions either in shape or size and trusting so far to the gentleness of the Climate as to winter them abroad without ever handling Colts till they are four year old This both checks the growth of the common breeds and gives them an incurable shyness which is the general vice of Irish Horses and is hardly ever seen in Flanders because the hardness of the Winters in those parts forces the breeders there to house and handle their Colts for at least six months every year In the Studds of persons of quality in Ireland where care is taken and cost is not spared we see Horses bred of excellent shape and vigour and size so as to reach great prices at home and encourage strangers to find the Market here among whom I met with one this Summer that came over on that errand and bought about twenty Horses to carry over into the French Army from twenty to threescore pounds price at the first hand The improvement of Horses here may be made by a standard prescribed to all Stallions and all Horses that shall be used for draught the main point being to make the common breed large for then whether they have shape or no they have ever some reasonable price both at home and abroad And besides being not to be raised without wintering they will help to force men into improvement of Land by a necessity of fodder But for encouragement of finer breed and in the better hands some other
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
Bishop of Munster is made only considerable by his scituation which lyes the fittest of all others to invade Holland And by the dispositions of this man which are unquiet and Ambitious to raise a name in the World An old implacable hatred to the Dutch upon their intelligence with his chief Town of Munster Their Usurpation as he pretends of Borkloe and some other small places in his Countrey Their protection of the Countess of Benthem and the hopes of sharing Overyssel or Friesland if ever their spoyls come to be divided make him a certain friend to what Prince soever is Enemy to them and will furnish him with men or money enough to appear in the head of an Army against them The general Interest that the several Princes of the Empire have with us is grounded wholly upon the Esteem of His Majesties Power and the veneration of his Name which is so great amongst them That most of them are resolved in the present Conjuncture of Affairs in Christendom to understand perfectly His language before they speake their own THE Government of Sweden is esteemed steady and wise as their people warlike and numerous The digestion of their Counsels is made in a Senate consisting of forty Counsellors who are generally the greatest men of the Kingdom in Office Estates or Abilities and who have most of them been Commanders in the German Wars or are so in the present Militia which makes their Counsels generally Warlike and Ambitious though something tempered by the Minority of their King This has turned them for some years since their last Kings death rather to make advantages by the name and reputation of their Alliances than by the appearance of their Arms. But if their King grow a Man and of Martial thoughts as may be presaged from so great a Father We may see great actions and revolutions grow again out of this Northern Climate For the names of Goth and Vandal and their famons successes both in Poland and Germany this last age inspire them with great thoughts And the bodies and courages of their common men as well as the Prudence and Conduct of their great Officers seem to have framed them for great undertakings Besides their Application of late years to trade has much increast their Shipping and Seamen which they found to be their weak-side in their last attempts All these may in time make way for their great design which is the Dominion of the Baltick Sea by the Conquest of Denmark This was about the year 59 wrested out of their hands by the Dutch Assistances and can hardly escape them if ever that Commonwealth should be broken And if they arrive once at this point there will grow a Power in that rough Climate which both at Land and Sea may equal most others that are now in Christendom by being Masters of such numbers of strong and valiant men as well as of all the Naval Stores that furnish the World They have a nearer prospect upon the City of Bremen by the Addition whereof to the Bishoprick already in their possession They design to lay a great foundation both of Trade and Strength in the nearer parts of Germany Their next Interest seems to be a long knocking War in the Empire or the Low-Countries which will make them Courted by all till they think fit to declare And then will bring them to a share in the Game And those often go away with the greatest who bring in least when the Stake begins The neglects of France since the peace of Munster and the late courtship of Spain seem to have left them open for the fairest offer from either of those Crowns But rather inclined to Spain which has still the surest fonds of treasure if they could fall into good method or direction and to whom they are more necessary than to France which has out-grown almost all measures with their Neighbours They have a peek to Holland something in shew but more at heart As lying cross to their three designs the Dominion of the Baltick their Acquisition of Bremen and a War in the upper or lower Germany And they are so wise a State as to be found commonly in their Interest which for these reasons is either an absolute breaking or a great weakening of that Commonwealth Besides they esteemed themselves at least neglected by them in the late Negotiation of the Tripple Alliance wherein they expected constant Subsidies in the time of peace from Spain and Holland to engage them in the defence of all those Provinces against the threatning power of France An old friendship to our Nation and Alliance proceeding from a long conjunction of Interests besides the necessity of keeping well with one of the greatest Maritime Powers will as may be conjectured perswade them to follow His Majesties measures the closest and furthest of any State in Europe This gave them the first design of entring into the Tripple Alliance And into the commerce with Spain in the year 68 And their resolution of keeping pace with His Majesty in both those points as well as the consequences of them Which they will do unless the present Scene should wholly change and open new Councels and Interests not yet thought of in the world THE Kingdom of Denmark seems less considerable than their Neighbour-Crown From a fainter Spirit which appears of late in their people and in their Government it self as well as a great inequality of number in their Forces both at Sea and Land For the last change of their Government from Elective to Hereditary has made it seem hitherto of less Force and unfitter for Action abroad As all great Changes brought about by Force or Address in an old Constitution of Government rooted in the Hearts and Customs of the people though they may in time prove an encrease of Strength and Greatness when fallen into Method and grown easie by Use Yet for many years they must needs weaken it by the divisions and distractions of mens minds and discontents of their humours And so turn the Counsels upon Designs within desisting from any without And advantages upon Enemies must give way to those upon Subjects So as the breaking down an old frame of Government and erecting a new seems like the cutting down an old Oak because the fruit decays and the branches grow thin and planting a young one in the room 'T is true the Son or Grandson if it prospers may enjoy the shade and the maste But the Planter besides the pleasure of Imagination has no other benefit to recompence the pains of Setting and Digging the care of Watering and Pruning the fears of every Storm and every Drougth And 't is well If he escapes a blow from the fall of the old Tree or its Boughs as they are lopt off The Change in Denmark was the safer by having to deal with a soft easie people and with Nobles grown to have small power or interest amongst them and of whom many were gained by the Crown Besides that
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-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
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