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
Miscellanea I. A Survey of the Constitutions and Interests of the Empire Sueden Denmark Spain Holland France and Flanders with their Relation to England in the Year 1671. II. An Essay upon the Original and Nature of Government III. An Essay upon the Advancement of Trade in IRELAND IV. Upon the Conjuncture of Affairs in Octob. 1673. V. Upon the Excesses of Grief VI. An Essay upon the Cure of the GOUT by Moxa By a Person of Honour LONDON Printed by A. M. and R. R. for Edw. Gellibrand at the Golden-Ball in St. Pauls Church-yard 1680. The AUTHOR's Letter to the Stationer upon occasion of the following Papers I Have received both your Excuses and Desires about those Papers I left in your Fathers hands upon my several journeys into Holland with a charge That none ever should see them unless I happen'd to dye before my return In that case only I gave him leave to Print them because I found it would be a satisfaction to him and he thought an advantage I will examine no further how several of them came to run abroad both in Print and Manuscript since you justifie your felf and I will not accuse your Father whom I ever esteemed a good man All I can say of the matter is That the Two Copies at first dispersed came from two of your Fathers Friends and that you confess to have Printed ten by order of one of Mine while I was abroad upon the belief he would not have desired it without my Consent But that you ought not to have concluded without knowing it from me as you might easily have done in ten days time You pretend to be sure the Press was broken after tbat number was taken off which is a thing you cannot answer for without your Printers leave nor if it were so do I make any difference between Ten and a Hundred This I am sure of that how few soever were Printed very many have seen them and more have heard of them and so many of my acquaintance prest me for Copies that I have been troubled to refuse them and to be so hardly believed when I assured them I had none Now for what you tell me of the great care and pains you have taken since I spoke to you last to discover how they went out and to call them in and that you find this last is impossible and apprehend every day that some or other will Print them without your knowledge or mine and thereupon ground your desires for my leave to do it I know not well what to say having said so much to you already upon this occasion and think 't is best troubling my self no longer about a thing that is past remedy Therefore I am content you should publish them rather than any other should do it without my leave and rather than any further mystery should be made of those that are abroad which has given the occasion of two other Books being laid to my charge that I have been so far from writing as never to have seen For the Order and Titles of the several Papers they must I doubt be the same with the Copies already dispersed since these cannot be recalled For any general Title I leave it wholly to you as well as the time nor are you to expect from me either any Correction of Press or trouble of Preface being resolved since they first run away without my consent to own them no longer and to concern my self in them no more than if they had never been mine What advantages soever you can propose to your self by them I can expect but one and that will agree very ill with yours which is That the publishing of them may possibly suppress them and that they may be talkt of no more when once they grow common since nothing but the scarcity of them can give them any vogue If this happens I shall be at quiet which is all I ask of them or of you June 12. 1679. A SVRVEY of the Constitutions and Interests of the Empire Sweden Denmark Spain Holland France and Flanders with their Relation to England in the Year 1671. And then given to One of His Majesties Principal Secretaries of State upon the ending of my Embassy at the Hague THE Decay and Dissolution of Civil as well as Natural Bodies proceeding usually from outward Blows and Accidents as well as inward Distempers or Infirmities it seems equally necessary for any Government to know and reflect upon the Constitutions Forces and Conjunctures among their Neighbouring States as well as the Factions Humours and Interests of their own Subjects For all Power is but comparative nor can any Kingdom take a just measure of its safety by its own riches or strength at home without casting up at the same time what Invasions may be feared and what Defences expected from Enemies or Allyes abroad 'T is certain That so advantageous a Scituation as that of His Majesties Dominions in these Islands of Great Britain and Ireland makes any forreign consideration less important to us than to any other Nation Because the Numbers and Native courage of our men with the strength of our Shipping have for many ages past and still for ought we yet know made us a match for the greatest of our Neighbours at Land and an over-match for the strongest of them at Sea Whereas whoever hurts us without our own Arms must be able to master us in both those Elements Yet in regard there are the names of several Conquests remaining still upon Record though all of them the meer effects of our own divisions or invitations when Trade is grown the design of all Nations in Europe that are possest of any Maritime Provinces as being the only unexhausted Mine and out of whose Treasures all greatness at Sea naturally arises When instead of a King of France surrounded and bearded by Dukes of Brittany and Burgundy as well as our own possessions in Normandy and Guienne Instead of a Count of Flanders or Holland who served for no more than like the smaller weights to make the balance sometimes a little even in the greater scales of the English French and German Powers We now behold in France the greatest Land-Forces that perhaps have ever been known under the Command of any Christian Prince And in the United Provinces the greatest numbers both of Ships and Mariners that were ever yet heard of under any State in the World And which have hitherto been only awed by the strength of our Oak the Art of our Shipwrights and chiefly by the invincible hearts of our Seamen When the prospect of these two Powers brings us to consider that any firm conjunction of them either by Confederacy or the Submission of Holland will prove the nearest approach that was ever made to our ruine and servitude It may perhaps import us in this calm we enjoy to hearken a little more than we have done of late to the storms that are now raising abroad and by the best Perspectives we
of which whenever they are Masters of the field they march in four or five days up into the very Isle of France To compass these two Interests either of defence or a war in Confederacy they would fain engage Sweden but will endanger this Aim by the fear of venturing their money before the Game begins They reckon themselves sure of Holland as far as their defence but know they will never be brought to begin a War with France And the old rancours between Spaniard and Dutch are not yet enough worn out of the dispositions of the People or the Governments to make room for such an absolute turn Their great hope is in England where their inclination carries them as well as their interest Besides they think our old as well as fresh quarrels with France and the jealousie of their present growth will temper us for their turn at one time or other so that their measures will ever be fair with us But no more towards preserving their Peace because they think our Interest as well as our Treaties will be enough to engage us so far without other motives Though to head a War against France wherein both Sweden and Holland would as they think follow our paces There is no advantage which the Crown of Spain could make us in Trade nor money they could spare from their own necessities in the share of the quarrel which they would not willingly furnish us and trust to the events of a War how uncertain soever THE State of Holland in point both of riches and strength is the most prodigious growth that has been seen in the world if we reckon it from their Peace with Spain before which time though their Forces were great both at Land and Sea yet they were kept down by too violent exercise And that Government could not be said to stand upon its own legs Leaning always on their Neighbours who were willing to support them against Spain and feared nothing from a State so narrow in compass of Land and so weak in Native Subjects That the strength of their Armies has ever been made up of forreign Troops But since that time What with the benefit of their Scituation and Orders of their Government The Conduct of their Ministers driving on steddy and publick Interests The Art Industry and Parsimony of their people All conspiring to derive almost the Trade of the whole World into their Circle while their Neighbours were taken up either in Civil or Forreign Wars They have grown so considerable in the World that for many years they have treated upon an equal Foot with all the great Princes of Europe and concluded no Negotiation without advantage And in the last War with Us and Munster were able at the same time to bring above a hundred men of War to Sea and maintain threescore and ten thousand men at Land Besides the Establishment or Conquests of their Companies in the East-Indies have in a manner erected another subordinate Commonwealth in those parts Where upon occasion they have armed five and forty men of War and thirty thousand Land-men by the modestest computations Yet the frame of this State as of most great Machines made for rest and not for motion is absolutely incapable of making any considerable enlargements or conquests upon their neighbours Which is evident to all that know their Constitutions But needs no other argument besides their want of Native Subjects to manage any such attempts What men they can spare being drawn so wholly into their trade and their East-Indies That they cannot so much as furnish a Colony for Surinam proportioned to the safety and plantation of that place And no Nation ever made and held a Conquest by Mercenary Arms. So that the wounds and fears they can give their neighbours consists in point of Trade In injuries or insolencies at Sea In falling with great weight into a ballance with other Princes In protecting their Rebels or Fugitives And in an arrogant way of treating with other Princes and States a quality natural to men bred in popular Governments and derived of late years from the great successes of theirs under the present Ministry It may be laid I believe for a Maxim That no wise State will ever begin a War unless it be upon designs of Conquests or necessity of Defence For all other Wars serve only to exhaust Forces and Treasure and end in untoward Peaces patcht up out of weakness or weariness of the parties Therefore the Hollanders unless invaded either at home or in Flanders which they esteem now the same case if it comes from France can have no interest to offer at a War But find their greatest in continuing their course of Traffique uninterrupted and enjoying the advantages which in that point their industry and address will gain them from all their Neighbours And for these ends they will endeavour to preserve the Peace now in being And bandy by Leagues and Negotiations against any from whom they shall fear a breach of it They will ever seek to preserve themselves by an Alliance with England against France and by that of France against England as they did formerly by both against Spain And they will fall into all Conjuctures which may serve to ballance in some measure the two lesser Crowns of Sweden and Denmark as well as the greater of France and Spain But because they believe that good Arms are as necessary to keep Peace as to make War They will always be Great in their preparations of that kind especially at Sea By which they may in all cases advance or secure their Trade And upon a War with France make up that way the weakness of their Land-Forces Which a long rust of Peace and a swarm of Officers preferred by the Magistrates in favour of their relations has brought to be very disproportioned in Force to what they are in Number They esteem themselves secure from Spain and their German Neighbours upon what has been said of the present condition of those Princes And from Us not so much upon our late Treaties with them as upon what they take to be the common Interest which they think a Nation can never run over and believe is the opposing any further progress of the French greatness Their only danger they apprehend is from France and that not immediately to themselves but to Flanders where any Flame would soon scorch them and consume them if not quenched in time But in regard of the weakness of Spain The slow motions of the Empire The different paces among the Princes of it And the distance of Sweden They esteem the Peace of Christendom to depend wholly upon His Majesty as well as the safety of Flanders in case of a War For they think France will be dared and never take wing while they see such a Naval Power as Ours and the Dutch hovering about all their Coasts And so many other Princes ready to fall in whenever His Majesty declares united by the same jealousies
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
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
breeders in the Kingdom turn their lands and stocks chiefly to that sort of Cattel Few Cows were bred up for the Dairy more than served the consumption within and few Oxen for draught which was all performed by rascally small Horses so as the Cattel generally sold either for slaughter within or Exportation abroad were of two three or at best four years old and those such as had never been either handled or wintered at hand-meat but bred wholly upon the Mountains in Summer and upon the withered long grass of the lower lands in the Winter The effect hereof was very pernicious to this Kingdom in what concerned all these Commodities The Hides were small thin and lank The Tallow much less in quantity and of quicker consumption Little Butter was exported abroad and that discredited by the huswifery of the Irish in making it up most of what was sent coming from their hands who alone kept up the Trade of Dairies because the breed of their Cattel was not fit for the English-Markets But above all the Trade of Beef for forreign Exportation was prejudiced and almost sunk for the flesh being young and only grass-fed and that on a sudden by the sweetness of the Summers pasture after the Cattel being almost starved in the Winter was thin light and moist and not of a substance to endure the salt or be preserved by it for long Voyages or a slow consumption Besides either the unskilfulness or carelesness or Knavery of the Traders added much to the undervalue and discredit of these Commodities abroad for the Hides were often made up very dirty which increased the weight by which that Commodity is sold when it comes in quantities abroad The Butter would be better on the top and bottom of the Barrels than in the middle which would be sometimes filled up or mingled with Tallow nay sometimes with stones The Beef would be so ill chosen or so ill cured as to stink many times before it came so far as Holland or at least not prove a Commodity that would defray the first charge of the Merchant before it was shipt Nay I have known Merchants there fain to throw away great quantities after having lain long in their hands without any Market at all After the Act in England had wholly stopt the Transportation of Cattel the Trade of this Kingdom was forced to find out a new Channel a great deal of Land was turned to sheep because Wool gave ready Money for the English-Markets and by stealth for those abroad The breeders of English Cattel turn'd much to Dairy or else by keeping their Cattel to six and seven year old and wintering them dry made them fit for the Beef-trade abroad and some of the Merchants fell into care and exactness in Barrelling them up and hereby the improvements of this Trade were grown so sensible in the course of a few years that in the year 1669 some Merchants in Holland assured me that they had received parcels of Beef out of Ireland which sold current and very near the English and of Butter which sold beyond it and that they had observed it spent as if it came from the richer soil of the two 'T is most evident that if the Dutch War had not broken out so soon after the improvements of all these Trades forced at first by necessity and growing afterwards habitual by use would a few years have very much advanced the Trade and Riches of this Kingdom and made it a great gainer instead of losing by the Act against Transportation of their Cattel But the War gave a sudden damp to this and all other Trade which is sunk to nothing by the continuance of it However having marked the defects that were even in time of peace it may not be useless to set down the Remedies though little practicable while the War lasts For that great one of killing Cattel young and only grass-fed I know none so effectual as introducing a general custom of using Oxen for all sorts of draught which would be perhaps the greatest improvement that could be made in many kinds throughout the Kingdom By this means the great slaughter would be made of full-grown large and well wintered Cattel which would double the income made by Hide Tallow and Beef and raise their credit in all forreign Markets every man would be forced to provide Winter-fodder for his Teem whereas common Garrans shift upon grass the year round and this would force men to the enclosing of Grounds and improving Bog into Meadows the race of Garrans would decrease and so make room for the Countreys maintaining the greater number of Cattel which makes a forreign Commodity though they die by accident or age whereas the other makes none at all No great or useful thing is to be atchieved without difficulties and therefore what may be raised against this Proposal ought not to discourage the attempting it First the Statutes against that barbarous custom of Plowing by the tail ought to be renewed and upon absolute forfeitures instead of penalties the constant and easie compositions whereof have proved rather an allowing than forbidding it Now if this were wholly disused the Harness for Horses being dearer than for Oxen the Irish would turn their draught to the last where-ever they have hitherto used the Plowing by the Tail Next a Standard might be made under which no Horse should be used for draught this would not only enlarge the breed of Horses but make way for the use of Oxen because they would be cheaper kept than large good Horses which could not be wintered like Garrans without housing or fodder And lastly a Tax might be laid upon every Horse of draught throughout the Kingdom which besides the main use here intended would increase the Kings Revenue by one of the easiest ways that is any where in use For the miscarriages mentioned in the making up of those several Commodities for forreign Markets they must likewise be remedied by severe Laws or else the improvements of the Commodities themselves will not serve to bring them in credit upon which all Trade turns First the Ports out of which such Commodities shall be shipt may be restrained to a certain number such as lie most convenient for the vent of the Inland Provinces and such as either are already or are capable of being made regular Corporations Whatever of them shall be carried out of any other Port shall be penal both to the Merchant that delivers and to the Master that receives them In the Ports allowed shall be published rules agreed on by the skilfullest Merchants in those Wares to be observed in the making up of all such as are intended for forreign Transportation and declaring that what is not found agreeable to those rules shall not be suffered to go out Two Officers may be appointed to be chosen every three years by the body of the Corporation whose business shall be to inspect all Barrels of Beef Tallow Butter and all Packs of
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-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
would be mightily encreased and great advantages might be made by the connivance of Governours whereas on the other side this would prove a most sensible decay if not destruction of Manufactures both here and in England it self Yarn is a Commodity very proper to this Countrey but made in no great quantities in any parts besides the North nor any where into Linnen to any great degree or of sorts fit for the better uses at home or exportion abroad though of all others this ought most to be encouraged and was therefore chiefly designed by the Earl of Strafford The Soil produces Flax kindly and well and fine too answerable to the care used in choice of seed and exercise of Husbandry and much Land is fit for it here which is not so for Corn. The Manufacture of it in gathering or beating is of little toyl or application and so the fitter for the Natives of the Countrey Besides no Women are apter to spin it well than the Irish who labouring little in any kind with their hands have their fingers more supple and soft than other Women of the poorer condition among us And this may certainly be advanced and improved into a great Manufacture of Linnen so as to beat down the Trade both of France and Holland and draw much of the Money which goes from England to those parts upon this occasion into the hands of His Majesties Subjects of Ireland without crossing any interest of Trade in England For besides what has been said of Flax and Spinning the Soil and Climate are proper for whitening both by the frequency of Brooks and also of Winds in the Countrey Much care was spent upon this design in an Act of Parliament past the last Session and something may have been advanced by it but the too great rigor imposed upon the sowing of certain quantities of Flax has caused and perhaps justly a general neglect in the execution and common guilt has made the penalties impracticable so as the main effect has been spoiled by too much diligence and the Child killed with kindness For the Money applyed by that Act to the encouragement of making fine Linnen and broad which I think is twenty pounds every year in each County though the institution was good yet it has not reached the end by encouraging any considerable application that way so that sometimes one share of that Money is paid to a single pretender at the Sizes or Sessions and sometimes a share is saved for want of any pretender at all This Trade may be advanced by some amendments to the last Act in another Session whereby the necessity of sowing Flax may be so limited as to be made easily practicable and so may be forced by the severity of levying the penalties Enacted And for the Money allotted in the Counties no person ought to carry the first second or third price without producing two pieces of Linnen of each sort whereas one only now is necessary And severe defences may be made against weaving any Linnen under a certain breadth such as may be of better use to the poorest People and in the coarsest Linnen than the narrow Irish Cloth and may bear some price abroad when ever more comes to be made than is consumed at home But after all these or such like provisions there are but two things which can make any extraordinary advance in this branch of Trade and those are First An encrease of People in the Countrey to such a degree as may make things necessary to life dear and thereby force general industry from each member of a Family Women as well as Men and in as many sorts as they can well turn to which among others may in time come to run the vein this way The second is a particular application in the Government And this must be made either by some Governour upon his own private account who has a great stock that he is content to turn that way and is invited by the gains or else by the honour of bringing to pass a Work of so much publick utility both to England and Ireland which circumstances I suppose concur'd both in the Earl of Strafford's design and when ever they meet again can have no better copy to follow in all particulars than that begun at the Naas in his time Or else by a considerable sum of Money being laid aside either out of His Majesties present Revenue or some future Subsidy to be granted for this occasion And this either to be imployed in setting up of some great Linnen Manufacture in some certain place and to be managed by some certain hands both for making all sorts of fine Clothes and of those for Sails too The benefit or loss of such a Trade accruing to the Government until it comes to take root in the Nation Or else if this seem too great an undertaking for the humour of our age then such a sum of money to lie ready in hands appointed by the Government for taking off at common moderate prices all such pieces of Cloth as shall be brought in by any persons at certain times to the chief Town of each County and all such pieces of Cloth as are fit for Sails to be carried into the stores of the Navy All that are fit for the use of the Army to be given the Soldiers as Clothes are in part of their Pay And all siner pieces to be sold and the money still applied to the encrease or constant supply of the main stock The effect hereof would be That people finding a certain Market for this Commodity and that of others so uncertain as it is in this Kingdom would turn so much of their industry this way as would serve to furnish a great part of that Money which is most absolutely necessary for payment of Taxes Rents or subsistence of Families Hide Tallow Butter Beef arise all from one sort of Cattel and are subject to the same general defects and capable of the same common improvements The three first are certain Commodities and yield the readiest Money of any that are turned in this Kingdom because they never fail of a price abroad Beef is a drug finding no constant vent abroad and therefore yielding no rate at home for the consumption of the Kingdom holds no proportion with the product that is usually made of Cattel in it so that in many parts at this time an Ox may be bought in the Countrey-Markets and the Hide and Tallow sold at the next Trading-Town for near as much as it cost The defects of these Commodities lie either in the age and feeding of the Cattel that are killed or in the Manufacture and making them up for exportation abroad Until the Transportation of Cattel into England was forbidden by the late Act of Parliament the quickest Trade of ready Money here was driven by the sale of young Bullocks which for four or five Summer-months of the year were carried over in very great numbers and this made all the