Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	continue_v	parliament_n	session_n	2,943	5	10.7773	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47406	Some seasonable and modest thoughts, partly occasioned by, and partly concerning the Scots East-India Company humbly offered to R.H. Esq., a member of the present Parliament / by an unfeigned and hearty lover of England.	C. K., Unfeigned and hearty lover of England.	1696 (1696)	Wing K5; ESTC R14903	27,535	36

upon concerning the Neglect which the Scots seem guilty of in their failing to countenance and advance Trade namely that the Act of the late Session of the Parliament of Scotland for the Erecting an East-India and African Company is not the first since the Year 1660 in which the Foundation of their being disabled and crippled in Traffick was laid that they have passed and enacted with large Immunities for the settling encouraging and promoting Trade in their Country For besides the Act for encouraging a Foreign Trade made by the present Parliament of Scotland Anno 1693 wherein there are divers Concessions for the raising and quickning the Genius of the Kingdom to an Outlandish Traffick and which was only designed to be preparatory and introductive to this latter Act and to pave the way for it there were divers other Acts granting great Liberties and Immunities enacted in the first Parliament of Charles II. immediately after the many severe Preclusions and Restrictions laid upon the Scots by the Parliament of England for debarring them from all share in the Trade which the English drive either with Foreigners or with the American Plantations Among which other Acts and Statutes of the Scots Nation subservient hereunto that Act is in a special manner worthy of Remark which they past in the Year 1661 for Fishings and for promoting of the same in which as the Privileges and Immunities vouchsafed by it are both many and very considerable so they were all granted and ordained to continue for ever Whereas the Concessions of the late Act which do make so much noise in World are confined to a certain Term of Years some of them being limited to Tin and those of the longest Duration circumscribed to One and Twenty And the Reasons why that Act produced not better Effects nor more signally answered the End it was designed for are so obvious that they need not be insisted upon but only to be hinted at namely that the said Act was not so much designed to be put in execution as it was projected to try what could be procured in behalf of Scotland from the Grace and Favour of our Princes and thereby to gain a Precedent of their Mercy and Justice in order to something that might be more conducible in Point of Trade to the Honour and Interest of that Kingdom To which may be added that it was enacted rather to alarm England and to reduce the English from the unkind and severe Methods they were upon towards Scotland than that any firm Resolutions were taken by the Scots for the pursuing of it I may likewise subjoin That a main Reason of its failing in the Execution was the Scarcity of Money then in Scotland to support and promote it to the Degree that was necessary against our Holland Rivals and the not inviting Foreigners to have a Portion in the Profit upon their bearing a Share in the Expence Nor in the 4 th place is it improbable but that our Opulent Neighbours the Dutch who do in a manner wholly subsist as well as gain so much by fishing on our Seas might bribe some one or more great Men imploy'd in the Head of that Concern secretly to supplant and clandestinely to overthrow it And to conclude this Paragraph it may be farther added That as the Genius of the Nation was not so much excited towards Trade then as it is now So the Business of Fishery was not a Game that a People otherwise habituated could be gained so easily to sly at nor a Quarry they would be prevailed upon so industriously to dig in as a Trade to the Indies and Africa is the prosecution whereof will both bring more Reputation and Gain than the catching of Herring and Cod could be supposed either by Undertakers Merchants or Mariners to do But suffer me Sir to add That upon the unequal Terms which England and Scotland stand together in matter of Traffick it were better for Scotland that the two Nations should be under distinct Kings as they are distinct Kingdoms than that under one and the same Soveraign their Interests in point of Commerce should be made so inconsistent with and repugnant to one another as the English will have them to be For were Scotland a Nation subdued by the People of England it were neither prudent nor safe for them to treat the Scots with the Rigour and Severity which they do by excluding them from all other Share in the Commerce of England or with it save what they do in a manner allow to all sorts of Aliens and Foreigners Nor is it unworthy of Remark that the Romans of old carried for the most part better and behaved themselves both more generously and gently to those States and Nations which they conquered than the English are willing to do to the Kingdom of Scotland which besides its being under the same King as they are is as free a Nation as England it self and altogether independent upon it For whensoever the Romans subdued any People unless they were such as had often revolted from and rebelled against them they not only left them in the enjoiment of all the Rights and Liberties which they had possessed before but they both commonly enlarged and increased them and many times admitted those they had subdued to a Share and Participation of all the Privileges of Rome and of the Roman Republick And the more tenacious they found any People to be of their Liberty and the greater Estimate they observed them to set upon it the more Favour and Honour they judged that People worthy of Whereof tho it were very easy to give a multitude of Examples yet for brevity's sake I shall assign only but one Instance which is that of their dealing with the Privernates whom having upon a Revolt again subdued and having brought some of them into the Senate-House to receive and hear their Destiny they asked of them in what manner they would keep Peace with the Romans for the future in Case they should forgive them And being as Livy tells us answered Si bonam dederitis fidam perpetuam si malam haud diuturnam That If the Terms were good they would perpetually observe it but if they should be bad they would in that case keep it no longer than they should find themselves in a Condition with security to break it With which Reply some of the wisest of the Roman Senators were so ravished as well as pleased That they cried out Viri liberi vocem auditam esse nec ullum populum aut hominem in ea conditione cujus eum paeniteat diutius quam necesse sit mansurum That they had heard the Language of a brave People and just Valuers of Freedom adding that no Nation or particular Person would be willing to remain longer in any State or Condition that was disgustful to them than until they were able to rescue and deliver themselves And if this was the Opinion of the wise Romans in reference to a People

themselves and thereby keeping their Money at home and also to export and vend abroad to others and by that means to draw Bullion and Cash into the Kingdom from those Countries where their Indian Goods come to be disposed And they have the more reason to to fall upon all the Methods and to use all the Ways they can to increase their Coin seeing neither Nations for Persons are now valued as antiently they were by their Ingeny Fortitude and moral Worth but according to their Wealth and the Proportion of Silver that they weigh at in the Scale of Quantity the Scarcity whereof in Scotland through want of Trade which in the Source and Fountain of its being any where plentiful has given occasion to some of their opulent Neighbours whom Wealth hath made haughty and disdainful to fasten upon them the Character of beggarly Scots and the which as it appears by their neglect of Trade they have hitherto born with a Tameness as if they were not ashamed of the Reproach And truly were the Estimate of Kingdoms and Persons made now as formerly it was wont to be and as it really ought Poverty where it is compensated by true intrinsick Moral and Intellectual Worth is not such an Ignominy as it is meant both by those that charge it upon others and as it is commonly taken by them upon whom it is fastned seeing as there may be sound Kingdoms that are poor and indigent in Coin which nevertheless are valorous noble and generous and Nations on the contrary vastly rich who can never emerge from being Rustick and Boorish so there is nothing more apparent tho less acknowledged than that some Persons with a very light Purse may be genteel meritorious and honourable while others of twenty and forty thousand Pound Capital do deserve to be as much reckoned in the Number of the Mob as they who sell Brooms or cry Small Coal But then Sir allow me to add in the second place that the Scots were for many Years after the English and they came under One Soveraign treated with that Equality and Indulgence with reference to the mutual Traffick of the Kingdoms or at least with that Respect and Fairness that the Scots had not that Cause and Occasion administred unto them of establishing and pursuing Trade upon a separate and distinct Bottom of their own as they have had for these several late Years and still have in that upon the two Nations first coming to be the Subjects of one and the same King besides the Prospect which the Scots had and the Hopes that were given them that the two Kingdoms should be so cemented and united as to become equally interested and vested in the same civil and political Liberties Rights and Privileges they had in the mean time immediately granted unto them by the Concession and Adjustment of the Commissioners of both Nations who soon after King James the First had attained to the Crown of England were called and authorized to meet and sit about the debating and perfecting a compleat Vnion between the two Kingdoms that the Scots should be under no Restrictions in matter of Trade more than the English were save that they were to stand prohibited from the Exportation of Wool and a few other English Productions And as this Privilege was not envied or denied them by the English for many Years So the Scots had no reason all that while of complaining that they were unkindly or unequally dealth with or of falling under the Temptations of erecting Trading Societies with larger Immunities than were granted in England But on the contrary they lay under all the friendly Obligations imaginable of acquiescing in that Share and Proportion of Traffick that was so chearfully allowed them Nor was the Trade of England to the East-Indies and to the American Plantations and much less to Africk which have since proved the Occasion of the English entering upon other Measures of Commerce and of laying those Restraints and Inhibitions upon the Scots in the Matter of Trade that were not formerly dreamed of arrived at that Maturity and Perfection as to be the Mine of Wealth for the enriching those that were licensed to pursue it and by Consequence it would create no great Emulations and much less Envy or Discord between the Kingdoms about being interested in it And as there was not any considerable Alterations made from what I have mentioned through the Conduct of the English towards the Scots in the Business of Trade during the Reigns of James I. and Charles I. So every one knows that these Privileges during the Administration of the Parliament 1641 and of Oliver Cromwell's Usurpation were rather enlarged towards the Scots Nation than any ways diminished and abridged So that except the Diversion given to the Scots from following Trade with Application which the War begot that Scotland was for several Years engaged in sometimes for and sometimes against England they had no Cause given them of Offence or Complaint by reason of those Preclusions Restrictions and Hardships which have been put upon them in Matter of Trade since the Restauration 1660. And I am sorry to say it considering that they had both suffered so much for King Charles and cooperated with General Monk to the Degree they did towards his Reestablishment upon his Thrones that they were soon after not only put out and debarred from all the Privileges in Traffick which they had formerly enjoyed but were in all Particulars that respect Trade put into the perfect State and Condition of Aliens tho the doing so was directly repugnant to all the Laws and judged Cases relative to the Postnati For by several Acts of the Parliaments of England immediately or soon after the Restauration particularly by that 12 Car. 2. stiled An Act for the encouraging and increasing Shipping and Navigation and by another 15 Car. 2. called An Act for the Encouragement of Trade the Scots are not only treated distinguishingly worse than any other of the Subjects of the King of Great Britain but they are placed in the same Circumstances as to Traffick with French and Hollanders which as the Scots think could be designed for no other End than the putting them into a worse Condition than that both of a Province and a Conquered People which Ireland is to which they grant the Privileges which they refuse to Scotland You will not thereupon be amazed or think it strange if the Scots have been endeavouring all along since to vindicate themselves from that Dishonour as well as to relieve themselves from that Loss and Damage by settling their Nation on a Basis and Foot of Trade that may not leave them obnoxious to be so easily contemned as they have been nor continue them exposed to those Dependences upon the Grace and Favour of the English which are meerly precarious and may be withdrawn and denied when they please Which leads me to the third Thing which I am to lay before you on the Head that I am