Argument why it should do so here What the considerations were which moved that Parliament to do so I will not presume to determine neither is it my business Circumstances of Affairs may be different in different Nations Sure I am that in this particular they are different that a greater number of men in proportion to the people in each Nation will fall under uneasy circumstances by such an Act in Scotland than has bin found to have done in England The second Discourse Concerning the AFFAIRS of SCOTLAND Written in the Year 1698. THE Affairs of which I have spoken in the preceding Discourse are such as the present conjuncture makes a proper subject for the approaching Session of Parliament but there are many other things which require no less their care if the urgent and pressing distresses of the Nation be consider'd I shall therefore with all due respect to the Parliament offer my opinion concerning two which I presume to be of that nature The first thing which I humbly and earnestly propose to that Honourable Court is that they would take into their consideration the condition of so many thousands of our People who are at this day dying for want of Bread And to perswade them seriously to apply themselves to so indispensible a duty they have all the inducements which those most powerful emotions of the Soul Terror and Compassion can produce Because from unwholsom Food diseases are so multiplied among the poor People that if some course be not taken this Famine may very probably be followed by a Plague and then what man is there even of those who sit in Parliament that can be sure he shall escape And what man is there in this Nation if he have any Compassion who must not grudg himself every nice bit and every delicate morsel he puts in his Mouth when he considers that so many are already dead and so many at that minute strugling with death not for want of Bread but of Grains which I am credibly informed have bin eaten by some Families even during the preceding years of Scarcity And must not every unnecessary branch of our expence or the least sinery in our Houses Clothes or Equipage reproach us with our barbarity so long as People born with natural Endowments perhaps not inferior to our own and fellow Citizens perish for want of things absolutely necessary to life But not to insist any more upon the representation of so great a Calamity which if drawn in proper colours and only according to the precise truth of things must cast the minds of all honest men into those convulsions which ought necessarily to be composed before they can calmly consider of a remedy and because the particulars of this great distress are sufficiently known to all I shall proceed to say that tho perhaps upon the great want of Bread occasioned by the continued bad seasons of this and the three preceding years the evil be greater and more pressing than at any time in our days yet there have always bin in Scotland such numbers of poor as by no regulations could ever be orderly provided for and this Country has always swarm'd with such numbers of idle Vagabonds as no Laws could ever restrain And indeed when I consider'd the many excellent Laws enacted by former Parliaments for setting the Poor to work particularly those in the time of King James the sixth with the Clauses for putting them in execution which to me seemed such as could not miss of the end and yet that nothing was obtained by them I was amazed and began to think upon the case of other Nations in this particular perswaded that there was some strange hidden root of this evil which could not be well discovered unless by observing the conduct of other Governments But upon reflection I found them all subject to the same inconveniences and that in all the Countries of Europe there were great numbers of Poor except in Holland which I knew to proceed from their having the greatest share in the Trade of the World But this not being a remedy for every Country since all cannot pretend to so great a part in Trade and that two or three Nations are able to manage the whole Commerce of Europe yet there being a necessity that the Poor should every where be provided for unless we will acknowledg the deficiency of all Government in that particular and finding no remedy in the Laws or Customs of any of the present Governments I began to consider what might be the conduct of the wise Antients in that affair And my curiosity was increased when upon reflection I could not call to mind that any antient Author had so much as mentioned such a thing as great numbers of poor in any Country At length I found the original of that multitude of Beggars which now oppress the World to have proceeded from Church-men who never failing to confound things Spiritual with Temporal and consequently all good Order and good Government either through mistake or design upon the first publick establishment of the Christian Religion recommended nothing more to Masters in order to the Salvation of their Souls than the setting such of their Slaves at liberty as would embrace the Christian Faith tho our Saviour and his Apostles had bin so far from making use of any Temporal advantages to perswade eternal truths and so far from invading any man's property by promising him Heaven for it that the Apostle Paul says expresly In what ever condition of Life every one is called to the Christian Faith in that let him remain Art thou called being a slave be not concerned for thy condition but even tho thou mightest be free chuse to continue in it For he who is called whilst a slave becomes the freeman of the Lord and likewise he that is called whilst a free-man becomes the slave of Christ who has paid a price for you that you might not be the slaves of men Let every one therefore Brethren in whatever condition he is called in that remain in the fear of God That the interpretation I put upon this passage different from our Translation is the true meaning of the Apostle not only the authority of the Greek Fathers and genuine signification of the Greek Particles but the whole context chiefly the first and last words which seem to be repeated to inforce and determine such a meaning clearly demonstrate And the reason why he recommends to them rather to continue slaves if they have embraced the Christian Faith in that condition seems to be that it might appear they did not embrace it for any worldly advantage as well as to destroy a Doctrine which even in his days began to be preached that slavery was inconsistent with the Christian Religion since such a Doctrine would have bin a great stop to the progress of it What the Apostle means by saying we ought not to be the slaves of men I shall show hereafter This disorder of giving liberty to
Corn they cannot sell it so cheap to the Merchant that he can make any profit by exporting it As for the Arguments of those who are for this Tax I need answer none of them they are To save the trouble and expence of frequent Parliaments and because the Nation did trust King James with this Tax who made bad use of it a modest and a sensible Argument Are they not afraid it should be said that those who advise the King to ask the same trust King James had may advise him likewise to the same things for which King James demanded it Sure I am that many who plead for this now are the same Persons who did the like for King James and as for the expence occasioned by frequent Parliaments I believe there is neither Shire nor Borough but will find Persons very willing to represent them without putting them to any charge I know 't is commonly said in this Kingdom that Parliaments do more hurt than good but it is because they are never called unless to impose mony will it mend the matter to lay on at once and for Life as much as the Nation is able to pay We were getting some good Laws for our Mony but then we shall be excluded from that benefit In a word our Forefathers had two securities for their Liberties and Properties they had both the Sword and the Purse The Sword antiently was in the hand of the Subject because the Armies then were composed of the Vassals who depended on the Barons That Security is gone shall we throw the other after it and thereby I may very well say dissolve the Constitution and the Monarchy For a Government is not only a Tyranny when tyrannically exercised but also when there is no sufficient caution in the Constitution that it may not be exercised tyrannically When the Parliament has put an end to the Affairs beforementioned it were to be wished that this being the first Session since the conclusion of the Peace and after so long a War they would pass some Act to ease the minds and take away the fears and apprehensions of many men who are still obnoxious to the Law of whom the greater part are abroad and all of them both at home and abroad for want of an Act of Indemnity made desperate and only sitted to involve others in the same uneasy and distracting Circumstances under which they themselves live But Acts of Indemnity are the worst and most pernicious of all Laws to the well being of any Government unless the most notorious offenders be first punished and in such cases only incouragements to new Transgressions destroying the real security of all Government and effect of all Laws by giving an intire impunity to the attempts against both So that there seems to be an absolute necessity both of making an example of the notorious enemies to the Liberties of this Country and giving a general Pardon to the rest if we will either secure the Government for the future from endeavours to introduce Arbitrary Power cut up the Party of the late King James by the roots or quiet the minds of the people and remove the animosities that may remain in a Nation wherein two or more parties have bin inflamed against each other to the ruin of the publick Liberty and extinguish the memory of those Factions for ever When 't is confess'd and acknowledged that there have bin bold attempts and treacherous practises to destroy the Religion overturn the Constitution of Government and suppress the Liberty of a Nation and yet no example made of the Advisers and those who have bin eminently subservient to such designs such a People has as much laid the Foundation of their own ruin as if they had declared that those who shall hereafter ingage themselves in the like attempts need fear no punishment Vpon a Revolution followed by a War circumstances of Affairs may be such that till the War be at an end 't is not sit to punish great Offenders But there was no reason nor any well-grounded political consideration why immediatly upon the late Revolution the most notorious of those Offenders should not have bin punished by which means we should have bin delivered from our worst men who have since bin very bad instruments in Affairs and have terrified the rest by their example We might then have quieted the minds of the people by an Indemnity brought the Nation to a settlement and prevented the War which ensued in this Country Yet because in matters of prudence men are of different sentiments tho it should be granted that during the War it was not fit to make any examples what pretence can there be now of exempting from punishment those who have bin notoriously criminal both under the late Reigns and under this Which when it is done what conjuncture of time can be so proper for applying the healing Remedy of an Act of Indemnity and Oblivion to the rest as the present by reason of the Peace Before the Revolution the Court had bin in a formed Conspiracy against the Religion and Liberties of this Nation nor was there any art to introduce Arbitrary Power or subvert our Religion for which the late Reigns wanted willing Instruments and many endeavoured to signalize themselves in the ruin of their Country Yet no man has bin made an Example to deter others from the like Crimes It will I know be thought hard to mention the punishing of Offences committed so many years ago when many of the Offenders are dead and some men will judg it fitter to bury all in a general Act of Oblivion To this I answer that having bin highly to blame for neglecting hitherto to punish the Enemies of our Liberty this ought to oblige us the rather to make an example of those who are still living And to convince us of this necessity we need only to consider what Crimes those men would not have punished nor the least example made of any that have bin guilty of them and whether the suffering them to pass unpunished will not bring a guilt upon the Nation which may not easily be expiated Publick and private Injuries are of a very different nature and tho we are commanded to forgive the last yet those who have Power and Right are required under the greatest penalties to punish the other especially where the Crimes are enormous But if the Parliament should follow the advice of those men they are not to punish any violent Proceedings illegal and arbitrary Imprisonments Fines Banishments and Murders under pretext of Law that were set on foot encouraged and committed by those evil Counsellors mentioned in his Majesty's Declaration in order to alter the Religion and Government of this Nation and in place of them to introduce Popery and Slavery They are not to punish those who to recommend themselves to the late Kings by their Interest Power and Credit in the Parliament got to be enacted most cruel and unchristian Laws for persecuting a great
Christian Charity but banished natural compassion from amongst us that without remorse we might continue in them This explains to us by what means so much virtue and simplicity of manners could subsist in the Cities of Greece and the lesser Asia in the midst of so great curiosity and resinement in the Arts of Magnificence and Ornament For in antient times great Riches and consequently bad Arts to acquire them were not necessary for those things because if a man possessed a moderate number of Slaves he might chuse to employ them in any sort of magnificence either private or publick for use or ornament as he thought sit whilst he himself lived in the greatest simplicity having neither Coaches nor Horses to carry him as in triumph through the City nor a family in most things composed like that of a Prince and a multitude of idle Servants to consume his Estate Women were not then intolerably expensive but wholly imployed in the care of domestick Affairs Neither did the furniture of their houses amount to such vast sums as with us but was for the most part wrought by their Slaves Another advantage which the Antients had by this sort of Servants was That they were not under that uneasiness and unspeakable vexation which we suffer by our hired Servants who are never bred to be good for any thing tho most of the Slaves amongst the Antients were And tho we bestow the greatest pains or cost to educate one of them from his youth upon the least cross word he leaves us So that 't is more than probable this sort of Servants growing every day worse the unspeakable trouble arising from them without any other consideration will force the world to return to the former Among the Antients any Master who had the least judgment or discretion was served with emulation by all his Slaves that those who best performed their duty might obtain their liberty from him A Slave tho furnished with every thing necessary yet possessing nothing had no temptation to cheat his Master whereas a hired Servant whilst he remains unmarried will cheat his Master of what may be a stock to him when married and if after his marriage he continue to serve his Master he will be sure to cheat him much more When the Antients gave freedom to a Slave they were obliged to give him wherewithal to subsist or to put him into a way of living And how well and faithfully they were served by those they had made free whom from a long experience of their probity and capacity they often made Stewards of their Estates all antient History dos testify Now we having no regular way to enable a Servant to provide sufficient maintenance for his Family when he becomes independent on his Master his bare Wages out of which he is for the most part to provide himself with many necessaries for daily use not being enough for that purpose and no way left but to cheat his Master we ought not to expect any probity or fidelity in our Servants because for want of order in this point we subject them to such strong temptations I might insist upon many other advantages the Antients had in the way they were served if to perswade the expedient I propose I were not to make use of stronger Arguments than such as can be drawn from any advantages I mean those of necessity There are at this day in Scotland besides a great many poor Families very meanly provided for by the Church-boxes with others who by living upon bad Food fall into various diseases 200000 People begging from door to door These are not only no way advantageous but a very grievous burden to so poor a Country And tho the number of them be perhaps double to what it was formerly by reason of this present great distress yet in all times there have bin about 100000 of those Vagabonds who have lived without any regard or subjection either to the Laws of the Land or even those of God and Nature Fathers incestuously accompanying with their own Daughters the Son with the Mother and the Brother with the Sister No Magistrate could ever discover or be informed which way one in a hundred of these wretches died or that ever they were baptized Many murders have bin discovered among them and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor Tenants who if they give not Bread or some kind of Provision to perhaps forty such Villains in one day are sure to be insulted by them but they rob many poor People who live in Houses distant from any Neighbourhood In years of Plenty many thousands of them meet together in the Mountains where they feast and riot for many days and at country Weddings Markets Burials and other the like publick occasions they are to be seen both Men and Women perpetually drunk cursing blaspheming and sighting together These are such outragious disorders that it were better for the Nation they were sold to the Gallies or West-Indies than that they should continue any longer to be a burden and curse upon us But numbers of People being great riches every Government is to blame that makes not a right use of them The wholsomness of our Air and healthfulness of our Climat affords us great numbers of People which in so poor a Country can never be all maintained by Manufactures or publick Work-houses or any other way but that which I have mentioned And to show that former Parliaments strugling with this otherwise insuperable difficulty have by the nature of the thing bin as it were forced upon remedies tending towards what I have proposed By an Act of Parliament in the year 1579. any subject of sufficient Estate is allowed to take the Child of any Beggar and educate him for his Service which Child is obliged to serve such a Master for a certain term of years and that term of years extended by another Act made in the year 1597 for Life So that here is a great advance towards my Proposition but either from some mistake about Christian or Civil liberty they did not proceed to consider the necessity of continuing that service in the Children of such Servants and giving their Masters a power of alienating that service to whom they should think fit The reason for the first of these is that being married in that sort of service their Masters must of necessity maintain their Wife and Children and so ought to have the same right to the service of the Children as of the Father And the reason for the power of Alienation is that no man is sure of continuing always in one sort of Employment and having educated a great many such Children when he was in an Employment that required many Servants if afterwards he should be obliged to quit it for one that required few or none he could not without great injustice be deprived of the power of alienating their service to any other man in order to reimburse to himself the