yet farther the manifestness and palpableness of this mistake we affirm that it is matter of Fact that our Woollen Manufacture did greatly increase after the said Prohibition of wool in the year 1647. For at least 16 or 18 years together and not only increased but bore a good price and that I may not be found like some others who regard not the credit of what they affirm and particularly like him who hath contracted the Arguments of my Opponent and hath published them together in one sheet of paper I shall to justifie what I say appeal for the truth of it not only to the Customhouse-Books and to the quantity of the Woollen Manufacture there entred but to the Gentry themselves and to the price that Land bore and Victualls bore for many years together after the said prohibition and to the plenty of Money that was then in the Land Yea as our Manufacture did increase for many years together after the said prohibition of the Exportation of wool so it had to this day still increased had not those Accidents happened that laid so effectual a foundation for the ruine of it as it was neither in the power of the Clothier nor in the power of the Grower to prevent I mean those new and immoderate Taxes which were laid upon our Manufacture by the French King on purpose to encourage his own workmen to gain the said Manufacture from us and on purpose to prevent our Clothes and Stuffs from being brought into his Countrey although we yearly take of his Commodities to the value of above a Million of Pounds sterling and I mean in the second place the making of that unfortunate Act against the Importation of Irish Cattle which hath not only tended to the Ruine of the Grower but to the Ruine of the Clothier and to the Ruine of very Trade of England it self and which if it should continue to stand unrepealed must necessarily and inevitably Ruine more and more both the Gentry Merchant and Clothier every day And therefore as a further proof to what I say I shall give one instance in stead of many and leave the truth of it to be strictly examined and judged accordingly which is that since the said Accidents have befallen us I mean of the French Kings Arbitrary impositions upon us and that Act against the Importation of Irish Cattle Exeter alone hath lost of what it did formerly vend near if not above three hundred thousand pounds sterling every year and if we shall reckon proportionably from all other Counties and Cities we shall then easily see there is a just ground for the decay of our woollen manufacture and for the fall of the price of our wooll by it and for the fall and ruine of our Rents not as my Opponent alleadgeth by reason of the prohibition of transporting our wool but truly and really by reason of the multiplication and increase of our wool to that degree that the Exportatition of it hath almost been necessary The serious consideration of which true and real cause of the decay of our manufacture I shall humbly leave to the Wisdom of the Parliament And shall likewise leave it to their Wisdom to be considered whether in this conjuncture of affairs and according to the circumstances which now attend us while our Neighbours do not only emulate us but are become actual Rivals with us not only for Clothing but for our Trade it self and for our Strength and Dominion at Sea we shall or ought so far to contribute towards the design and towards the certainty and effectualness of our own Ruine as either to repeal our Acts that prohibit the exportation of wool or to let that unfortunate Act stand which makes the transporting of wool absolutely necessary whether we will or no and by this means makes our Neighbours scorn-the Commerse and Trade that they formerly had with us and thanked us forâ— And whereas my Opponent doth lay a great stress upon the false making of our Manufacture as one main cause of the decay of it I cannot but confess there hath been too much and too great cause for this complaint formerly while those good Lawes for the sealing of Clothes in the water and for acertaining the length of them were wholly eluded through the negligence and corruption of the Auluager but though this abuse hath not to this day been redressed yet there hath been so great an alteration in the making of our Cloth within this thirty years I say again within this thirty years even since that naughty Act that commenced in the year 1647 that neither Dutch nor French do come near us either for the Accurateness and Goodness of our Workmanship or for the honesty and Integrity that is used in making both of Clothes Stuffs and Bays And that I may here also vindicate the Credit of what I say and that it may be clear I speak nothing but Truth I shall appeal to the most considerable Dealers in all London either as Merchants Drapers or Mercers whether there be not many Clothiers many Stuff and Bay-makers who though they be under no Check at all at present do nevertheless so value their Name their Word and their Repute that they dare adventure all the Commodity they make to be forfeited if it do not prove in every respect as Long as Broad and as truly made and as well qualified as they sell it for which is a thing so well known as though none will now trust to the Seal of the Aulnager or to the Common Stamps in use formerly yet there are many both Drapers Mercers and Merchants who will trust to the private mark of divers Clothiers with less scruple than they will trust to the stamp of some Coyn. Yea I should much wrong the generallity of the Cloathiers of England if I should not upon this occasion prosessedly declare and whoever denyeth it will greatly injure them that such is the sense which they themselves have had for divers years how much it is for their Interrest and for the Name and Honour of the English Nation it self To keep up an exact goodness in all the Woollen Manufacture of this Kingdom that they have for many years not onely sollicited the Parliament that they might be Incorporated in each County And that none might be admitted to take upon them the making of Cloath and all other woollen Manufactures but such only as serving a due number of years to learn the profession of it might be sufficiently versed and skilled in it But they have for many years desired also that all and every the sorts of woollen Manufacture might be brought to such a certainty of Regulation for the length and breadth of each Manufacture and for the true making of it that it may not be in the power of any unskilfull person to falsifie it But that by marks of their own as is used in the Colchester Bayes all manner of cheats and defects should be openly signified which proposals if
Forreign Trade For if in stead of preventing his design we shall by supplying him all we can with our wooll Resolve rather to advance it and make a Law for it we must be very short sighted if we understand not that after he hath supplyed his own Countrey he will not only endeavour but will soon be able to supply Flanders Portugal Spain and the Streights to gain an advantage to his own Subjects for if he may break the Laws of Commerce and lay what Impositions he Arbitrarily pleaseth upon our Cloth Sugar and all other our native Commodities even while we are at Peace with him why may he not also lay an Imposition upon all our Ships that pass the Streights or that shall dare to Trade or bring the same Commodities that he doth in any Port of Italy or Turkey where the Subjects of his Greatness comes and when our Commerce is lost and our Manufacture gone and our Ships imposed upon that shall pass the Seas what shall be left to defend our selves in case we will not also receive his Codex or Laws or his Religion or whatsoever he shall for the Greatness of his Name think fit to require of us All which things whether they be convenient not only to be wished but to be contributed to by a Law I humbly leave to my Opponent themselves to Judge for when the Trade that is the Riches not only onely of His Majesty and the Kingdom but also the main strength and support thereof shall be lost as it is now Declining whatever our Imaginations are to the Contrary what way or means may we as rational Persons think to prevent any of those things This General being premised I shall now enter upon the Discourse it self the main aim or scope of which seems to divide it self into two Parts the one tends to prove that there ought to be a Limitted Transportation of wooll the other to prove that by a Limited Exportation of wooll the Price of it may be Raised and by Raising of this the Rents of Lands may and will be encreased and his Majesties Customs greatly Advanced and if these things were Really Practicable I should not only be so just to my self and just to my Oponents but so just to the Nation as not to put pen to Paper to trouble my Reader and much less to expose my self to a stage of contention as I am now like possibly to do but for as much as the quite contrary will if I mistake not appear I shall therefore Examine and Weigh those Reasons and Grounds which my Opponent hath brought for those Assertions And first Whereas my Opponent doth endeavour to Allarm the Nation that for want of the vending our superfluous wooll abroad that the Farmer and the Landlord are so much damnified that the one cannot pay his Rent nor the other sustain his Taxes and that this is the chiefest if not the sole Reason of sinking our Rents and throwing up Farms and them sery of the whole Countrey This Consequence is not allowed that being assigned for a general Cause which is but one among many and that a very small one The true cause of the abating the Price of Land and lessening the Rents being to be taken from the proportion that the said price alwaies holds to the rate of Interest as is generally given for Money which Rate depends whether we will or no upon the plenty of Bullion and that our Bullion is decayed and the decay of this is the Main and Principal cause of the fall of our Lands will easily appear to any that shall consider First the great Loss that this Kingdom did receive by the two last Dutch wars Secondly The further sad and almost Incomputable Loss which it sustained by the firing of the City of London and by firing of a great part of the Suburbs since And Thirdly by the vast Expence that this Nation hath been put to for the Rebuilding of the said City and the Suburbs Fourthly by the Over-ballance of the Trade of France through the French Kings Arbitrary Impositions and the breaking the Laws of Commerce with us to the prejudice of our Trade and to the loss of near One Million of pounds sterling by the year which four causes of the decay of our Bullion as they are no way to be denyed so neither can it be doubted but that we have by all these means lost near if not above the one half of the Bullion of this Nation as it was before the said Accidents did Happen and are daily loosing and if the Bullion be thus decreased no marvel if the Landlord find it in his Rents and the Shopkeeper finde it in his Trade and the Farmer find it in his Market and no marvel if all degrees of Persons whatever do make a Complaint how hard money is to be got So that if we shall speak Accurately though the fall of Lands doth Mainly and Principally depend as we have said upon the loss and decay of Bullion in regard where plenty of Money is in any Nation there will be store of Chapmen for Land and perhaps greater store of Buyers than there may be of Sellers and in regard where there is on the contrary a great scarcity of Money there will be few Buyers to many Sellers nevertheless there are other concurrent Causes of the fall of Lands besides this Main and Principal one For it is also to be Considered that in former times the Main Chapmen for the Buying of Lands were the Merchants or Citizens which being reduced now to a very small Number partly through the Accidents before mentioned and partly through the shutting up the Exchequer the Buyers must now of necessity be restrained to the Gentry or to the Lawyers who observing that the Building of Houses doth oft-times bring in Greater Profit than the Buying of Land especially if the Rents prove good they have therefore for this Reason been induced to lay out their Money in Building rather than in Land And we know it is matter of fact that besides the Building of the City again there hath within these twenty years been more Building upon new foundations especially more fair and costly Buildings and more especially in the West part of the City than in any one age before since this Nation stood To all these Causes let me add that also which hath been for many years complained on and oft mentioned or discoursed of even in Parliament it self which is the bad defective and uncertain title of Lands for want of registering and which how much soever it hath been complained of hath never hitherto been remedied because there are some Callings which gain more by mens Contentions and Abuses of one another in bargains than they do by mens Integrity one towards another And indeed if it be a good argument on my Opponents part that one occasion of the decay of our Woollen Manufacture is our false and base making of it and if this Argument be so just and
the woollen Manufacture of England the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty do receive among them near if not more than Nine parts of it in Ten. For in as much as all who are well acquainted with the Clothing Trade do know that it is not a tenth part of the profit nor sometime the twentieth that is gained by the Clothier or first employer who frequently loseth of the very Interest of his money consequently it must of necessity follow that nine of ten parts if not 19 of 20 parts of the whole value of the said Manufacture must be distributed to the Nation so that admitting the whole Woollen Manufacture of this Nation comprehending Cloth Stuffs Bayes Stockings and all other sort of the said Manufacture do amount to four millions of pounds sterling per year more or less there will not come of that great sum to the Clothier or first employer much above two hundred thousand pounds if so much so that three Millions and eight hundred thousand pounds per year must of necessity be distributed to the Nation by virtue of the said Clothing Trade whereof we cannot but suppose the Farmers and therefore the Nobility and Gentry must receive the greater part It is well known also that it is solely by our Trade that not only this great City of London it self but several other large Cities of this Nation do wholly depend and which if our Trade were removed they would soon be deserted by their respective Inhabitants Then we cannot but offer to consideration where the Nobility Gentry or Farmers would find a Market for their Commodities or find a price answerable to them All which particulars I have been the larger in to remove that mistake which is all most as destructive to this Nation as the Pestilence it self which is that mentioned by my Opponent viz. That the Interest of the Merchant or the Interest of the Clothier and Artificer is not consistant with the Interest of the Nobility and Gentry the contrary being now made sufficiently to appear Thirdly My Opponents third Argument is That Wooll was at 10 l. per Pack in the year 1647. when it was Prohibited and that in the following year it was sold for 16 l. per Pack but that Wool hath ever since by reason the said Prohibition abated as is pretended of the price of it and is now not worth above 4 or 5 pounds per pack In which Argument there seems to be a failure in two respects one as if the Wool of the Nation hath never bore any price since the time of the Prohibition whereas it may be made appear that after the year 1650. Wooll bore a very considerable price from 10 l. per Pack to 24 l. per Pack according to the goodness of the said Wool and continued so for some time which shews us an other mistake in his Arguments as if the fall of the price of Wool were wholly to be ascribed to the Prohibition of it whereas indeed there are two other causes that are very evident First From the discouragement that hath been put upon the Clothier and upon the vent of our Woollen Manufacture by the French Kings Arbitrary impositions upon it to the almost utter prohibition of it wherby now there cannot be so much wrought of it as formerly which had otherwise certainly been and then no such occasion or pretence as this would have been taken to complain of superfluous Woll and therefore as this cannot be denied to be a true cause why more of our Wool comes to be unwrought then formerly so 't is clear that those very men that are now pleaded for by my Opponent I mean the stealers and transporters of Wool about Canterbury and the places adjacent not for necessity but for filthy greediness of gain and lucre have highly contributed notwithstanding the Laws of the Nation against it and notwithstanding the ruine of the Nation that is daily Jeopardied by it in which respect I cannot but confess that Rumney Marsh hath indeed created an interest by it self but it is such an interest which neither is nor hath been consistent with the interest of the Nation nor with the interest of the Nobility and Gentry in general so that the said stealers or transporters of Wooll have been the main and principal cause of both these inconveniences viz. both of the loss of our Manufacture and the lowring the price of Wool The other cause of the fall of the price of Wool especially of late years hath been the necessitating of Ireland to stock their Pasture-grounds with Sheep instead of great Cattel and those of the best breed of England by which means as Wool hath of late years been more increased than ever at any time before within his Majesties Dominions so the consequence of this extraordinary increase and not any fault in the Clothier or Manufacturer is that which hath not only brought down the price but hath occasioned so great a quantity of it to be sent abroad into forreign parts as it bears now almost as small a price beyond Sea as here and therefore that in this Argument my Opponent hath assigned that for a cause which is no cause at all may clearly appear because it 's matter of fact that Wool bore as good a price if not after the said prohibition as it did before for many years till that breach of Commerce was put upon us by the French King which we before mentioned and untill that unfortunate Act for so I must humbly crave leave to call it was made against the importing the Irish Cattle upon supposition that it would raise the price of Land here in England whereas the quite contrary effect hath been too much experienc'd viz. That it hath laid such a foundation for the impoverishing England as will not quickly I fear be recovered 4thly The next thing alleadged by my Opponent is That a limited Exportation of Wool will be more for the advantage of our Woollen Trade and less for that beyond the Sea than the hindring of it hath been Which assertion if my Opponent had really sufficiently and effectually made good he might justly have merited the name for being the greatest master of reason in England And indeed seeing a paradox more strange and more hard to be conceived could not easily be stated I could not but expect that some Arguments more remarkable than ordinary would immediatly have followed it but finding contrary to my expectations nothing beyond a bare affirmation that if strangers had a liberty to buy what Wooll soever they please they would pay the dearer for it by much than now they do and that our Clothiers would therefore have it the cheaper and by this advantage would be able to under sell the strangers in their Manufacture I say finding little or nothing more to be brought either by way of Reason or of Argument to maintain this paradox I was soon convinced that it remained as uncapable to be proved as it was before and a little
to evidence the improbability of the said consequence we shall here offer some few reasons to the contrary and first I crave leave to say That it is no way likely that the Grower in any part of England should not be willing to get the utmost price for his Wooll that he can and therefore not likely that any Grower whatsoever will sell his wool to the Natives of this Countrey for a less price than he presumes he may have of strangers and therefore not at all likely that our own Manufacturers should buy it cheaper than others 2. Admitting that it should be made unlawful for any stranger to buy up wool till such a Time or Season of the year to the end that our Clothiers might first provide themselves of what they need yet it would no way follow but strangers may have their Agents and Factors here that may purchase it at the same ease with the same conveniency and at the same rates that our Clothiers are like to do nor can I perceive any thing propounded by my Opponent that would be able in the least either to prevent it or to obviate it But Thirdly And this great ommission in my Opponent I could not but take the more notice of because if no expedient can be found out by him which I doubt there will not to prevent Strangers from giving what Commissions they please to buy up what quantities of wooll soever they shall think fit here in this Countrey as I see not how or by what means the Exportation of our Wooll should be any way possibly limited so neither do I see how the Clothiers here should be sufficiently and certainly furnished or how the Manufacture it self should be capable of being any way preserved and if these mischiefs and inconveniences cannot but follow and cannot but be necessary consequences of such a Law as is propounded by my Opponent and that nothing to obviate or prevent these inconveniences hath been either regarded or so much as attempted by him I cannot but take it to be a very great blot to his judgment barely and boldly to offer at such a thing which is attended with so much hazard But Fourthly Because my Opponent seems to put his chiefest stress in this viz. That a large Custom may be put upon all wooll that is exported by Strangers and that at least by this means they may come to pay double the price of what our Clothiers do and not only so but by this means also his Majesty may receive an advantage by the Custom that is imposed upon it To try the weight or strength of this expedient or rather to shew the vanity of it Let us suppose that 3d. or 4d per pound shall by a Law be imposed upon all wool that shall be shipped out by Strangers or others as it will not follow that the said Custom should be paid to his Majestie for the one half of the wooll that shall be so shipt out seeing under the colour of 100 packs many hundred may be exported So this will much the less follow from the very observation which my Opponent himself hath made of the nature and temper of the Stealers or Transporters of Wool for if as he confesseth they will be contented with 12d a day profit so they may play the Merchants and if they are content to run the hazard of their necks and to be tryed as Fellons for so small a matter as this amounts to which cannot be above 8 or 10s upon a pack how much more then will they been couraged to steal the Custom of it when their excuse shall be fairer and their advantage much greater and the hazard less a hundred times than now it is But in the fifth and last place Let us admit for Arguments sake that 4l was imposed upon every pack of Wool that was transported and let us admit that all this Custom was duly paid yet I see not the least ground for my Opponents confidence that we shall for this cause be able to undersell the French in the woollen Manufa-cture For beside that the nature of their Manufacture being but sleight and such as takes up much less wool than ours doth and a great part of their warps being made of their fine spun Linnen and their own course wool I say besides this the impositions that have been of late Arbitrarily put-upon all our woollen Manufacture in France and considering also there is no Custom at all put upon wool there when imported both these will utterly prevent our selling the said Manufacture there cheaper than the French can make it though they shall give not only double but treble the price that we ourselves do give for wool 5thly The next thing alledged by my Opponent is That our Fore fathers did never prohibit the Transportation of wooll unless upon some great occasion and for a certain Season till of late years for making good of which a summary of several Statutes are brought from the time of Edw. the 3d. downwards to our own times For answer to all which Statutes I shall make use of no other argument than what my Opponent himself hath put into my mouth which is that wool was for many ages by the wisdom of the Government at least very often prohibited and that whensoever the Government it self saw there was a greater occasion than ordinary for it they did always prohibit it and consequently if the Interest of the Nation at present be such and the circumstances relating to our Neighbours about us being not only so great but so instant and importune that these two considered there will be much more reason and much more necessity for the prohibiting of it now than formerly Then all that my Opponent labours at in producing instances of other kinds and where the circumstances are not the same falls wholly to the ground For the clearing of which let us consider that the circumstances peculiar to this present time is That we have not only been possessed for many ages of the Manufacturing of our wool but have of late so improved our Trade and Commerce by it that we have exported it by shipping of our own not only into France Portugal and Spain but into Italy Turkey and to the most remote parts of the World By which means as our wealth came greatly to encrease so we our selves became more powerful in Shipping than ever which greatness of our Trade and the strength of our Shipping being not only observed but forthwith emulated by some of our Neighbours and â—eing it likewise clearly discerned that the chiefest means for the maintenance of it proceeded from our woollen Manufacture as the Hollander therefore first so the French since have by many undue Laws and pressures upon us contrary to the ancient treaties of Peace and Commerce endeavoured to rob the said Manufacture from us Nor is the state of the contest now at present between us only who shall have the Trade but who is fittest to have the