had a particular Affection having receiv'd there my first Education as the Poor in the adjacent parts thereabouts are more numerous than in any other part and the number of Beggars and the Evil greater so larger Sums of Mony are required for the erecting these necessary Work-houses I suppose no less than three may be required in and about this large City for the containing of all the poor Families One in the City and Liberties another about Spittle-fields or towards Wapping and another for Westminster and that part I offer to the worthy and honourable Governors of this noble City if they shall please to listen to my Proposals to shew them an easy Method to raise Mony for the time to come without burdening their Neighbours sufficient for the building and preparing all these Workhouses and to give my pains freely in the management and carrying on of this Work without expectation of any other Reward but the Honor and great satisfaction of seeing it brought to perfection I understand that the religious Governors of this City impower'd by Law have taken Methods already to imploy their Poor have raised Mony hired large Houses in Bishopsgate-street and are preparing them for their Reception and have brought this Business to a tolerable perfection within their Jurisdiction Let them in prosccution of their judicious Indeavors appoint Officers to such a number as they can well manage Let a Care be taken of Religion among the Poor that we may expect a greater Blessing upon the publick Proceedings and let an Act of Parliament be desired to confirm and grant such things as shall be thought necessary for the carrying on of this pious Work And let there be a Stock of all Commodities growing in our Country be provided to imploy such Poor as are within and without the House I doubt not but to see this business compleated to the Satisfaction of all the Inhabitants whoin a short time will rejoice to see their Mony so well imployed I intreat them therefore to consider and seriously to weigh what I have here offer'd how reasonable it is that it is necessary that the lazy Poor should be confin'd and oblig'd to work either for want of Food or by some other Restraint and Compulsion That such Houses being built and regulated in this manner under a Governor and his Deputy are the most convenient for this purpose That this Method tends to the Glory of God the Instruction as well as Imployment and Maintenance of the Poor to the freeing of the Nation from all lazy and idle Beggars to the increase of Trade to the augmenting in time of his Majesty's Revenues to remove out of our sight a great Eyesore and Grievance It tends to ease us from the great burden of those Rates that we pay to the Poor more to incourage their laziness than to relieve their wants It tends to the Glory and great Advantage of our Trading Nation and to the Honor of our Reformation And this business may be so carried on that no Person shall find himself either burden'd or aggriev'd And if any Objection which I can't at present foresee shall be made against this Expedient to provide for our Poor I offer to answer it and to prove that it tends wholly to the publick Good more than to any private Interest Neither can there be any imbezling or diverting of the publick Monies from the appointed Uses because such as shall be intrusted may be narrowly lookt after and no longer are they to receive the same than they free every Parish from their present Burden of the Poor And I judg it more reasonable for us to trust such judicious Governors with a prudent management of the Poors Mony for their good than to put it into the hands of such idle and lazy Prodigals as we now do who trust wholly upon the Sweat and Labors and to the forced Charity and Benevolence of their poor Neighbors and lavish it often at a strange rate And these Houses the fuller they are and the more hands to work the richer they and their Governors will grow So that in a few years they will take away all our Poor without contribution who will be able to subsist plentifully and better within these Houses than ordinary People without and free us in time from the payment of all Poors Rates I pray God direct our wise Governors in this and all their other Consultations for his Glory his Majesty's Honor tho Nations Credit the Increase of true Religion and the publick Good Amen M. D. FINIS
A Present Remedy FOR THE POOR OR The most probable Means to provide well for the Poor of the Nation to free us in time from paying the Poors Rates and deliver us now from the publick Nusance of Beggars Humbly submitted to the Wisdom of the next Sessions of Parliament LONDON Printed for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-Yard M.DCC. Price 3 d. A Present REMEDY FOR THE POOR HIS Majesty's Wisdom Care and Goodness in recommending this publick Grievance to the Sages of our Nation in the last Sessions of Parliament deserves the universal Acknowledgment and Thanks of the whole Kingdom No sooner was his Mind at liberty from the perplexing Thoughts and heavy Burden of a tedious War but he applied it to the study of promoting the Peace of his People by advising the redress of a known Evil in these words I think it would be happy if some effectual Expedient could be found for imploying the Poor which might tend to the great Increase of our Manufactures as well as remove a heavy Burden from the People By this and many other Instances we may clearly see our Happiness in the injoyment of so excellent valiant wise and publick-spirited a Prince under whose Government and Conduct we may promise to our selves a lasting Quiet at home and a flourishing Trade abroad We may promise to our selves all the Blessings of a happy People if we could be as unanimous and diligent in observing our Duties and Obligations as he is vigilant and careful in minding us and performing all that is required from him in that high Station of Honor and Trust where a divine and savourable Providence to us our Religion and Nation hath placed him But I intend not here to inlarge upon the deserved Praises of our King whom Europe and the whole World admires for his extraordinary Abilities both in Peace and War and who with much more Reason and Justice might claim the glorious Sirname of GREAT for having saved three Kingdoms from utter Ruin than the Vanity of others hath assum'd it for having destroy'd multitudes of Mankind My business in these Lines is to lay open to the wise Governours of our Nation this great Grievance of the Poor which his Majesty recommended to the Consideration of the last Parliament and which hitherto continues without Redress A growing Grievance that is as disgraceful to our wise and reformed Nation as it is troublesome to us all tho we our selves are exempted from the smart of Poverty I shall also venture to offer with all submission to the Wisdom of the Government the most probable or perhaps the only means likely to succeed to remedy this publick Nusance and what Advantages we may in time procure to our selves and Nation by taking the Method I propose I need not tell you that Nature as well as Christianity calls upon us to commiserate the Wants and Sufferings of our own kind and we are taught by the Birds of the Air to supply out of our Abundance the Necessities of our own Species That Bird is most remarkable mentioned by the Royal Prophet Psal 104.17 and named by him Chasidah the merciful Bird because it is an excellent Example among natural Beings to recommend Charity and Liberality For as it is reported the young will not only fetch Food for the old but bear them upon their Wings when helpless And of the Eagle it is said That it is so noble as to call the rest of the Birds round about to partake of that Plenty that Providence vouchsafes it However Reason can tell us that our wise Benefactor having created the World and the Blessings of it for the general use of Mankind If his Providence appears partial in the distribution of its Gifts 't is not with a design that we should ingross them to our selves but learn to imitate our good God by imparting them to others who are in want Stewards therefore we are and not Proprietors of our Enjoyments and the intent of our liberal Maker is that we should convey what we have received from his bountiful Hand to such Objects of Charity as we meet with in our mortal Race and the more liberal our God is to us the more free we ought to be to them But the whole Body of our Religion as it is the Product of pure Grace and a divine Charity calls upon us and injoyns us with many Promises to incourage our Liberalities to the Poor and Needy and frequently to extend our Charity answerable to the heavenly Bounty Nay all our expectations of Forgiveness of Sins of the Mercies of our Redeemer and of the future Rewards depend in some measure upon our Favor and Bounty to the poor Members of Christ's mystical Body whose Indigency a wise Providence lays daily before our eyes that we may by their Assistance and Relief lay up for our selves a good foundation for a future State and make our selves Friends that is oblige God their Redeemer and the holy Angels their Guardian-Spirits to lend us also in requital their assisting hand in times of want and danger But I hope I need not inlarge upon this Exhortation to Charity Our Nation has always been noted for Liberality to Foreigners in distress and 't is not probable it will be less bountiful to its own Natives How many excellent Laws have been made for that purpose for the continual Relief of the Indigent in every Precinct I may say that the Charity of the Nation hath proceede in these latter days to an excess insomuch that many Poor trusting to it wholly neglect the other means appointed and required by God and Reason to recruit their Wants It belongs therefore to Wisdom and our Christian Prudence to direct as well as to incourage our Charity to the Poor and pitch upon a right Method to relieve their Necessities such a Method as may be agreeable with the state and condition of the Nation and may incourage Trade the chief Source of Plenty Poverty is a universal Cry and Complaint both in City and Country Divers Families have bin brought into distress by the Evils and Mischiefs of the Times the Casualties of War and several other human Accidents And like the miserable Cripple of the Pool of Bethesda Poverty is of it self helpless not able to move without the assistance of others And tho it sharpens Industry to contrive new Inventions 't is in such Cases as when it is not altogether despirited by the want of all Necessaries but hath a convenient supply of means and life to stir and act Herein Charity is the more oblig'd to discover it self because it is to help such as are both willing and strive to help themselves out of the Calamity and in this case all its Proceedings and Liberalities are crowned and rewarded with success and a double Blessing Indeed Poverty in it self is an Evil of that magnitude that we need no artificial Glass to increase and inlarge it to our Eye It is attended by so many
bad Circumstances that may easily move our Compassion and oblige rational Beings to indeavour to remove it both from the publick Society as well as from our selves Were there nothing else but the Clamors and mournful Outcries of the Poor that daily fill our Ears and the sense of their urging Necessities and of their Families were there nothing but their Nakedness and Misery this would be sufficient to render the publick Poverty grievous to us as well as to them But it is a grand and chief Cause of many other Mischiefs among us First it is the Cause of many Robberies House-breakings Murders and other Villanies to which Poverty prompts Persons who are in want and by that means renders our living and dealings in City and Country the more unsafe And I am perswaded that a great many who are executed every Sessions and Assizes would never have committed such Wickedness if Poverty had not driven them to such abominable Actions It is the Cause of Irreligion and Ignorance of our Duty for such as are desperately poor seldom or never mind instruction nor the study of Religion they are brought up as Heathens and the want of Necessaries takes up all their thoughts how to provide Bread so that they have no time to think upon God or Eternity nor the way that leads thither It drives many to the necessity of begging It incourages Idleness and makes several whose strength and abilities might render them useful Members of the Society to be not only useless but pernicious and mischievous I need not reckon the other many Evils that Poverty and Begging brings upon us The number of Beggars increases daily our Streets swarm with this kind of People and their boldness and impudence is such that they often beat at our Doors stop Persons in the ways and are ready to load us with Curses and Imprecations if their Desires be not speedily answer'd Besides it is reported of the common Beggars that they have their Meetings and Rendevouz where what they have got by their lazy Trade they can spend freely in Debauchery Drunkenness and other Sins By this means the Charity of good People is strangely misapplied to the dishonor of God and the disgrace of Religion among us and these ordinary Beggars hinder us from regulating and disposing of our Charity upon the right Objects For the remedying of this Evil and its woful Consequences it is needful to imploy our Poor according to the antient and known Laws of the Government and not only to put in execution the old but to make such new as may stop the increase of this begging Trade It is needful that our wise Governors would consider how to dispose of these poor People and confine them to Work-houses where they may be furnish'd with necessary Tools and oblig'd to get their living in a lawful way But the great difficulty is how to proceed in the disposing of such vast numbers of both Sexes and of all Ages and how to raise a Fund to supply the wants of so many thousands I answer That there is every year a million of Mony collected in this Kingdom from all Parishes for the relief of their Poor and if this were rightly applied to the imploying instead of buying them present Necessaries it would be sufficient not only to provide them Tools and other things needful to keep them at work but that together with the Product and Advantage of their Work would answer all their Necessities and supply all their Wants But the Difficulty is how and in what manner to proceed I am not ignorant but know perfectly well what Methods are observ'd in Holland and France where 't is of late days that Beggars unless they belong to Religious Houses are not suffer'd and all Persons never so mean are provided for without the gathering of such vast Rates as among us If in laying down the best means as I conceive to provide for our English Poor I vary from foreign Methods in some things 't is because our Constitution and Government differs much from theirs and the Evil is greater among us than it was among them and therefore requires a Remedy answerable First as it is needful to imploy our Poor and to set them to work there is a necessity that they should be confin'd to a certain House where they may have all Conveniencies for Life and Imploiment The Work-houses that are already built are not so convenient as may be contriv'd for such a vast number of Poor as are among us I offer therefore to give the Model of such a House as shall not be for State nor to shew the Grandure of our Nation but shall be for Use and capacious enough to contain and imploy two thousand Persons in daily Labor Let such a House be erected near the City of London as a Model for all the rest I suppose that three such Houses will be sufficient to contain all the Poor of this great City and Westminster And in imitation of the Metropolis let all other Cities erect for themselves such convenient Workhouses for all sorts of Trades and to imploy and improve the Growth of the Country for without such a Confinement lazy People used to begging will not take any pains This House must be under the Command of a Governour Deputy-Governour and other inferiour Officers chosen in time from the poor People who are to be kept in hopes of rising to Honour and Authority in the House by their Industry Diligence and other good Behaviour The Governour and Deputy-Governour are to be chosen first by the Justices and Magistrates of every County and the other inferiour Officers by the Governour and Consent of the House Let the Parishes give in the number of the Poor who have constant relief when the Houses are built Let them send them that are chargeable with their whole Families to such Houses being directed by the Justices or Persons appointed by Authority what Parishes are to agree to put their Poor together the numbers of such Poor to be in every House upwards of a thousand and not exceeding two thousand or thereabouts The Governour 's Office shall be to buy Necessaries to provide Wool Flax and other Commodities to take charge of the People to see that every one labors to receive and take an account of their Work when done to pay them their Wages to be answerable for all things to have Authority in his House as a Justice of Peace and to punish with the consent of other Officers all Misdemeanors not injuring neither Life nor Limb. Let there be in every such Work-house a Chaplain a Reader who is to be a School-master a Physician who is to be a Doctor Apothecary and Surgeon a Butcher to buy and provide Food a Brewer Baker and Cooks convenient Some of which may be taken out of the poor People The House is to be built in such a manner upon waste Ground or Common or other convenient place with necessary Gardens belonging to it where all