is a very hard shift the same being but a poor weak Fire in comparison either of Wood or Coals which doth not only create more labour and enhaunse the trouble of your Works and proves longer in point of time but doth not and cannot make so good Sugar as the other since you very well know your Sugars in the Boyling and Clarifying require a brisk strong Fire whereby it is made of a stronger grain better coloured and the gross flegmy or crude watery parts are more freely separated from the finener whereas weak Fires do not only prolong the Preparation as already hinted but it dulls and flattens the Sal Nitral Virtues of the Lime Waters as also of the sharp lively Spirituous Virtues of the Juices of the Canes so that such Sugar is not and cannot be so good nor of such virtue as that which is made with Wood or Coals and the very same may be understood in most other Cookeries or in the Preparation of Food the cleanness strength and constancy of the Fire adding much to the goodness thereof whilst the contrary is to be allowed in such Fires as are weak slow intermitting or unconstant And now Sir to conclude labouring under these and many other great Inconveniences which attend your decaying Plantations is it not very natural that you should enter upon such Methods as have been suggested without delay for your relief and the prevention of a speedy ruin and how can you be justly blamed for it you have formerly bore with the Act of Navigation prohibiting Foreigners to Trade with you to your inestimable loss tho much to the Gain of England with the additional Duties laid upon your Commodities in the Reign of K. Charles II. to the great decay of your Trade but that you should much longer bear up upon the doubling of the whole Impost upon you in this present Kings Reign after the many grievous Losses you have sustained by the late destructive Year can hardly be believed of you upon the present Basis of your Trade and Planting and surely it s not the Interest of England to put you upon the necessity of alienating your Plantations to any other than the rarifying of Sugars And we hope after all our Parliament will at length better consider of it and give you all fitting encouragement and relief which is heartily desired By SIR Your affectionate Friend and humble Servant T. T. LETTER XXXIII A Letter to a Planter touching the Manufactory of Cotton SIR HAving no reason to doubt of your receiving my last wherein I gave you my free thoughts in divers particulars concerning the Methods you were to use for your own and the preservation of your Posterity in your present Settlements and being perswaded of the good impressions it must have made upon your ingenuous Temper it has been an inducement to me to resume my considerations upon the same Subject wherein without any recapitulation I shall add somewhat more which I am of opinion if put into serious practice will not only very much advance and incourage your declining Plantations but be a means to render the Inhabitants extreamly happy both in the present and future Ages and stem the current of Sighs Groans Turmoils and doleful Lamentations of your Servants converting them into a pleasant calm and serene Life of happy Employments very much to the ease and satisfaction of Masters of Families and the Planters who will thereby be freed from those continual troubles and cares they now labour under from divers causes and which doth and will unavoidably increase upon them and their Posterity without they be removed by the introduction of some more easy and profitable Employments amongst you than that of making Sugar which is so laborious and destructive to the Health of Mankind I gave you Sir a hint before concerning your Manufacturing of Cotton Wool and as it is a matter I have since more seriously thought upon in respect to your present Constitution and Settlement I do not doubt but if your Legislators set upon the right Methods of employing some part of your Natives and Negroes therein but it would in a little time advance your Plantations to a higher degree of perfection both in respect to Riches Ease and Pleasure than is possible to be expected in that violent I may say cruel Art of making such large quantities of Sugar as you do And as publick Works cannot successfully be carried on without publick Authority and Encouragement it will be necessary for this end that your Government make an Act for the erecting of two Schools in every Parish or District one for the Children of the English Inhabitants and the other for those of the Negroes who all of them shall be taught there how to Dress Spin and Weave Cotton and where in a short time they would with the assistance of proper Instructors attain not only to make Fustians but all sorts of course and fine Callicoes yea and Muslins too for as the said Houses are to be erected by the publick so also they must find Instructors of both Sexes well Skill'd in the management of that Trade or Employment and under whose care the Children as well of the Black as White People should be kept and Dieted as well as Instructed as beforesaid as at Boarding-Schools and the Inhabitants not to be left at their liberty to send them thither or not But for the more effectual carrying of the Work on every Plantation should be obliged in proportion to their numbers to send yearly so many Children of both Kinds thither and that at the Age of four or five years for as they can never begin too soon so has it never been known that the Natives of any Country have attained to any excellency in the working up of their own or the Manufactury of others but only where they have Sown proper Seeds in due Season I mean where they have begun betimes with their Children And for a very remarkable Instance hereof I referr to your consideration the practice of the Blacks in the East Indies who do as it were Wonders in that Manufactury of Cotton Wool which in it self is no better than yours of the West Indies and differs no more than their Sugar Canes and yours do and who have brought their Callicoes and Muslins to that perfection we see them in no other way but by putting their Children to and bringing them up in this Work very young even from four or five years of Age together with their constant Marrying them unto their own Trades that is a Weavers Son to a Weavers Daughter and so in all the rest so that a Merchant is a Merchant for ever and Marrys the Daughter of a Merchant be they poor or rich it makes no difference neither do they alter their Methods thereupon so that it is not with them as it is with us in Europe the more Children the poorer but quite the contrary the more numerous so much the richer each Child yearning his Bread
those that have had regard to the encrease strength and health of their Posterity have always allotted the eaâ—…est and finest Employments for Women And I must tell you that nothing hath more hurt and injur'd the Plantations than the hard Labour and unkind Usage towards your Black Women for the whole preserâ—…tion of Mankind as to Encrease Health and Strength resides in the prudent Conduct of Women For pray tell us what can be a greater Indication of Evil unto any Country than that the Off-spring or Children of the Natives will not maintain their numbers of People can any Person be made to believe that if there were 10000 People of all Ages both Males and Females put into any open Healthy Country where they have all conveniences of Life and there to Inhabit for 20 or 30 years that then they should be dwindled away to 5000 or a less number would not any Man expect instead of 5000 more than 20000. Now this Decrease of People doth never happen but on some eminent occasion either the Climate is extreamly unhealthy or the People intemperate sweeping Sicknesses and Wars This Decrease of Negroes in all the Sugar Plantations is too true and the occasions thereof too little examined into or regarded which proves the greatest detriment to your Settlements doth not the contrary of this manifestly appear in England hath not their Off-spring and Native Children within the compass of a few years viz. 60 or 70 at the most settled many great Collonies and Plantations as New England Iamaica the Island of Barbadoes Virginia c. besides the great numbers that have of late been destroyed in the Wars at Land and Sea and others that yearly have and do furnish the great numbers of Ships with Seamen and notwithstanding these Consumptions England hath more Natives and Hands than Employments or Bread at a reasonable rate Now when these things are considered and understood you then will find upon the whole matter what sort of Conduct and Methods you have subjected your selves to and that your great industry to make large quantities of Sugar without having a sufficient number of Hands and very often good keeping too for it is always a rule that never fails if there be not a due proportion between the Labour Foods and Rest then Nature must by degrees sink and dwindle into a Consumption extraordinary Labour calls for extraordinary Meats Drinks and Rest more especially in hot Climates where hard working cannot be endured as in Cold which we have more largely set forth in our Treatise of the Fruits of the East and West Indies Now I say that some such Methods as we have proposed would certainly give you great ease and at once set you and your Posterity free from those intollerable Burthens and Slaverys you and your Servants undergo for there is nothing more true than Gods Eternal Law that if we over-burthen our Servants that are subjected under our Government for what cause or reason is unaccountable and do not in some degree do by them as we would be done unto if we had been served as they have viz. carried away contrary to our own Wills and Inclinations into Foreign Regions or as we would have our Children done by in the like condition that then you may be sure that suitable returns will be made to the Oppressor or to his Off-spring for the Groaning of him that suffereth pain is the beginning of trouble and misery to him that caused it and it is not to be doubted but under this black Character of Oppression and Violence the Sugar Plantations do now lye under is not this manifest by many and some of the chiefest Note for the more they forecast take care Labour and Oppress in hard severe Methods the poorer and more behind hand they become also the loose and extravagant Education of your Youth is a sure indication of Calamity and Misery to any Country for in a few years they come to Govern the publick Affairs These things are of greater moment and importance than the foolish and unthinking do imagine and though Mankind doth slight these Admonitions and natural Methods and goes on in their hard Hearted ways yet Gods Providence and the Divine Hand never forgets but early or late there must be retalliation made These things we recommend to your prudent consideration SIR Your very humble Servant T. T. LETTER XXXIII To a Gentleman in Barbadoes SIR WIth many serious Thoughts and Reflections have I at times revolved upon the State of our American Plantations and the various Methods our Government hath used in reference to them and their Trade so much I presume to theirs and our own disadvantage at least at long run notwithstanding the small Benefit that has been reaped seemingly by the Imposts laid upon them and the receipt of your last together with your Request therein having awakened my Mind afresh to resume my former Conceptions upon the said Subject I am free to Communicate all that I have thought of in general thereupon but more particularly what regards the Sugar Settlements and your Island of Barbadoes which is the chief of them still both for its own Produce the advancement of Navigation and vending the Manufactures of England and how advantagious it has been in former times to the Crown of England in all those Respects might be manifested by divers Instances but not to run back too far it 's sufficient to observe that that little spot of Ground which you know is not above 12 Miles over and 28 in length did in King Charles the 2d's Reign the Commodities being then free from high Customs and Impositions for many years together load between 3 and 400 Sail of Ships and most of them of a considerable burden with the Produce of it the reason of which Plenty must arise from no other than the natural goodness of your Soil and the extraordinary Diligence and Industry of the Planters and I may say Slavery too For if in the Infancy of our Sugar Plantations their Produce of Sugar Indico Ginger and Cotton had not yielded a considerable Price and the Duties been easy it had been impossible ever to have settled them or at leastwise to have brought them to any such perfection as they be for a Man must be in disburst at least 2 or 3000 l. before he can make 100 weight of brown Sugar not worth above 12 or 14 s. For this reason most of the first Settlers being Persons of small Stocks others would not run the Hazzard of tedious and dangerous Sea-Voyages into the Torrid Zones which at first proved very unhealthy for want of Conveniencies of Life and a prudent Conduct of Affairs which occasioned the Death of many in the very Enterprize who left the Benefit of their Labours to others and most of those that Survived before they could bring things to Maturity had contracted such large Debts with the Merchants both there and in England that they were forc'd to Sell and the very same Fate
divers things of considerable value which of themselves are of little or none witness in green raw sharp Gooseberries which by its sweet and friendly power are rendred much more preferrable to those that are ripe Fourthly There are but very few who are not sensible how mightily Sugar advances the Kings Customs not only in respect to the Imposts laid upon it self but by occasioning many Foreign Commodities to be imported which before our Sugar Settlements were not thought of as the noble Nut called the Cocoa of which the most equal and agreeable Pottage is made which if it were not for Sugar would be but of little use and several other Foreign Fruits and Drugs as Tea Coffee c. Fifthly Physitians and Apothecaries cannot but think themselves highly befriended by this noble Juice since more than half their Medicines are mixed and compounded with Sugar and a great part of our Herbs and Medicinal Flowers would be of little or no use without it there being by a modest computation above Three Hundred Medicines made up with Sugar by whose assistance their Volatile Virtues are incircled and preserved which otherwise could not be done Sixthly Then for the Confectioners what do or indeed can they do without Sugar it being manifest there are above Two Hundred several sorts of Sweet-Meats made by them with Fruits of our own Growth which are so many excellent Cordials delitious and pleasant and may be all eaten to the advantage both of health and pleasure if order and temperance be not wanting and confederated with things of a meaner quality but otherwise without Sugar they would be harsh crude sharp and subject to decay as would also great quantities of Foreign Fruits and Seeds which are preserved by them and which upon their Importation pay the King considerable Customs Seventhly It may not only be mixed and compounded with most if not all sorts of Vegetations their several Sal Nitral Virtues all proceeding from agreeable Principles but even Bread it self which with good reason is stiled the Staff of Life and esteemed the best and cleannest of all Foods if it be eaten only with a little good Sugar it inspires it with a more brisk and lively taste and is of much easier Digestion than if it had been eaten by it self But give me leave by the way to insert one Caution and that is that Sugar is not so good mixed with the Fat of Animals nor with Butter that being I may say an Heterogenious practice for the Sal Nitral properties of Vegetables cannot so easily incorporate with the Animal Sulphurs or Fat 's and consequently open the Bodies of each other and therefore all such Foods as are made up with Butter and Sugar are generally of an heavy dull and cloying nature and never fall to obstruct the Stomach and retard Digestion And this antipathy between Animal Fat 's or Sulphurs and Vegetable Sal Nitres is very manifest by what is practised in the Art of Refining of Sugar for when the Juice of the same is Boyled in Coppers with most fierce and vehement Fire such as is necessarily required for that purpose whereby the Liquor rises up with a much more turbulent and ungovernable motion than either Beer or Ale as the Syrrups do exceed in sweetness and strength and so is subject to run over the Pan to the great damage of the Refiner The only Antidote they have found out to allay and quiet it is Butter for tho' the Copper contains 2 or 3 Hundred Gallons Boyling and Swelling up in the foresaid manner yet a piece of Butter put in to the bigness of a small Nut and no more quickly makes it fall down within its circle in the Copper and all with an amazing Hush and whence should this Ascendancy proceed but that the Animal power is deduced from an higher Birth as being made and generated from sensibility and passing thro' all the Animal Digestions there is a kind of an Antipathy in the Butter to the Juice of the Vegetable as there is in other things of the like contrary kinds But for all that is said it must still be owned that the Juices of Sugar are of so generous a Nature that when they happen to be mixt with any fat things the Concoction is the easier especially in all Milk Foods which are more than twelve parts in fourteen Flegm Eightly The Use of this noble Juice has not only reached to our Raw and unripe Fruits and the vast improvement of them as before noted for common and daily Use but proper ways have been found out to keep and preserve them for Tarts and other things all the Year round whence as a farther Benefit it is come to pass in the revolution of a few years perhaps not exceeding Seventy than for every Ten Fruit Trees we had then in England there are now above a Thousand Ninthly Tho' Wine and Tobacco may be justly allowed to be two of the most principal Commodities Imported that do advance Navigation and the Kings Revenue yet the Premisses considered they come infinitely short of Sugar since they are not only confined as it were within the circle of their own Consumption but even that Consumption may in some degree be asserted to hinder our own Growth at leastwise in respect to one of them Lastly to add no more Benefits and to close the whole with a familiar Instance Does not the Queen of the Dairy by the assistance of this noble Juice vary or manufacture as I may say her Milk into more than Twenty several delicious Dishes of Food And is it also not a Friend to the Laborious Husbandman by encouraging the Consumption of a great quantity of fine Flower so that in short it spreads its generous and sweet influences thro' the whole Nation and there are but few Eatables or Drinkables that it is not a Friend to or capable to confederate with And upon the whole as there is no one Commodity whatever that doth so much encourage Navigation advance the Kings Customs and our Land and is at the same time of so great and Universal Use Virtue and Advantage as this King of Sweets more especially when by Art it has been brought to its highest degree of perfection So our Sugar Plantations should have suitable Supports and Aids from the Government which is the hearty desire of once more SIR Your humble Servant T. T. LETTER XXXV Of the Burial of BIRDS SIR I Have considered yours of the 26th of May with a more than ordinary application for the Novelty thereof but more particularly in respect to your uncommon thoughts concerning the Burial Place of Birds and in what Element or World they make their Exit tho' I find after all the Solution of your Question so extreamly difficult that for me it must yet remain a Mistery as it has done all along to Mankind who tho' they have Lived and Communicated with the great numbers and variety of these Airy Troops for some Thousands of years have hitherto remained