Miscarriages of their numerous Agents and Instruments imployed in the managing part and it is to be noted that this Company to which I believe we have nothing like in Story if considered in all its preposterous Designs and Machins hath not the Advantage of Companies that trade by Sea for they by a Joint Stock make great Adventures in one Bottom and so are in many things at no more Charge with the Management of Ten thousand pounds in Trade than a private Man may be with One But here with our Company it is not so but on the contrary the Company must be at more Charge than a private Man in their several Cheques and Controlers upon their Servants whereas every private Man doth his own Work and as it is always done so to most Advantage so most especially in this of the Linnen Manufactory where there must be a particular Eye to every pound of Thread Weaving Whitening and a multitude of other things all which extraordinary Charge and Difficulty the Company must lie under more than private Men can no other way be raised but by lessening the Wages of the Poor that make the Linnen and raising the Price on the Rich that wear it Our Laws provide well against Forestallers in Markets and tho not so well as it might be yet there is some care taken that Men have the fair buying of the Victuals they eat This I have sometimes thought is like Tithing Mint and Rue neglecting the more weighty things of the Law we provide Men should not be cheated in buying a pennyworth of Eggs but make no provision to secure them from the same Abuse in a hundred pounds laid out in Cloaths The poor Artizan shall not be oppressed in laying out his penny to one poorer than himself but he is without Remedy shortened by a Company in his Penny as it comes in I have heard Complaints of this Nature in greater matters of the publick Sales of the East-India Company perhaps if due Consideration were had of these great Ingrossers there would be sound more Reason to restrain them than a poor Woman that travels in the Country to buy up and sell in a Market a few Hens and Chickens But to return to our Corporation for Imaginary Linnen Manufactory I shall now lay down what offers to me that if it were possible to introduce it in this Kingdom that yet it would not be for the Interest of the Nation to have a Linnen Manufactory set up as a Trade in the Kingdom Divine Providence that appoints to every Nation and Country a particular Portion seems to allot that to England which was the first acceptable Sacrifice to his Omnipotency that of the Flock the Produce of which is the most universal Covering of all the civilized Countries of the World our Woollen Manufactory a Talent which no Nation hath to that perfection as we have This hath been for many Ages the Support of the Nation imploying the poor at home our Men and Ships at Sea Now to decline this and set up another Manufactory looks like an extravagant Mechanick who by his Improvidence hath lost his own Art and thinks to retrieve his Misfortune by taking up that of another Mans. This is condemned in particular persons and to be feared in a Community But it will be said there is not Imployment for the Hands of the Nation in the Woollen Manufactory and since Linnen carries away so much of our Money it seems the Interest of the Nation to imploy idle Hands in that which will keep Money in the Kingdom Now tho both these Assertions have too much Truth in them yet neither of them have Weight enough to enforce the Conclusion that the Linnen Manufactory is the only Remedy If we search into the Bottom of our Distemper we shall find another Cause of our Disease It is not because there is less Woollen Manufactory used in the World than formerly that our Trade declines nor yet because we make more than formerly for it is demonstrable that from the year 1673 to the year 1680 there was much more Wooll wrought up in England than in eleven years since Nor is it altogether to be assigned to the present War for that our Trade decayed in the latter part of King Charles the Second and all the Reign of the late King The Reasons then for our Decay in the Woollen Manufactory seem to be these 1. The Growth of course Woollen Manufactory in Germany with which the Venetians trade to Turkey 2. The Prohibition of our Woollen Manufactory into France 3. The Increase of the Woollen Manufactory by our Neighbours with the help of our Wooll so that in some things they out-do us in the price they can sell at 4. By the great Wear of East-India and other Silks and the use of Calicoes which was formerly supplied by our Tammies and Sayes 5. The want of the Consumption of Ireland which abated all the Reign of the late King There is yet a Cause as valid as any of the former which for some Reasons I forbear to mention Now to me it seems possible to Counterpoise all these and to retrieve our Manufactory and that by two ways First By preventing the Transporting of Wooll which if done the French and others that now furnish Markets abroad would not be able to supply their own Expence It may be thought a vain Assertion after all Attempts that have been made to prevent the Exportation of our Wooll to say there is yet a way that may effectually do it Yet I am morally sure it may be done both in England and Ireland and if this were done there is another thing that might oblige the French when there is a Peace to take off their Prohibitions on our Manufactory The other way to bring our Woollen Manufactories into esteem abroad is to make them so cheap as to undersell the German Coarse Manufactories and that may be done with ease which I can make out upon occasion These two things if practicable as I persuade my self they are will set the Woollen Manufactory on so good a Foot as together with a Consumption not yet practised in England will find Imployment for the meanest Hand in England So that there will be rather Want than Superfluity of Hands in the Woollen Manufactory Now if there be any thing in all I have said it seems reasonable to consider well before the Nation gives up its Staple and long continued Trade for a Shadow as I take the Linnen Manufactory to be for although I believe it can never come to effect yet so far it may go as to injure that of the Woollen by diverting some that are now in iâ— and so raise the price of Spinning than which nothing can be more prejudicial for as I mentioned before nothing can retrieve our lost Trade abroad but underselling our Competitors so then we must labour to make ours as cheap as we can and not set up another Manufactory to bid who gives most for
Plantations and might be made more beneficial than them all But if Ireland be at first setting out after this late Devastation begun with Companies that will as I said before be a Barr to the peopling that Kingdom with Foreign Protestants and Ireland can never be safe whilst the Irish so over-ballance the English as they do to this day So then there seems Reason to preserve Ireland as a Foreign Plantation from the implacable Enemy of England the Irish but Companies in Trade will hinder New-comers and that makes for the Irish this is against the Security of England The next thing Ireland may be considered in is how it stands as a Foreign Plantation to England in point of its Trade and Consumption of our Woollen Iron and other Manufactories and in that by an Account I have seen it exceeds all the West-India Plantations as also in that of our Natural Product Corn Hops Salt c. Now then that which hinders the Increase of People and that does Companies abates the Consumption of the Product of England in Ireland We will next consider Ireland in its Natural and Artificial Product as a Foreign Plantation and as such how we should use it I have before mentioned how they consume our Product we will now see what becomes of theirs and in that we use them as Foreign Plantations prescribing them Rules Methods and Prohibitions in some of their Commodities as their Wooll Linnen Yarn c. we oblige them to send no where but to England and if they be kept to it in their Wooll as I am sure they may England would find it wants not abounds in Wooll for the seeming Excess of Wool in England is not because we have too much from Ireland but because we have not all for one pound of their Wooll works up ten of Foreign and that enables them in their Manufactories abroad to furnish the Trade we formerly had intire to our selves But to return as we prescribe Rules to Ireland what they shall send here so we do what they shall send to other parts to our Foreign Plantations they may not send any Manufactories but have Liberty to send their Provisions Servants and Horses and as we confine what how and where they may export so we do in many things their Imports that they shall import none of our Foreign Plantation Commodities from thence direct but all from England After all this it may be thought Ireland is so intirely a Plantation of England that it may deserve the Care of the Nation to people that Kingdom but the Noise of Companies will keep out Planters and therefore to be suppress'd If any should presume to set up a Grant that might keep out People from the Foreign Plantations it may be presum'd the Government would lay its Hands on such mistaken Grants this of the Linnen Manufactory is such it will keep out People disposed to that Manufactory for such love to have Choice of Masters Therefore we never see Companies set up in our Foreign Plantations every Man is Master of his own Invention Labour and Designs so it seems the Interest of England as well as Ireland to have the like Freedom there for if Companies are once admitted in Ireland it is not the Subjects of either Kingdom shall be Masters of them there are those in the World that know how to use such Advantages better than we do and with their Money will soon purchase the Ruling Shares especially when the Grant is design'd for selling not trading Shares and being so bought the Purchasers have Authority to set up a Joint-Stock can sue and must be sued as a Body Politick with all the other Privileges usual in such Grants Being thus established they shall ingross all the Trade in the Kingdom let their Company be called what you please and these Men may live in what part of the World they think fit and govern the Trade of Ireland by their Factors tho the Company bears the Name only of the Linnen Manufactory And however the Generality of Men see not the hidden Mysteries and Influences Companies have in Trade yet Merchants and Handicrafts do and that is the Reason I find those of Ireland give why that wonderful Statute for such I take it to be which gives greater Privileges to Foreigners than native Subjects had no Effect brought not ten Families some say not one into Ireland and all because Men love not Inclosures in Trade tho they may be in them themselves for by the Statute before mentioned any Foreign Protestant that would settle in Ireland might upon his demand taking the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy before any Justice of Peace be made free of any City Trade or Company in the Kingdom paying twenty shillings and was also by the same Statute declared and was naturalized But all this would not do whilst there were Companies in the Kingdom tho they are not of so appropriate a Constitution as this of the Linnen Manufactory and all Companies of Joint Stocks are I now come to shew how in particular the Company for a Linnen Manufactory in Ireland will affect England 1. It will prejudice England in its Manufactories of Fustian Tapes and Manchester Ware much of which are made by the Linnen Yarn of Ireland Now tho this Company cannot promote a Linnen Manufactory in Ireland yet they may and if they design any thing it must be that ingross the Linnen Yarn in the North of Ireland which was formerly sent to England and imployed as aforesaid the want of which or setting a price upon it must be of prejudice to the Manufactories of England with some other Disadvantages that would swell this Discourse here to mention 2. If this Company should prevail of which there is no reason to fear they by their Compact made with the Company here have agreed that all the Linnen of Ireland shall be sold by the Company here so then the People of England must pay for their Linnen what they please and that which is yet worse the Linnen and Linnen Yarn that hitherto hath been purchased by the Manufactories and Commodities of England the Company will be paid for in Money And then where is the Difference to have it from France or Ireland Nor will the Company 's selling for Money be an Advantage to Ireland but to the contrary enable the Company to impose on the Kingdom what Goods and at what Rates they please when they have beat out the numerous Chapmen that use daily the Irish Trade even the Farmers of the West of England would come for Ireland with their Hops Cyder c. and so the English of Ireland who are our Bone and our Flesh dealt with us as Brethren but it will not be so when the Trade of Ireland is managed by Foreigners in Companies as it seems now design'd 3. The admitting this Company for Linnen Manufactory will be a President for the same in all other Trades and Imployments of the Kingdom It is said there is a Patent
now passing for the Fishing of Ireland there may with as much Reason be another for Plowing And why not some publick spirited Projector have a Patent for a more excellent way of cutting Turf a Fuel much used in Ireland This way of appropriating the Trade of Ireland is happily of worse Consequence to England than at first sight appears Perhaps it will not be thought a Prejudice to England that a Patent is granted for a Fishing in Ireland when it shall be in the Name of Men of England But when this Patent is transferred to Foreigners and they with their Men and Ships manage this Fishing what will England or Ireland get by it Several Small-Crafts that use to come from England to the West of Ireland will be beat out of their Trade and in conclusion Ireland made a Province for Trade to any Foreigners that will buy from our projecting Patentees As I said before Ireland is no more than one of our Foreign Plantations only I think it will be allowed the first place and more than any other in nearness of Blood and that of our Nobles there being many Familes in that Kingdom descended from the ancient Families of this and most of the Estates in Ireland held by the Descent from our Brethren who purchased it with their Blood These Reflections may prevail for our Care of them at least equally to any Colony abroad and we never think it our prejudice to have them thrive nor would the Growth of Ireland if rightly disposed or understood And here give me leave to make a Digression if it may be call'd so but you may think it not foreign to the Discourse I find it generally believed that Ireland is as mischievous to our Trade in time of Peace as it is destructive to our Men and Treasure in time of War And tho this Opinion never went far with me yet something I did doubt was in it until I met with that which gave plain Demonstration to the contrary and it was this I fell into an entire acquaintance with a Gentleman of Ireland whose Experience and long Continuance in all the Foreign Trade of that Kingdom furnished him with Arguments I could not answer to prove that England was a great Gainer by the Trade of Ireland When I could not confute him nor he prevail with me he told me he would shew me that which carried Authority with it and so he did being as he assured me the Work of some years as he could spare time to compose it The whole Discourse takes up many Sheets upon the Trade of Ireland to all parts and particular Remarks upon every Commodity exported and imported into that Kingdom and where and how it affects England Some other things he reserved as Secrets from me as he doth the rest to others for it was never seen by any but one beside my self Out of the whole he hath extracted an exact Account of the Exports and Imports for one year in a Medium out of six and then distinguished what related to England by what Ships brought in and out then computed the Value of each Commodity and to what they were improved being manufactored in England and then what Money in Specie or Bills of Exchange which is the same was returned from Foreign Parts to England out of the Proceed of Goods sent from Ireland all which being brought to a Sum it appeared that England gained by Ireland more than two Millions Sterling per annum It seemed to me an incredible thing but being as he affirms Matter of Fact for which he hath the Account of the Customs it is not to be denied the Breviat is drawn in so plain and intelligible a Method as renders it easie to any Understanding and therefore to mine I would fain have prevailed with him to Print the whole Matter but he thinks it may be made better use of another way and affirms that as great as this looks yet it might be improved to much more if the Trade of Ireland were disposed as it might be to the Advantage of England But he said that Kingdom was in no Reign since the first Conquest of Ireland consulted in its Trade but left to its self or treated like an Enemy all the use made of it was for Courtiers Men of Projection and Necessity to traffick and dispose it into Grants Imployments and Offices and so made it rather a Forest for Game than a Plantation of Trade and Commerce and that which continued it so in the Reign of Charles the Second was the Jealousies and Mistakes of England believing it grew too fast and incroached on their Trade tho it is demonstrable Ireland doth us no hurt but where we by our own Laws force it and that act pardon the Expression like Lunaticks that strive to suppress their Shadows for fear they should assault them None will say England would be the worse if it were double the Acres it now is and tho the Sea part us from Ireland may not Laws make us one in our Interest and Trade and so that Ireland may be more profitable to England in general than Wales or any County in England is to the whole in its proportion There never was so fair an Opportunity for inriching this Nation by Ireland as now it is by Divine Providence once more put a Blank in our Hands in which his Majesty may stamp what he pleases and we have Reason to believe that he who ventures His Royal Person so freely for the Preservation of these Kingdoms will not deny us any thing that can contribute to our Growth in Trade and Treasure One thing I must not omit which I had from this Gentleman of Ireland that to me seems valid for Confirmation of all he asserts That Ireland neither insures nor gains on England for that in the last twenty years of Ireland's greatest Prosperity not one Man of England purchased in Ireland but numbers of Ireland have in that time purchased in England as they of that Kingdom I mean the English always do as they increase their Fortunes This being so Ireland is to England a Mine of Treasure and affects us tho in a much larger Proportion as Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay whatever is gain'd in them terminates in England I shall close this Discourse with the Complaint I have heard from the Generality of Merchants that when all the Governments of Europe have for more than twenty years past been consulting their Interest in Trade and how they might improve it we of England make no Provision for ours but leave it to the Ravage of Strangers and the worse Confusions of an ungovern'd Multitude in Trade whereas if we had a Council of Trade composed of Merchants from all parts of the Kingdom set apart for searching into the several Practices of Trade and Miscarriages therein England would have grown beyond any part of the World in Trade and Navigation and might thereby have prevented the wonderful Rise of France whose prodigious Advance in
Navigation and Commerce is assign'd to the Experience and Conduct of Colebert that was originally bred a Merchant of whom it is said that when he was prime Minister of France he would say he did his Master better Service in a Committee of Merchants than at the Council-Board We have much greater Funds for Trade than France can pretend to and tho we may want Coleberts yet lesser Men with greater Helps than he had might at least retrieve if not increase our lost Trade which in several Branches are decayed almost to a total Loss as that of Muscovy Greenland Newfoundland and others And if Fame be true we are in the ready way to lose what we have left the Exchange being filled with Projects Wagers Stock Jobbing upon imagnary Wrecks Pharee Companies of Manufactories c. all which bode ill and is a Green Sickness in Trade when Men are taken up with Rubbish like Maids feeding on Chalk and Cinders rejecting wholsome Food This Evil looks like a spreading Leprosie over the Nation when Merchants and Tradesmen live like Gamesters on the Spoil of each other setting up Projects instead of Merchandize which cunning Men cut into Shares and so manage their Designs as to fix their Ignis fatuus at last on innocent and well meaning Men to the Ruin of them and their Families I name not Men or Things to avoid Reflections but wish those that are faulty in this matter would consider that such Artifices however the Hand of Justice in this World cannot reach yet the Cries of Widows and Fatherless ascend a Tribunal that brings all things to Judgment Those Frauds are of a new Stamp not known in former Ages and therefore want a Law to restrain them which it is hoped the Great Council of the Nation will look into and that there may never more appear amongst us any of these Syrens that a Council of Trade may be the standing Probationers of all new Inventions and Expedients for Trade that so Quacks in Trade may be suppress'd and honest Industry and ingenuous Discoveries incouraged By which means a Stop may be put to those Men who like Cadmus's Serpents Teeth sowed in the Ground bring up Men in Armour killing one another I wish the Moral prove not truer than the Fable we see Losses between private Men in Gaming often end in Blood and National Gaming Projects and Deceits with Wagers on the Success of Companies taking Cities and Success of Monarchs must needs alienate the Affections of the Subject one from the other and some from the King This to me seems not an accidental Misfortune but an Artifice of France to raise Divisions amongst us and bring our Trade to Confusion for the French have as well Jesuits in Trade as in Religion to distract us But we have not such invincible Champions for the first as blessed be God we have for the latter In my weak Judgment and Reflection on the present Condition of this Nation nothing hath a worse Aspect than the Trade Navigation and Manufactories of it and all for want of publick Spirited Men that would like our Ancestors who whatever they were at home every Man when in Parliament was no less than a County or Burrough and spake not himself but them If this Bravery of Mind were in our Senators now the Commerce of England would not look like a Scramble for want of due Regulation which cannot properly be without Men of practical Heads in Trade appropriated to the Work nor is the present War a valid Pretext for the Neglect since there seems as much Reason to provide for Trade in Time of War against Times of Peace as there is for Armies in Time of Peace against a Time of War which God in his due time put an End unto FINIS SOME Considerations Humbly Offered to Demonstrate How prejudicial it would be to the English Plantations Revenues of the Crown the Navigation and general Good of this Kingdom that the sole Trade for Negroes should be granted to a Company with a Joynt-Stock exclusive to all others THe great and unspeakable Advantage the West-India Plantations are to England is so well known that it needs no demonstration to prove it The only thing Necessary is to endeavour to improve and increase this mighty advantageous Trade by securing them from the Insults of their Enemies and enabling them to make larger quantities of the Commodities of those Colonies Now the means most conducive thereunto will be to make the Trade to Affrica open and free for all the Native Subjects of England which Trade for Slaves is chiefly from Acra to Angola and contains about 1200 Miles Sea-cost in which extent the present Affrican Company have neither Fort Castle nor Factory so that they have not the least colour for a Pretence to an exclusive Right of Trade into those Parts It is well known that the Riches of the Plantations consists in Slaves chiefly by whose strength and labour all their Commodities as Tobacco Sugar Cotton Indigo Ginger c. are produced and the more Slaves those Plantations are supplyed with the more Commodities are made and the stronger they are to defend themselves against any Insults Neither can there be any more danger of being over-stockt with Negroes than there is that too much Tobacco Sugar c. should be sent to England for it is a plain consequence the more Negroes the more Goods will be produced the more Goods the more Custom paid and all those Commodities rendered here at home so cheap as will enable this Nation to send them abroad cheap also to the great discouraging of the Plantation-Trade of all other Nations Wherefore it is very plain that a large supply of Negroes will not only bring great Riches to this Kingdom but will also greatly Increase our Navigation Whereas on the contrary should the Affrican Trade be inclosed and confin'd to the Wills and Powers of a Company the consequence would prove as fatal to the Plantations as a Power given to one Person in England to supply the Gardners with Servants and the Farmers and Carriers with Horses It is not to be doubted that the one would be constrained to pay yearly for his Servants as much as his Years product would amount to and the other for his Team as much as the Rent of his Farm which would prove great Discouragements to their Labour and Industry This may we reasonably suppose would be the Case of the Planters in the West-Indies were there but one Person that must supply them with Slaves they being so extreamly Necessary that it is impossible to live without them every Man being rich or poor according to his Stock in Slaves A Man that may be Proprietor of 10000 Acres of Land would still be poor had he no stock of Negroes to employ upon it It might be fairly Objected That the present Affrican Company have carryed on their Trade but very imperfectly as to their own Advantage notwithstanding that was all the Design they aimed at