Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	commissioner_n	esq_n	sir_n	988	5	9.9168	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37438	Several essays relating to accademies, banks, bankrupts, charity-lotteries, courts of enquiries, court merchants, friendly-societies, high-ways, pension-office, seamen, wagering, &c. now communicated to the world for publick good.	Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.	1700 (1700)	Wing D845A; ESTC R5496	96,728	353

SEVERAL ESSAYS Relating to Accademies Banks Bankrupts Charity-Lotteries Courts of Enquiries Court Merchants Friendly-Societies High-ways Pension-Office Seamen Wagering c. Now Communicated to the World for Publick Good LONDON Printed for Thomas Cockerill at the Bible and Three Leggs against Grocers-Hall in the Poultrey 1700. Price Three Shillings PREFACE TO Dalby Thomas Esq One of the COMMISSIONERS for Managing His Majesty's Duties on Glass c. SIR THIS Preface comes Directed to you not as Commissioner c. under whom I have the Honour to serve his Majesty nor as a Friend though I have great Obligations of that sort also but as the most proper Judge of the Subjects Treated of and more Capable than the greatest part of Mankind to Distinguish and Understand them Books are useful only to such whose Genius are suitable to the Subject of them And to Dedicate a Book of Projects to a Person who had never concern'd himself to Think that way would be like Musick to one that has no Ear. And yet Your having a Capacity to Judge of these things no way brings You under the Despicable Title of a Projector any more than knowing the Practices and Subtleties of Wicked Men makes a Man guilty of their Crimes The several Chapters of this Book are the results of particular Thoughts occasion'd by Conversing with the Publick Affairs during the present War with France The Losses and Casualties which attend all Trading Nations in the World when involved in so Cruel a War as this have reach'd us all and I am none of the least Sufferers if this has put me as well as others on Inventions and Projects so much the Subject of this Book 't is no more than a proof of the Reason I give for the general Projecting Humour of the Nation One unhappiness I lie under in the following Book viz. That having kept the greatest Part of it by me for near Five Years several of the Thoughts seem to be hit by other Hands and some by the Publick which turns the tables upon me as if I had Borrow'd from them As particularly that of the Seamen which you know well I had contriv'd long before the Act for Registring Seamen was Propos'd And that of Educating Women which I think my self bound to Declare was form'd long before the Book call'd Advice to the Ladies was made Publick and yet I do not Write this to Magnify my own Invention but to acquit my self from Grafting on other People's Thoughts If I have Trespass'd upon any Person in the World 't is upon Your self from whom I had some of the Notions about County Banks and Fa●●●ies for Goods in the Chapter of 〈…〉 and yet I do not think that my Proposal for the Women or the Seamen clashes at all either with that Book or the Publick method of Registring Seamen I have been told since this was done That my Proposal for a Commission of Enquiries into Bankrupt Estates is Borrow'd from the Dutch if there is any thing like it among the Dutch 't is more than ever I knew or know yet but if so I hope 't is no Objection against our having the same here especially if it be true that 't wou'd be so publickly Beneficial as is express'd What is said of Friendly Societies I think no Man will Dispute with me since one has met with so much Success already in the Practice of it I mean The Friendly Society for Widows of which you have been pleas'd to be a Governor Friendly Societies are very extensive and as I have binted might be carri'd on to many Particulars I have omitted one which was mention'd in Discourse with your self where a Hundred Tradesmen all of several Trades Agree together to Buy whatever they want of one another and no where else Prices and Payments to be settled among themselves whereby every Man is sure to have Ninety nine Customers and can never want a Trade And I cou'd have fill'd up the Book with Instances of like nature but I never design'd to tire the Reader with Particulars The Proposal of the Pension-Office you will soon see offer'd to the Publick as an Attempt for the Relief of the Poor which if it meets with Encouragement will every way answer all the great Things I have said of it I had Wrote a great many Sheets about the Coin about bringing in Plate to the Mint and about our Standard but so many great Heads being upon it with some of whom my Opinion does not agree I wou'd not adventure to appear in Print upon that Subject Ways and Means also I have laid by on the same score Only adhering to this one Point That be it by Taxing the Wares they Sell be it by Taxing them in Stock be it by Composition which by the way I believe is the best be it by what way soever the Parliament please the Retailers are the Men who seem to call upon us to be Tax'd if not by their own extraordinary good Circumstances though that might bear it yet by the contrary in all other Degrees of the Kingdom Besides the Retailers are the only men who cou'd pay it with least damage because it is in their power to levy it again upon their Customers in the Prices of their Goods and is no more than paying a higher Rent for their Shops The Retailers of Manufactures especially so far as relates to the Inland Trade have never been tax'd yet and their Wealth or Number is not easily calculated Trade and Land has been handled roughly enough and these are the men who now lye as a Reserve to carry on the Burthen of the War These are the Men who were the Land-Tax collected as it shou'd be ought to pay the King more than that whole Bill ever produc'd and yet these are the men who I think I may venture to say do not pay a Twentieth part in that Bill Shou'd the King appoint a Survey over the Assessors and Indict all those who were found faulty allowing a Reward to any Discoverer of an Assessment made lower than the literal Sense of the Act implies What a Register of Frauds and Connivances wou'd be found out In a General Tax if any shou'd be excus'd it shou'd be the Poor who are not able to pay or at least are pinch'd in the necessary parts of Life by paying And yet here a poor Labourer who works for Twelve-Pence or Eighteen-Pence a Day does not drink a Pot of Beer but pays the King a Tenth part for Excise and really pays more to the King's Taxes in a year than a Countrey Shopkeeper who is Alderman of the Town worth perhaps Two or Three Thousand Pounds brews his own Beer pays no Excise and in the Land-Tax is rated it may be 100 l. and pays 1 l. 4 s. per Annum But ought if the Act were put in due execution to pay 36 l. per Ann. to the King If I were to be ask'd how I wou'd remedy this I wou'd answer It shou'd be by some Method