he not in good conscience all along have done it without compulsion at least not have avoyded it by shifts Covenants and threats If they plead mens ability or weakenesse will be thereby discovered is it not fit say I it should Doth not my Adversary himself press for such discovery Page 5 But what can this discover Surely not very many personal debts and for Mortgages either they are now known or it is pity they are not If they alledge that it is too shrewd for Creditours to taxe certainly for uncertain debts I ask whether there be almost any Gentleman of Estate in England who hath not taxed for Land when either by want of Tenants losse of Rents or divers other charges incident to Estates it hath yielded him little or nothing and whether all this while the lender have not thought it very just and commodious for the half-ruined borrower even in such extreme cases to pay likewise his Taxes as my Authour himself frankly confesses Page 36. But some will yet perhaps further object that there the Annual income only is ventured here the Capital My Reply then is that debts upon personal security are either clearly secured desperate or doubtful Of the clear which must needs include all considerable summes the Creditour in great loanes having always divers strings to his bow there can be no question made those being equivalent to mortgages and of double value in point of steady receipt to the generality of our Rents Debts really desperate should methinks without more adoe be quitted the continuance of their claim serving only to wound charity molest the insolvent hurt and disturb the Commonwealth by rendring many of its members uselesse male-content and fit only for mischief As for doubtful and therefore hopeful debts whereof farre the greater number by reason of suretyships are finally ensured with a witnesse do not they who now sue for them effectually venture a large Taxe to Atturnies Lawyers Officers and Sheriffes And why should they grudge the Commonwealth its due to preserve their own Besides they have always at the worst their ready amends in their own hand For may they not honestly purchase and turn their biting Usury into a healing Rent to the just relief of their neighbour benefit of their Country and quiet of their conscience It being now our greatest and most general complaint that there is so much Land upon sale and so few chapmen seconded by my Authour himself Page 33. Which way soever I look the objections are either frivolous or inconsiderable to our grievance and prospect For I dare maintain that a taxe of three shillings in the Pound indifferently charged will not now so bite the Land by embasing its fund and consequently cannot finally so much prejudice the State as a taxe of twelve pence in the Pound partially imposed must inevitably doe From whence I inferre that comparing our present condition and rates with the great likelyhood of their future growth by reason of the dangerous encrease of our neighbours in shipping whosoever argues that Interest of mony should not or cannot be taxed in effect rings his Countrys passing-bel For it is notorious that no good Plant ever did or can thrive together in the same soyle with Usury Which being thus exempted and cherished infects our Land much worse then the sowing it with mustardseed Wherefore as a fair adieu to the Usurer I shall now take my leave of him with this hearty and Christian admonition that he first pluck the beam of avarice and sordid partiality out of his own eye and then perhaps he may see clearer then as yet methinks he doth to take the more of excesse or sloath out of his Brothers eye FINIS ERRATA PAge 1. line ult for conclued r. conclude pag. 11. line 29. for selling r. telling pag. 12. l. 31. for Gentleman r. Gentlemen pag. 13. l. 19. for enlarge a Navigation r. enlarge Navigation pag. 4. l. 20. for Broyles after them hath and r. Broyles and after them hath
would never lend for pure good nature or Importunity or if he thought he could otherwise deale to better effects And therefore I have a little curiosity to know what that something else was For if it were a purchase though a Lurching one beshrew those say I whoever they were that diverted him T. M. What would you have him do Let his neighbour sinke Go to prison c. T. C. Such a deliverance or Jubile as this had Esops horse protected from the stagge but ridden to death by the man I 'll tell you what I would have him do not give his friend Poyson for Physick Or at best cold water in a Calenture What then Why lend him mony grais or at a tolerable and saving Rate to be sure what ever it be But he who now premises that Usury is charity may shortly I doubt conclued that gaine is Godlinesse T. M. He kept his mony by him these six moneths to lend c. T. C. 'T was his own folly he should once for all according to your discreet advertisement Page 44 have fairely layd it out upon Land and for ever prevented the like losse But it seems he knows better what to do then you or I can direct him T. M. He lends it to a man that gaines fifteen per Cent. for so much I believe all traders do Is it not reasonable the lender should have at least one half thereof c. T. C. Nay if once you come to reason you are gone stick to your opus and usus if you be wise For what if he lend it to a man who looses fifteen per Cent. so much I doubt some traders do Is it not then reasonable the lender should bear one half of the losse since he looked for one half of the Gaine I marvel Sir I should need now to tell you that trading at Interest is a deceitful Lottery consisting of blanks without number for a few great lots an errand Quack that proclaims his cures but conceales his murthers A few Field-Officers it hath who by chance surviving and carrying away the fruit and glory of the whole service are celebrated for their Exploits And well they may for they are almost as strange as Knight-Errandry But common Souldiers are slaine by thousands and forgotten My comfort is that I hope by this time our Merchants and Usurers too so well perceive it that the one is not forward to trust nor the other eager to be trusted And that the blessing of forraigne Loanes hath quite forsaken us Otherwise it would aske no conjuring to read the destiny of our Trade T. M. No man will keep mony by him to lend for so small a Praemium as four per Cent. which will hardly reward selling in and out and make good the Brass mony much less answer the hazard of lending which is so considerable in this deceitful age that I perswade my self the Ensurance Office would demand above 30 s. per 100 to secure all the mony lent on security in England T. C. T'other Angel and 't is done There is now no more for ought I see betwixt your hazard and our Ensurance troth be good natur'd and do not stand for a trifle But surely Sir you speak at a great Rate Tell Mr. Usurer from me his poor Bayliffe the Gentleman as you rightly terme him is content with half the salary sometimes with a bit and a knock from his Benefactour and that his worship puts me in mind of some great goodfellows who were so long accustomed to swill in Spirits Brandy Sack Metheglin Northdown and Mum as houshold Beer would not down with them it was but Rock-water even Cyder they took but for Clarified whey But our hope is malt will shortly rise and then we must brew smaller for him then of late we have done Yet even at four per Cent. I doubt he will fare but too well Better I am sure for the present then many who better deserve As for his hazards he ensures himself with a witnesse Nor do I suppose he desires to loose so sweet a pretence However if at any time he be bitten he is but pay'd in his own coyne for not purchasing fairely in stead of lending shrewdly and lying in ambush as he doth for lurching Pennyworths T. M. I am yet to learn what puts our Gentry upon considerable Borrowing except such things as I am not willing to record since not one in seven borrowes to advance any Laudable improvement T. C. Our late Usurpers could better resolve you then I unless you will take my Preface in part of payment but in truth the question comes strangely from you in this place who tell us but a Page or two before of Marrying Daughters and going to Prison good Sir look about or you will lose your self in the wood T. M. There is another sort of men Gentlemen not in debt concern'd in this Conditional Taxe who are not to expect present advantage by subduing Interest but are to solace themselves with an assurance of future improvement of their inheritances in value as certain as if it were in their Purses saith my Discourser c. T. C. I say so indeed and I doubt not but most of those Gentleman will believe me for the thing is manifest both as to the Purchase and Rents of Land For Purchase the Resemblance of Land and mony to two Buckets was never questioned till now And Rents must needs be governed by the very same Maximes with the Land it self and Trade the farmer being no other then a Country Marchant and with your Patience I shall offer you divers familiar instances to prove the Tenant hath equal benefit in the fall of Usury with his Land-lord his stock will be so much cheaper to him his ordinary yet necessary Amendments Fences Repairs c. will be cheaper he may the better afford to sell at common and low markets or wait for higher and upon the Encouragement of a long and good lease he but much more the owner will be enabled to venture on Improvements chargeable and expectant the profit whereof will vastly accrue not to himself only but the Commonwealth viz. Building Planting Enclosing Drayning Flouding Marling c. These are so obvious as I cannot but admire the vulgar capacities of some who in discourse on this subject are apt to say Alas What is it to me that neither lend nor borrow But say I do you neither hire nor let Neither sell nor buy Neither build nor repayre Neither plant nor enclose Neither wear nor cloath Neither travel nor sojourn Neither entertain nor eat Which way soever you turn six per Cent. stares in your face You meet him on the Road and sup with him at your Inne His intruding you cannot avoyd yet shun if you can his acquaintance And in case you design to build a Church or Chappel or found an Hospital or plant a Colony or enlarge a Navigation or bravely serve your Prince or worthily oblige your friend or seasonably
in Country affaires If trade be in a thriving way and yield above his rate of Usury which he Critically observes and understands as well as most that drive it for there is not a better Weathercock to tell us where the wind sits being naturally shrewd and pensive a rare Accomptant and by conversation at least no stranger to those affaires he plies the Exchange examines the Rates of Impost soon acquaints himself with Prices and Markets and is as brisk as the best But finding little to be got but hazard and that all things considered he may repose himself more profitably upon his Downbed of Interest he is then wholy defective in business of that kind his Friends undid him by not giving him more learning or putting him early out to Prentice Or he is a crazy old man weary of the World glad to retire and beginning to doat Were it not for this imposture of affected impotency how could men the acurest and exactest judges of advantage in their generation at this time of the day so peremptorily deny the raysing of Land by the fall of Usury a Problem full of self Conviction compelling assent to the very mention of it and which themselves I dare say have formerly granted a hundred times over But truly here is the Intrigue before the Usurer had dived into the bottome of the Argument and spied the vast invincible consequences of it not only in the Various improvements of Land but in their immediate affinity to those of trade and one would marvel so sharp a nostril should not sooner smell so strong a scent his common Reflexions were these yes indeed this is good for you in the Country but it will undo us Citizens You Gentlemen care not what becomes of trade so your Lands rise Now you would fain be raysing your Rents again and racking your Tenants to maintain your Prodigality These and divers other unwary Confessions have I my self and I dare say most that read this Page heard from some even of those who now sing another note For finding themselves by their own admission utterly gravelled and unable to gainsay the necessary great and good effects of raysing Land they soon swallowed their own spittle and now the Crie is 't is absurd thus to argue against Experience We utterly deny it prove it if you can Well then I am ready to prove it which yet I supposed I should never have been driven to and not only prove but in good measure demonstrate it if at least Arguments of this nature be capable of such evidence Purchasing is the Exchanging of mony for Land to a supposed equal Value the proper measure whereof is Yearly income or Revenue He then that purchases according to Rule compares the income of his mony which he quits with the Revenue of his Land which he acquires and thereby Examines his gain or loss Now in regard of the dignity and stability of Land it hath alwayes had caeteris paribus some preheminence allowed it in the Ballance to a fourth or third part perhaps more in very clear times so as six Pounds per Annum good Rents were counted of equal intrinsecal value to eight or nine Pounds per Annum Interest He then that would lay out a hundred Pounds upon a Purchase mony being at six per Cent. expected Land to the Yearly value of four Pound or at most four Pounds and ten shillings which is about four and twenty years Purchase whereas mony being at four per Cent. less then three Pounds per Annum becomes his Due which is about six and thirty years Purchase This estimate I dare maintain must generally hold if there be certainty in the rules of proportion And that it doth so appears even in our present case which I take for a Pregnant and marvellous instance considering the number and extremity of sellers For supposing Land now to carry eighteen years purchase as good Rents have all along done and abating a fourth part for the Rent charges of publick Duties by Purchasers cruelly defalked the present purchase is just reconciled to my presumed Rate As for Rents I must again mind you of five years actual War five years Anarchie ten years Usurpation and above twenty years unequal burthens sufficient one would think much more to have impoverished our Farmers and embased our Farms But as for the Feats and projects which you so deride I again affirm they are not Monstrous but most natural even so familiar That every Country almost every year presents us with notable Patterns of them Your self have instanced in some which may only serve for a Relish of many incomparably more important Do but cast your eye upon our Lands now adjacent to good Towns and observe what the industrie of man meanly and but accidentally encouraged hath there effected And then if you can deny that a perfect Enablement and withal prudent compulsion of the same Industrie doubled and redoubled would through the necessary progresse of improvement make indeed a strange and happy Metamorphosis Even by planting Cities in time where are now scarce hamlets and multiplying Towns almost to the number of our Parishes Since God who sends meat for our mouths doth likewise ever send mouths for our meat and that not by Miracle in our vulgar Account but the ordinary successe of just laws and prudent Endeavours For sure there is nothing that so fatally and universally wasts and depopulates as Usury if once it grow rank and rampant No not War or Pestilence it self which have always had their periods intermissions and Exemptions Whereas this like a general and perpetual contagion and secret canker supplants the present Age and undermines Posterity For who that hath common sense observes not that dark and drooping times the fruitful harvest of our silversmiths drive out natives and keep out strangers cut off the thred of life untimely with want care anguish and disorder oblige even the richer sort as it were in their own defence to decline or deferre marriage and compel the poorer at best to neglect but shrewdly tempt them even to expose their Children And who may not easily thence conclude that the flourishing of trade and tillage which to our worms and weeds is a most nipping frost endeares any Country to its people allures forreiners prolongs lives and makes posterity even the Tenants welcomest stock but the Land-lords only treasure and Jewels T. M. Where is now the treasure of the Nation lying idle locked up in Misers chests Or if it be now employed at six per Cent. it can be but employed reduce Interest to what you please T. C. Indeed a rare ground-work for the Raysing of Interest to forty or fifty per Cent. for iâ— seems you make no difference betwixt the general Employment of our stock to profit or losse My father I take it in his first Treatise hath laid down a sounder Maxime viz. that where Particulars thrive not the Commonwealth is seldom greatly advanced T. M. Will our encrease oblige
in Mortgages where the title hath been scanned were methinks an easie exchange This I hope is no such cruel hardship or dangerous Doctrine for though some Doctours hold Usury to be consistent with good conscience yet few that I have heard of maintain it necessary to good life And further to prove it most reasonable thus I argue Either the Rents of Land do now competently Ballance the Interest of mony or they do not If not where is their Justice If they do where is their prejudice Besides I am directed by an honest Gentleman and their special Advocate one Mr. Manly to acquaint them That five Pounds five shillings a year in Land once surely settled whereby they shall only venture their Rent which is commonly secured by stock upon the ground is better then a hundred Pounds in mony at six per Cent. sometimes tumbled and tossed at Usury like a ship in a tempest and utterly lost and sometimes remayning uselesse by them like a vessel becalmed If now they will not be ruled by their best friends what hope is there say I of persons so refractory and self conceited In case their genius be not for Land let them trie the Seas in forraign trade If they can be brought neither to fancy the Land nor trust the Sea let them build granaries to deal for grain and other commodities in cheap times and keep them for better Markets and with as much ease as a Usurers heart would wish sometimes double their stock so employ'd or let them advance our national Manufactures with clean hands and no doubt with competent gain If nothing but Usury will content them tell them from me I smell an evil savour and that it were great pity but they were pinched in their superfluous and to the Commonwealth every way pernicious Revenue T. M. Is not Interest with us the lowest by Law in Europe T. C. I verily believe there is no law in Europe for Interest save only the law of restraint which you are pleased still to misconstrue for Licence But I apprehend you Sir you would have us stay till Usury reduce it self without Law very fine You maime us throw us into a deep ditch and crie God help you T. M. Will you or any other Land-lord sink his Rent because his Tenants complain of hard pennyworths T. C. Are not Usurers ever the first to reproach Gentlemen at least with folly for not sinking their Rents if they but seem too dear for the Land Are not all Land-lords even now upon Abatement and glad at any rates to get tenants though surely not so sufficient as yours Do they not freely discount for taxes and extraordinary burthens And do not all good Land lords allow for bad times nay even for very bad years I tell you Sir I ever did shall nay at my Peril must sink my Rent if the tenant produce but the tithe of those reasons which most borrowers now may For though I shall never admit that letting of Land is Usury yet will I not deny that racking of Rents and taking extreme advantage of strict Covenants is Extortion And yet by the way I must note that the worst of Land-lords will find it a harder matter thus to extort then the best of Usurers doth the trade of letting Land not being driven in the Dark And there being I take it no procurement continuance double mort-gages or treble Bands-men in his case to be got Nor other probable security then barely the penny-worth but the markets of Land being free and open and the Values to a trifle publickly known and allowed T. M. That trade will regularly bear present Interest who hath not observed that the careful managers thereof have had a thriving time of it T. C. That trade will not regularly bear present Interest who hath not observed that the carefullest managers thereof if borrowers have been eaten out and undone And that our old Foxes are so well aware of it as to preferre English Mutton before outlandish Venison However the main stresse of this Argument I must tell you lies upon Land for surely few but Land-lords either do or now can borrow considerably To Land therefore the fall and taxing of Usury is most indispensably just and necessary to trade undeniably wholsome and profitable T. M. As for idlenesse sucking the Brests of industrie 't is no mor applicable to lending mony upon a valuable consideration to them who by industrie and skill live thereon then to my Land-lords hiring his Farm to the Laborious Husbandman c. T. C. When you produce me any one Text of Scripture Church-canon or Christian Sect that deserves a civil name disallowing the Rents of Land or any one temporal law restraining them your bold assertion shall be considered I on the other side offer to prove that the laws of this and many Countries how tender soever they were of Propriety and Freehold as indeed it concerned them to be have as they saw Occasion from time to time retrenched Usury without scruple or saying so much as by your leave Mr. Usurer Which notwithstanding your Categorical thesis shrewdly argues that the justice and title of them hath not been reputed altogether the same Nor doth the Usurer himself I suppose pretend to be our lawful Land-lord for then he would be readier to keep hospitality serve upon Enquests find Armes repayre Churches and pay Taxes then of late methinks he hath been T. M. Is it reasonable to imagine that all men are of equal brains or education to traffick in one sort or other c. T. C. You will prove anon that borrowers have more brains then lenders though formerly you told them in effect that if they had any brains at all they would not be borrowers Truly 't is a comfort still thus to be cajoul'd into our ruine and that though we find our selves the poor yet an Oracle it seems hath pronounced us the wiser Sure Apollo was of another mind when he made my Alderman his Laureat Nor doth six per Cent. I take it much glory in the improvement of his Sons knowledge and experience when he runs out and borrowes Nor would any sneaking Usurer I suppose like to be taken at his word and have a Guardian by the King assigned him which methinks were a charitable work he having so slender a capacity with so fair an Estate in which case Land-lords are of course provided for But alas too sure it is that when a Usurer is made there is commonly as good a Merchant marred as most that walk the Exchange T. M. The present Interest admitting much were borrowed can be no just scare-crow to the builders since all builders I have yet met with may have eight nine or ten per Cent. and very good Rents for their ground besides T. C. I rejoyce at your good news though it be yet early day But give me leave Sir from thence to observe how signally trade having groaned under few or no new burthens hath thriven and flourished
rule of three in Arithmetick hath been ever granted and never till now questioned by the usurer himself And is by way of admittance solemnely declared not only by that notable statute 21. Jacobi but even by an Act of this present Parliament To the second That I rather chose frequently to glance as it were upon those unequal pressures than lay the main stresse upon them if I could avoyd it Partly from my reverence to the Authority imposing them Partly from my foresight of an answer which obliging me in my own defence to produce them as manifest causes of the fall of Land and Rents will I hope absolve me for it For brevities sake I have chosen to reply by way of Dialogue having ever observed that in such familiar discourses doubtful matters are best explained Glosses and sophismes prevented and taedious circum-locutions avoyded which at best signifie somewhat to style and forme but nothing to sense Only for an Antidote to my former omission I shall first ground my future Arguments concerning Land upon the impartial narrative of our publick burthens for forty years past here ensuing A summary Account of our Publick Taxes and Burthens and how they have been born for forty years past TO clear my Antithesis of Land and Usury I shall distinguish the time into three Stages or Periods 1. Before the War 2. During the War 3. After the War 1. Before the War It hath ever been the known grievance of this Kingdom that all the hardships of the Common wealth were born by Land Our Land-lords only exposed to be Lords and Deputy Lieutenants Sheriffes Commanders in the Militia Justices of the Peace Jury-men with divers other chargeable employments general and Parochial Our Tenants to be Constables Bosholders Surveyours Collectours c. Prest to the War and charged even in Peace Both of them in their degrees obliged to Residence and Hospitality subject to payment of Tithes maintenance of the Poor employment of Labourers at certain cost but uncertain profit Repayring of Churches Mills Bridges High-wayes Sewers c. Rarely pretending to matters of much advantage Neither is it a new Complaint That usury hath always sculked and shifted like the running Gout and like a Faery or Goblin which tortures and scares without ever appearing That it was to the Commonwealth at best like a lame legge uselesse deceitful and troublesome Profitable only to it self Craftily avoyding all charges and Duties how just and Equall soever but watching all the Advantages of wealth and leisure for gainfull Offices and penny worths Tithe he never payd I will not swear he never received it since the first fall of Interest in doubtful times he is presently upon the Wing And if you do but talke reason to him threatens to lurch or leave you For the world is his Country â—and perhaps in six moneths time he can be as good Dutch or French as ever he was Englishman being now at the best but a Denizen With great reason therefore my father in his second Treatise even then inferred that since the usurer payd little to subsidies nothing to fifteens little to the poor mans boxe repayred nor built no Churches set no Labourers aâ— worke for the good of the Commonwealth employed none but Scriveners and Brokers and those at the charge of the Borrower no man needed doubt but there would be enough of the Occupation though mony were brought to five he might now have sayd to three in the hundred 2. During the War most remarkable it is how generally and fatally the Land was engaged most of it actively in raysing of Troopes and Regiments for the assistance and support of the parties contending towards which the Land-lords as their perswasions led them not only staked and pawned their own Estates but procured their neighbours and tenants to embarke with them all of it passively by Plunder Freequarter Contribution and other exactions so insupportable that an indifferent summe was then worth a fair Lordship Taxes being commonly in surplussage to Rents and stock on all sides looked upon as lawful prise so as Land-lords were ruined by hundreds and Tenants by thousands Not to mention the irreparable wasts committed by fire and other warlike violences The usurer in the mean time felt none of these Earth quakes but like a devout Hermite in his Cell retired to his Beads little concerned in secular or sublunary affaires unlesse it were in the special case of an Assumpsit or single band Wee heard little of his Chivalry and lesse of his Martyrdom some have been reported by the black art to be stick-free and others shot-free The usurer in the late times was both 3. After the War it is but too fresh in our memories what grievous Pressures have ever since lain upon the Land For the clear discovery whereof I shall consider it under the fourefold Capacity of Compounder Owner Farmer and Borrower The Compounder of which quality were perhaps our most and greatest Land-lords upon payment of two years compleat revenue for a Fine the lowest rate I have heard of debts being rarely considered was graciously restored to his house empty and half ruined to his Land stripped of Wood and Timber ill tenanted and unfenced his Meadows perhaps broken up his Plantations Hop-grounds Nurseries c. at best neglected Nor was hee thus dismissed but exposed to the repayring of all pretended trespasses by him unavoydably committed in the War Still molested and forced as the least of evils in appearance though in consequence perhaps the greatest by residing in London to shelter himself from some ill neighbourhood The owner besides many other ruinous losses hath for above twenty years past commumbus annis in Land-taxes Military charges and the encrease of Parochial duties pay'd at least one fourth part of his yearly income strictly valued without the least consideration of fall or losse of Rents Repayrs and divers other incident defalcations The Farmer having been impoverished by free quarter and owing at least in part for his stock hath been and still is by the like sufferings together with his growing debts kept so low that it is great pity to see how painfully and innocently he cheats himself by holding on the Farme being neither able profitably to stock nor afford it ordinary and necessary amendment nor keep his grayn for tolerable Market The Borrower if compounder and in debt before the War as divers were must needs be desperate It could then be no otherwise with him then thus take all and pay the Baker For what estate almost could buoy up against such a Fine with many years losse of income and growth of Interest at eight per Cent But though neither compounder nor formerly in debt can he well be imagined a clear man having lived so long in effect upon the main And then let us take a survey of his condition Borrow he could not then without excessive Brokage for the Glut of Compounders had strangely improved Extortion besides the Circumstantial mischiefs and traps of
chargeable attendance conveyance suretyships counter-securities and trusts which have furnished us with sutes and Incumbrances scarce to be cleared in an Age and which without fall of Interest may amount to a reasonable Land-taxe twenty perhaps forty years hence sell he could not in due time but to the losse of almost half his Inheritance so much was Land embased by the Miseries of the War multitude of sellers and Land-taxes subsist without selling long he could not how ever ought not for Taxes and Interest mony like heavy bruises meeting with foul humours would soon gangreen All this while the monyed man eat the fat of the Land being a kind of Lord-Dane in every houshold The common rate of Interest with Choice of security real or Personal for borrowers were forced to helpe one another with joynt and mutual suretyships came clear to him for the Acceptance whereof he was even treated as a Benefactour But the common Usurer being generally his own Broker like Bawd and Curtesan was double greased He swaggered like the Lord of a great Mannour the Demeans whereof are holden by Villenage having the very Carkasses of his Betters as it were in his clutches His harvest lasted many years betwixt pernicious Loanes and Seisures Dog-cheap penny-worths of goods and half-purchases of Lands both private and publick For like a Raven he feasts upon Carrion and thrives by the calamities of his Country I have claimed the Losers Priviledge in the blunt Narrative of these plain truths irksome indeed to the memory but in use medecinal partly to silence their un reasonable clamour who most absurdly impute our present damp of Land to the reducing of Interest chiefly to lay open even to vulgar Capacities the Original and Ground-work of our present Maladies so industriously palliated by most of those that procured so unhappily mistaken or sleighted by many that feel it whom I dayly hear lamenting the hardship of the times but withal imputing it to causes either scandalous to Authority or in themselves so frivolous as one would blush to mention as if they should tell me we are sick for want of health idle for want of businesse and insolvent for want of mony These I would willingly acquaint what evil Spirits haunt them and what familiar spels may drive them away For to mee it seems most evident That the disproportion of Usury to trade but principally to Rents not timely observed and Redressed together with the advantage constantly taken by Usurers to decline all Publick Burthens especially in civil Broyles after them hath and since our current practise of Usury made greater havock of noble Families hopefull Traders and honest Farmers then all other Oppressions and Casualties within that time summed up together For the better applying of this History to my present Argument give mee leave to propound these following Quaeries Doth not publick welfare mainly depend on the avoyding of oppression by equality of Taxes Ought not every one that hath a certain Revenue to contribute his share to the common Burthens of his Country is it not a condition reasonably annexed to Property Supposing Interest of money to be lawful Rent as it pretends and admitting it the speediest clearest and securest income as doubtlesse it is ought it not even in that respect to be most strictly charged Are not summes of money at Usury goods chattels indeed the principal ones were they not then comprehended in all our late lawes for Taxes even those of the late Usurpers Were they not in some of our latest Acts since his Majesties return particularly charged by name Admitting it assault to steal Customes and Excise is it not at least equivalent in the lender upon Usury to decline Taxes imposed by one and the same Authority Is not the Prejudice to King and Kingdom finally as great but the immediate wrong to neighbours palpably greater Hath not the encrease of our Poor Military Burthens and Farmers Taxes for twenty years past embased Farmes at least ten per Cent. in Value Have not the like pressures more immediately cost the Land-lord at least fifteen per Cent. of his yearly income and what hath the Usurer contributed to any of them Hath not every Purchaser of late years by reason of their long Prescription purchased with allowance for them in the nature of Quit-rents clogging inheritance Hath not then every necessitous Seller clearly sacrificed the fourth part of his Estate to his exigence and have not Purchasers thriven to the same proportion by their neighbours Misery and so made double Benefit of their own wrong Have not the hopes of Land-lords and doubts of Tenants concerning the end or ease of Taxes justly hindred the letting of good leases and multiplied Tenancies at will to the manifest ruine of Farmes and Publick detriment but advantage of lurching Purchasers Have not the like hopes suspended many sellers upon Exigence to their greater Ruine and the contrary doubts so amused fair Purchasers that they knew not what justly to offer Have not borrowing Land-lords pay'd all this while six per Cent. indeed to the Usurer but otherwise considering the Clog of their inheritances much more then double that rate and have not Lenders in effect received neer two per Cent. overplus which in all equity they should have payd to the Publick Will not the Usurer without due caution always serve us with the same sawce in all future Broyles or extraordinary Levies May not this Kingdom be presumed still to feel the effects of the late civil War As men do sometimes old Bruises or the sinnes of their youth very long after Admitting Land-taxes should cease may not the continuance perhaps encrease of other Burthens especially the Poor without effectual redresse be sufficient to perpetuate the Embasement of our Farmes now so impoverished Will any man now marvel at the Deadnesse and not rather at the quicknesse of our Lands and Markets Must we not impute this suspension of our utter ruine to our intermediate growth of trade by our last fall of Usury and its exemption from new Clogs May not an Indifferent Charity suppose that the Land-lord may be now incumbred and Tenant impoverished without rank Prodigality Doth not even six per Cent. grievously bite the Land it being now Notorious That all things computed Rents in the Country do not generally answer three Can the Borrower ever hope without abatement of Usury to clear himself but to half Ruine in sale or extreme mischief by delay may not the Usurer at his pleasure relieve himself perhaps with advantage by purchasing in time Can the Retrenching of Usury which by visible experience hath always proved successeful be ever so just and necessary as to Farmers generally drooping and a Gentry incumbred by Loyal sufferings Is not the improvement of Land and support of Gentry farre more considerable to his Majesties service then any pretence of Usurers can be If our Taxes and Burthens had been equally born must not the due Rate of Land have been maintained to at least 24.
years Purchase If land could have escaped all these Burthens and money born them without consideration of desperate and uncertain debts as surely little we have had of incumbrances or fayler of Rents What would probably have been the Purchase of Land If all our Payments had been charged upon Customes and forrain Imposts money and Land being both exempted what would have been our Account of Trade May it not yet be seasonable because profitable and most just to expose money at Interest to publick Taxes and Duties If Creditours at Interest be Obliged at their Peril to Taxe themselves so as by their declining it they be construed to disown their Principal and forfeit it either wholy to the Borrower or half to the King may not this probably be effected without either the temptation of Perjury or prejudice of Informing Where were the Inconvenience Were not this Concurrent with the fall of Usury a likely way speedily to raise the value of Land for want of which only the Country now droopes I shall now proceed in my Reply to Mr. Manly by Questions and Propositions naturally arising from his own words or sense for brevities sake collected with the same fidelity which I would desire him or any other hereafter to use towards me THE PREFACE T. M. IS not the hiring of mony seeing it cannot be borrowed for Gods sake as necessary for the well-being of mankind as hiring of Land or houses T. C. Divines will first tell you your very Hypothesis is stark naught De jure I mean though de facto it be too true and then withal they will direct you to wholsomer expedients for traffick on all sides than hiring of mony viz. Trading with our own stocks honest Partnership and discreet Factorage besides as to the difference of Land and money they will amongst other things inform you That your Letting of mony at the same price to all Borrowers looks somewhat like the expecting an equal Rent for all Lands by the Acre without examining their Quality scituation c. To vary is impracticable and not limit the Rate hath been found by experience in uncharitable times the highway to Jewish extortion T. M. Do you not lay an unreasonable stresse upon the Interest payd by his Majesty for monies Borrowed in the late War T. C. My meaning was the same with yours though not asserted with the like confidence and Authority viz. That his Majestie gave excessive Rates now this say I happened through his not commanding mony as the States did the reason whereof I clearely referre to the plenty and security attending low Interest T. M. Doth not the frugal Hollander grow rich with the gaines of seven or eight per Cent. whilst fifteen per Cent. will not support our Expensive Traders T. C. Five or six I doubt is generally fair for them ours I suppose may thank you for it They would fain perswade the Usurer either to trie himself or be their Ensurer But it seems he desires none of their Egges for his mony for he lovingly thanks them and had rather they should be his T. M. I desire the Reader to take notice That all Europe exceeds us in the Rates of Vsury the States of Holland and some Commonwealths of Italy only excepted And some or all of these are unrestrained by their lawes and at liberty to take as much for Interest as they can get T. C. We differ partly in fact but more in the Issue by you put For lawes may not only be proper but necessary in a Kingdom grievously incumbred by civil War and that hath so much good Land for its fund When in Commonwealths of unequal and slender territory free from exigents possessed of trade and chiefly founded in it current Security with good Policies may both supply the want of them and perhaps better effect their design As for Rates I think it were happy if ours were the lowest T. M. I say speaking as a man 't is no wrong to the Commonwealth If men of Estates drink drab live profusely and die Beggars so long as every penny comes to the Natives c. T. C. I say speaking as an Englishman Interest Reipublicae nequis male utatur suis This is indeed a rare doctrine for Usurers but baneful to the Commonwealth such a vermine as you describe it no more wants then it doth the Usurer himself or than the Farmer in a cheap time doth Rats and mice or lazy and disorderly hinds to devour his fruits For so necessity the mother of Incumbrance and Gran-dame of Extortionâ— would both fatally embase our Lands and poyson our trade with Bankrouts besides he is a scabby sheep and infects the Flock I now leave the Reader to judge who speaks most in favour of Luxury you or I Cato or Seneca I presume taught you no such lewd and vulgar Politicks T. M. Well then A Taxe we must have be it only to dispose Authority to subdue Interest c. T. C. Me thinks Sir we are already half agreed The Kings debts I presume you would have payd and his real occasions supplied Land-taxes it seems you abborre as much as I and I trust you wish so well to trade as you would not have that bear all our Burthens What then remains but that our future levies be upon mony at Interest If you please then and publick occasions require it as 't is like they may monytaxes let them be Let two or three per Cent. be charged upon all Interest mony for seven years and let Usurers always afterwards be double Taxed like Aliens as in effect they are and say you are gently dealt with But four per Cent. with an effectual provision for the future taxing of mony its due share seems to be the cleanlier way T. M. Is not this gratifying the Borrower with a vengeance for one years payment to eternity out of an honest Creditours Purse T. C. How honest I know not I am sure of late we have tasted little of his Justice Let me again acquaint him that admitting even his fairest pretence and hardest measure I suppose it were scarce a Rowland for his Oliver but our soundest Divines I doubt will tell you you mistake your vice for your Estate T. M. Who layd this Excise as you terme it upon your Land the Borrower or the Vsurer He swears he sought not for the Gentleman or trader he had something else to do with his mony c. T. C. I could answer you perhaps without just exception it was the Rebel and the Usurer betwixt them But pray Sir is not this as good a plea for the highest extortions as for common Interest My surly host when I question his Reckoning may as well reply who sent for you The Prostitute having picked her lovers purse may as well aske him who sollicited you I durst likewise swear but that I doubt a Borrowers Oath may not be taken without a voucher since his Band I find will not passe without two or three sureties The Usurer
forreigners to sit still and take their food and Rayment of our providing granting it cheap T. C. Truly in many things it is like it may oblige divers of them as the Cheapness of Polish corn hoarded by the Dutch too oft obliges us to buy it at great rates in dear years But I presume there are amongst others two pregnant and mighty instances wherein a cheap growth justified by large crops and flourshing improvements manifestly conduces to great Vent viz. the Foundation of Manufacture and Victualling of Ships T. M. 'T is well known most of our Lands are upon their best improvements c. T. C. T is better known that you impose herein a shameful mistake For visibly the better half of them are still common Fields and perhaps neer a quarter commons or wasts T. M. I would appeale to the impartial and industrious whether six per Cent. hath discouraged improvements or whether they have nor rather feared a cheap year want of Vent c. T. C. I would appeal to common sense whether six per Cent. in name but at least twelve in effect as to the Land computing our unequal Burthens did not and must not necessarily produce this want of Vent by impoverishing Tenants disabling them to wait for good Markets and so leaving them to the buyers courtesy T. M. We have vast quantities of Fruit in England and more we might have without reducing Vsury would our Gallants spend more of their time and mony upon laudable improvements in the Country instead of wasting so much in London T. C. Store saith the old Proverb is no sore But any thing must be said how little pertinent soever rather then infringe the Usurers supposed charter I tell you Sir in short Borrowers are bad Planters and worse preservers of Plantation but the Usurer methinks might do rarely well in both For Planting to successe I take it requires great leisure and continual care with a strong Purse T. M. But in good earnest shall we undersel our neighbours and will they long endure it By what rare Arts shall we keep the knowledge of this hidden vein from them will not they if that will do take the same course T. C. Let them take what course they please God and Nature with the Blessing and freedom of a just and gentle Government have furnished us with advantages enough even to some good latitude if we abuse them not and that the Usurer and his gang with their wiles do not undermine us and blast our spring in its early blossom T. M. Will the Hollander who lives cheaper workes cheaper sayles cheaper builds ships cheaper Navigates cheaper and hath a Noble for our Nine pence be ever undersold by us in the same commodity c. T. C. You will anon make the Hollander a very fine Monster of five heads ten hands twenty pockets and never a mouth And poor England for ought I see is wholy given over by the Doctour well now say I may be a fit time for the Mountebanck as you call him to trie a Dose upon his patient Recover him with Gods Blessing it may for while there is life there is hope Hurt him it cannot for you have pronounced him a dead man Sir I have lived in Holland and know in point of fact that all Provisions are there at a Rate neer double to what they are here as needs they must be not only from the smalnesse and populousness of their Territory But from their vast charges of Embanking Duties and Tolls And then I leave it to the Reader to inferre whether their wages even to keep them alive being thrifty enough in Conscience must not be greater as I affirm they generally are with a Confidence I am sure better grounded then yours can be Some artificial advantages indeed they have of us which God be thanked are reasonably ballanced by our Natural ones and we have divers defects which would soon be cured if our best heads and stocks were employd in trade and not in Usury whereby our dwarfes are put to grapple with their Gyants T. M. Will this make the French King revoke his Edicts against our Drapery suffer his people to sit idle eat our bread and wear our Manufactures merely in regard of cheapnesse c. T. C. For the first and last of these I suppose it may viz. by keeping our wool at home for our own working and shrewdly pinching him as well in his Ingredients as Vent For their eating our bread we aym not much at that but desire and hope never more to eat theirs However we may promise our selves our Drapery thus encouraged will assuredly carry the Market and that out Gallants shall have no longer any pretence to wear French Druggets as they now say for cheapness T. M. To what neighbours Standard would you have Vsury adjusted To the French No sure they pay more then we c. T. C. It is now almost seventy years since Usury in France was abated from eight to six Pounds and five shillings per Cent. by that wise King Henry the fourth as a prime expedient to repayr the breaches and desolations of thirty years cruell War Judging no other Medicine adaequate to the disease for so it appeares by his solemne and Excellent edict in the French Story thus noted and related The King by these Edicts had nothing relieved the necessities of the Nobility if he had not provided for Vsuries which have ruined many good and antient Houses filled Towns with unprofitable servants and the Countrys with Miseries and inhumanities He found the Rents constituted after ten or eight in the hundred did ruine many good Families hindred the traffick and Commerce of Merchandise and made tillage and handicrafts to be neglected Many desiring through the easiness of a deceitful gain to live idely in good Towns of their Rents mark this for it is now become just our own ease mony having so long escaped all our heavy Burthens then to give themselves with any paines to liberal arts or to till or Husband their inheritances For this reason meaning to invite his subjects to enrich themselves with more just gaine to content themselves with more moderate profit and to give the nobility means to pay their debts he did forbid all Vsury or Constitution of Rents at a higher Rate then six Pounds five shillings for the hundred The Edict was verified in the Court of Parliament which considered that it was always prejudicial to common-weal to give mony to Vsury for it is a Serpent whose biting is not apparent and yet it is so sensible that it pierceth the very heart of the best Families It was yet early-day I take it when this law was made in France Anno 1601. at least twenty years before Usury had its first reducement from ten to eight per Cent. in this Kingdom a thing in it self very observable For had it not been for the miserable servitude of that people and their other insupportable taxes the very twins of Usury
Purchase c. T. C. This I affirm to be a bold mistake and prove my averment 1. from the Ballance of Land and Interest which never fayls but to the Prejudice of Land in bad times 2. From the plain recital of the Act 21. Iacobi declaring then a fall of Land even below its due proportion as the natural effect of high Interest 3 From the testimony of my father dedicating his tract to that Parliament wherein he sate and avowing twelve years purchase then not controuled and sure not modestly to be questioned fifty years after But I see you are one of those deaf men I mentioned that hear only what you list T. M. When mony was at eight per Cent. being the time of our greatest Prosperity Land yielded but 17 or 18 years Purchase and not frequently 20 c. T. C. Surely a faire Rise in so short a Period being but 13 or 14. years inclusive at most for about the year 1637. I take it began our Scotish Commotions which might reasonably check its progresse as my Father in his second Treatise insinuates they did for civil War and Usury are closer Confederates then you are aware of and both sworn enemies to the Land 'T was multis utile bellum that succoured his friend at a dead lift and enabled him thus to trample upon freeholders and Farmers High Interest and Free-quarter me thinks are first Cousins T. M. But now by our unhappy expence of forraigne growths and Manufactures over and above our native commodities exported and a succession of Taxes great and heavy like the Waves of the Sea are not our Land-lords in debt many Borrowers and few lenders and Land fallen to 16 or 17 years Purchase where t is like to continue for ought I see though Interest were reduced till we have more mony fewer Borrowers and lesse Land to sell For if subduing Interest would have done the desired feat 't is strange to me that falling from ten to six per Cent. which is almost one half should not appear ere now so visibly as to stop the mouths of all gainsayers T. C. Nothing will stop the mouths of some Gainsayers Yet to stop all mouths but those that gape on purpose as Usurers we observe do and that very wide I will not referre you to your self for an answer though well I might for surely your question amounts but to this how come our Land-lords having been so long and grievously opprest to be so deeply incumbred Neither will I barely thank you for so strongly and pertinently urging my arguments for me but will likewise in requital set you on your way which it seems you have lost by a Fog You alledge that there are many borrowers and few lenders but is there not say I as much lent as borrowed Is there a Borrower without a lender And might not our lenders who it appeares are great ones being few to many Borrowers soon become Purchasers if as the phrase is they were free And is not the pinching of Usury in rate and taxes the readiest way to make them free that is forward to purchase And may not such forwardnesse of theirs make borrowers likewise free that is able to sell at tollerable prices for the payment of their debts which now it is certain they cannot And may not such sales and payments soon clear and contract the number of debts and debtours And will not such clearing of debts in time make few exigents And will not few exigents make sellers thin And will not the thinnesse of sellers even by your own confession marvellously rayse Land You reproach us with the present fall of Land in purchase but doth not your tenant paying you 75 pound in mony and 25 pound in lawful Bills reckon that he pays you 100 pound per Annum And do you not believe his account And have not most Usurers treated and purchased accordingly And doth not this by your own allowance come pretty neer my account And is it not much that it should still do so considering the extremities of some and moderation of others You object the expence of forraine commodities above our own exportation but have not Land-taxes the Usurers darling however you now exclaim against them for old friends may sometimes wrangle and shake hands again dispatched many of our Freeholders and Farmouts half undone by the War And hath not their ruine made much of our Land lie waste and more be ill husbanded And must not such waste miserably impair and decay our Growth And must not such decay starve our exportation And may not trade so founded easily exceed in its importation Shew me if you can the weaknesse of these chaines T. M. None will lend at three or four per Cent. but upon some other speciall consideration c. T. C. Too many I doubt will still lend at four per Cent. as well for the Rents reserved and thereby secured as also for divers other good causes and considerations The chief whereof I suppose will be that they can no other way for the present get so much so easily safely and to them conveniently yet more 't is hoped will purchase which I take for much the wholsomest kind of loane wishing that Usurers thought so too T. M. Must not trade to the infinite losse of the Nation be hereby engrossed by a few who have prodigious Summes at command to the excluding of small-stocked Traders and young beginners with little money T. C. You are still for Pedlers and Higlers the Usurers Cattle whom he milkes almost dayly and at last must eat them lean for fat they can never be I am for the Worshipfull Trader even the Usurer himself that hath stock to cope with a Fleming viz. those prodigious Summes at command or Interest so I take your meaning which methinks I had rather see generously employ'd in forraign Conquests then like intestine warre eating our own bowells and praying on our vitals As for the engrossing of Trade that is indeed your wisest Argument for have you not noted all along how Trade was dispersed by high Interest but engrossed by lower And may not I observe how the Builders tongues are confounded Nine in ten of your brethren at least your sages objecting directly in your teeth the inevitable growth of a mechanick Trade as they call it meaning thereby I suppose a Trade not so profitable as some of them now possesse nor so easy Lordly and secure as the present Rate of U sury Having hitherto shewn how little your generall invectives against our Luxury and other reigning vices signifie to your Purpose I shall now with lesse noyse but I hope more evidence turn your own weapons against you by proving that Abatement of Usury is in its own nature the greatest sumptuary Law perhaps the only effectuall one that Policy with Justice can contrive Therefore no doubt recommended by God himself to his own People Therefore by the wisest of Common-wealths both antient and modern layd as the very Corner-stone of