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
or Farmer who never makes three and who by his own admission must be thereby undone Thus he possesses us Sect 2. That Improvement is in effect ridiculous implying that it may shortly become a kind of Project in the Farmer to dung or fence his Farme because it seems the wisest and worthiest improvement is that of Interest mony whereas I took that of Land to be the more natural and commendable of the two Thus he blesses himself at raysing the Purchase of Land by fall of Interest a question which I presumed might soon be determined as to the Value of leases by comparing some of our yearly Almanacks made when mony was at eight per Cent. with others since it came to six Thus he intimates Sect 3. That the stinting of wages would instantly cure us but the subduing of Usury never whereas I simply imagined that in the reducing of mony wages being mony were best reduced viz. insensibly without exception or prejudice nay to vast and universal benefit Thus he admitts Page 18. That wages about London are raysed by meer confederacy which makes me wonder the Welch and Northern men should not joyn with them conclude that most callings being combined in the same league Catilines conspiracy was not to be mentioned in respect of this and only comfort my self that Land-lords in the Country for ought I hear continue loyal and are not of the Plot Thus he makes it appear Page 33. that we want wherewithal to purchase whereas a classical Authour Page 35. makes it likewise appear that there are prodigious summes at command And lastly for there is no end of his witty Paradoxes thus with a delicate flourish Page 17. he demonstrates that the substracting of one third from Usury and adding it to industrie which I took to be greatly important in all undertakings and affairs signifies no more to trade then the wrens pissing in the Ocean Now since all these Fundamentals are so cleared and reconciled who would despaire that the same or some other genius of the like sagacity may not henceforth infallibly teach us that the redresse of our hardships will no more import to the benefit of Land then belike the rate of Interest doth in Manufacture nay further inform us that honesty is destructive of Commonweal and equal taxing monstrous unequal For the importance and indeed necessity of this Proposal hear the late excellent Prelate before cited in his Sermon on the nature of callings where having directed three main enquiries 1. whether the thing be simply and in it self lawful 2. whether it be lawful so as to be made a calling 3. whether it will be profitable or rather hurtful to the Commonwealth and shrewdly mated the Usurer in the first two he thus proceeds as to the third Article But say yet our Usurer should escape at least in the judgment of his own hardened conscience from both these rules as from the Sword of Jehu and Hazael there is yet a third rule like the Sword of Elisha to strike him Stone dead and he shall never be able to escape that Let him shew wherein his calling is profitable to humane society He keeps no hospitality If he have but a barr'd chest and a strong lock to keep his God and his Scriptures his Mammon and his parchments in he hath House-room enough He fleeceth many but cloatheth none He biteth and devoureth but eatâ—th all his morsels alone He giveth not so much as a Crumme no not to his dearest Broker or Scrivener only where he biteth he alloweth them to scratch what they can for themselves The King the Church the Poor are all wronged by him and so are all that live near him In every common charge he slippeth the Collar and leaveth the burthen upon those that are lesse able It were not possible Vsurers should be so bitterly inveighed against by sober Heathen writers so severely censured by civil and Canon laws so uniformely condemned by godly Fathers and Councells so universally hated by all men of all sorts and in all ages and Countries as Histories and Experience manifest they have been and are if their practise and calling had been any way profitable and not indeed every way hurtful and incommodious both to private men and publick societies If any thing can make a calling unlawful certainly the Vsurers calling cannot be lawful Thus preached that accurate Casuist neer fifty years since when Land-taxes properly so called were not in being when the Militia was rather an Exercise and Holyday sport then a burthen and when our Parochial duties were not I dare say generally the fourth part in bulk to what they now are For my Authour himself tell us Page 25. that in his own Parish within these five and thirty years the maintenance of the poor is swelled from six or seven Pounds per Annum to above an hundred which is at least sixteen for one even neer a great road adjoyning to Chatham and in the very mouth of trade And in most places of decayed cloathing it is too well known the rates for the poor run from three to five shillings in the Pound and still like a creeping soar they spread wherewith the Land is frequently charged though un-tenanted and un-stocked However if such Farms be eased as surely 't is but reason they should still the neighbours are the more oppressed and so must needs gallop into the same ruine As for the variety of other rates and duties the reckoning hath therein been likewise so inflamed that by a modest estimate I cannot judge Interest of mony to be fairly endebted to Land upon the Balance of our publick burthens so little as twenty Millions principal since the year 1641. It is therefore high time at length to make some hue and cry after that notable goodfellow which hath so oft so largely nay gallantly robbed us And if we cannot get him to refund yet at least to look better to the bottom of the bagge where his fingers are methinks as busie as ever That it is practicable without inconvenience to me appeares by this certain measure that it having been already propounded to many intelligent persons of different byasse all of which found themselves concern'd there was never yet any thing moved which received not its present answer Neither indeed do I see what can be colourably objected For what I pray is lesse difficult then that Mortgages being local and fixed their taxes and duties should attend the Estate and be of course defalked by the debtour to his great ease as well as now by the Tenant And that the rates of other summes and debts should always follow the person and present habitation of the Creditour even as now in some small measure they doe If any pretend it is hard for the Creditour to be so paenally compelled to taxe himself I answer what remedy Since his debtour dares not for fear of trouble his neighbours cannot for want of evidence and himself will not for love of gain For should
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
think of his tricks till he was put to his trumpes But let him take his course your own Author Sir Francis Bacon acquaints us that bigge words and menaces are the constant marks of imbecillity and we all know the great Usurer too wise to play much or commonly at that game for fear of mischief Yet to do him perfect Right beyond any future cavill or exception I shall fairly examine upon what ground of reason and justice he sleights the benefit of four per Cent The Usurer you say thinks that profit too small but is not rather his eye too bigge I affirm it is still great perhaps excessive and offer to prove it by all the measures of square and honest gain whither you will consider his title his stock his pains his skill or compare him with others His title is meerly advantage taken of his Brothers exigence His stock sever it from his Farm scarce equals a Barbers or indeed a Rat-catchers his Agents and servants being all maintain'd by others His skill comes short of a Fidlers or Juglers Minors and Ideots being free of the company His pains doe not much exceed the Vagabonds or Gypsies he so upbraids Now to compare him with his Neighbours who one would think might somewhat better mer from their Country His Neighbours I suppose are Freehcâ—ders Farmers and Traders For Freeholders you tell us almost in every page what their profit is for you wonder they are so mad to borrow you advise them at their peril to sell upon any terms and you deride their imaginary improvements Of Farmers I think I need not offer a syllable Res ipsa loquitur We are then reduced to Traders who are of two sorts Forraign and Domestick The Domestick being Shopkeepers and Artificers depending on the Casualty of Vent or Custom have a Benefit so contingent as no Rule concerning them can well be framed nor other observation made then this in generall that some indeed thrive and many fayl even of those that set up with their own stocks but still were Borrowers Forraign Traders are either in those few trades which we naturally or politically engrosse or those many wherein we intercommon with the Dutch and others The former indeed I suppose may oft-times yeild good returns to the Merchant But neither is their foundation very large nor perhaps altogether so found as to build our fortune on them In the latter being of more vast and solid advantage and behoof the present rate of Interest must of necessity as to many of them wholy exclude in all so encounter and curbe us that we cannot expect any cheerfull progresse or otherwise than to truckle under the Hollander a trade whose benefit is not one would think very hard to calculate Whence then is our Usurers lofty pretence or but colourable claim even to four per Cent. T. M. Few will sit down so contented having been used to greater profit but will rush upon several projects and undertakings which for want of skill to manage may redound to the equall prejudice both of themselves and the Commonwealth T. C. Sure I think I may now sing Nunc dimittas For I have lived to hear the Usurer talk of projects and undertakings too His Businesse hitherto hath been only to sit warm and unconcerned applaud his own happy conduct for thriving with such ease censure and deride the Tenant for taking such pains to be undone the Landlord for not falling near half of his rent and consequently his inheritance but trying the most probable conclusions he could think on to make it in some measure good to him and venturing to turn farmer of his Land himself upon meer constraint Rather then let it to the Growes The stander by it seems could then see more then the Gamester But four per Cent. belike 2 little alters the case and infuses such metal into a roguish Usurer poor wretch that all on the sudden he is on fire and a perfect Knight-errant for what would you expect more of Don Quixot himself then to rush upon projects and undertakings Well Sir 't is the best thing said in your book Turn him loose say I he is throughly fledged having got God be thanked store of Feathers upon his Back And the Common-wealth I dare say will freely venture her share in his Flight T. M. Is not the greatest part of Trade driven by young men with small stocks T. C. I hope Sir you mean the Costardmongers trade or the poor Fishermans before mentioned Sure I am if our principal trade be so driven it is high time to reduce Usury to some purpose and call in to our rescue the prodigious summes you boast of Neither will I pretend to urge a greater Argument for the restraint of it then you have here contrived But our Comfort is the Usurer now understands trade too well to trust the trader upon meer Credit or with a small stock very farre T. M. Is not your answer to Widowes and Orphanes very harsh and churlish T. C. Really I much marvel you should think so For first I tell them of other Widows and Orphanes mainly concerned in Land who by the uneasie Rates of Interest and taxes now receive prejudice at least equal to the Benefit of these Secondly I mention a numerous train of unhappy but honest borrowers perhaps no lesse worthy of support then themselves who by the same pressures have been and are dayly almost ruined These being evidently relievable by restraint of Usury I desire may likewise be considered and put into the Counterscale Thirdly I conjure them to deal as they would be dealt with a hard lesson I know for any oppressour to learn in not exacting from their borrowers that which I calmly say they cannot afford or which my Authour himself in other language perhaps more effectual and peremptory often affirms must ruine at least all our borrowing Land-lords to give But wholy to silence the Rage of these masked Usurers who exclaim as if Christianity were expiring when Usury only is reducing I shall distinguish the Plaintiffs into two Ranks viz. truly impotent and intelligent For the truly impotent or infants and Orphanes properly so called I offer these considerations 1. That they are certainly beholden to the several falls of Interest for their present ample provision which is much better even at four per Cent. all things computed then those of their Rank generally enjoyed at ten 2. The Orphanes of London who by reason of their assurance fare I suppose the best of any complain not much of that rate 3. Abatement of their profit will certainly facilitate and improve security for other Orphanes and may so turn to better account 4. By raysing the Value of Land their fellow Orphanes the children of Loyal and worthy Parents for number and quality perhaps more considerable may be likewise provided for who otherwise can never look for portions at least to their degrees The intelligent I fairly admonish to save their stakes by purchasing betimes which
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
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