Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A69897
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An essay upon the probable methods of making a people gainers in the ballance of trade ... by the author of The essay on ways and means.
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Davenant, Charles, 1656-1714.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing D309; ESTC R5221
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132,769
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338
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of time 't is possible that in the Management of their Product and Foreign Traffick they may come to interfere with and bring Prejudice to their Mother-Nation And remote Fears being allowable where the whole Safety of a State is concern'd they should not wonder to see England so much alarm'd at the Progress they make in the Woollen Manufacture As has been said before 'T is so great a Part of our Exportation that any considerable Failure and Interruption therein must set the Ballance of Trade against us with a Witness it falls therefore naturally into our present Subject to say something of this Matter Last Session of Parliament a Bill pass'd the House of Commons and was committed in the House of Lords For Prohibiting the Exportation of the Woollen Manufactures of Ireland to Foreign Parts This Point has of late been much debated and the general Subject of Men's Discourses The Writer of these Papers was then inclin'd to the milder Side being indeed in his Judgment against Prohibitions because most of such as are come within his Observation seem to have been push'd on without Doors rather for private Ends and to serve some particular Turn than calculated to produce any publick Benefit But having now more maturely consider'd this nice Controversie he begins to lean to their Opinion who think such a Bill necessary and more especially if the Promoters of it can make out the Suggestions upon which it was founded Where the Common-wealth is truly concern'd and where her Safety is in Question they have very narrow Minds who let their Compassion be too much extended to private Objects Our chief Tenderness should be towards her and rough Examples in the infancy of a Mischief are rather merciful than cruel because fewer People suffer then than would otherwise do if the Evil were permitted to take deeper Root If their Manufactures interfere with ours so as to hurt England it must be undoubtedly adviseable to intercept their Growth by some effectual Law betimes before such an Error in Government grow too big for our Correction before too many Families have turn'd their Stock that way before they have increas'd their Stock of Sheep or bred up too great a number of Artists all which Circumstances would make their Case yet harder for we should preserve our selves with as little Hurt to them as possible But it seems some People make a doubt whither or no we have Power thus to intermeddle in their Matters questioning whether Laws made here are binding upon them till they have receiv'd a Sanction in their own Parliament And Mr. Molyneux counts it a very extravagant Notion that has not the least Colour from Reason or Record to term them a Colony from England But we must beg leave to differ with him in Opinion For we take them so far to be a Colony in the Sense by the Interpretation both of Law and Reason as renders them still dependant upon their Mother-Kingdom Nor is this at all impugn'd by the Concessions made to the ancient Irish by Henry the 2d King John and Henry the 3d but to set this in a better Light the Posture of Ireland in those Times must be consider'd The first Adventurers that went over thither namely Richard the Son of Strongbow and Robert Fitz-Stephen who stipulated under certain Conditions to assist Dermot Fitz-Murchard had not a strength sufficient to reduce the Country and little was done towards it of any Consequence till the Expedition of Henry the 2d Anno 1172. with a Royal Army to whom the Clergy Nobility Gentry and People made an absolute Surrender of the Kingdom and by the description Historians give of it it seems to have been that sort of Yielding which the Romans call'd Deditio which was se dare in Manus Potestatem Arbitrium And their giving themselves up to Henry the 2d without a Battel or Blood-shed gave him yet a stronger Title because the Act was less constrain'd and more flowing from the Will 'T is true so wild and numerous a People were not to be kept in Order by a handful of new Inhabitants the King therefore gave them a Constitution by which they were to govern themselves as a free Country under him their Lord. After this the Dominion thereof was settled upon John his Youngest Son and two and twenty Years after in him re-united to the Crown of England From King John Henry the 3d and their Successors the ancient Irish and the first Adventurers of whom many as Mr. Spencer has observ'd have taken the Names Manners and Humours of the Natives derive several Franchises and Immunities and among the rest to hold a Parliament The Story of those Times is it self dark but the Reason of their Councils is yet darker From Mathew Paris and Giraldus Cambrensis it appears That these Concessions were made to the Body of the Old Irish tho' but few in Practice submitted to them for to use Mr. Spencer's own Words To whom did King Henry the 2 d impose those Laws Not to the Irish for the most of them fled from his Power into Desarts and Mountains leaving the wide Country to the Conquerour who in their stead eftsoons plac'd English Men who possess'd all their Lands and did quite shut out the Irish or the most part of them And to those new Inhabitants and Colonies he gave his Laws to wit the same Laws under which they were born and bred the which it was no difficulty to place among them being formerly well inur'd thereunto unto whom afterwards there repair'd divers of the Poor distress'd People of the Irish for Succour and Relief of whom such as they thought fit for Labour and industriously dispos'd as the most part of their baser sort are they receiv'd unto them as their Vassals but scarcely vouchsaf'd to impart unto them the benefit of those Laws under which themselves liv'd but every One made his Will and Commandment a Law unto his own Vassal Thus was not the Law of England ever properly apply'd unto the Irish Nation as by a purpos'd Plot of Government but as they could insinuate and steal themselves under the same by their humble Carriage and Submission But after this during the Wars between the House of York and Lancaster they shook off both the Rule and Laws of England repossessing their ancient Seats driving us by degrees to that which was properly call'd the English Pale In truth it does not appear That they embrac'd our Form of Government for a great while So that the Models of it given heretofore from hence seem chiefly to have been intended for the better Rule of our own People not but they were likewise meant as a Benefit to the Irish if they would be contented to become a more civiliz'd Nation If their ancient Parliament Rolls were extant it would more plainly appear what use they made of their Constitution and thereby it would be seen whither or no both their House of Lords and Commons did not chiefly consist of the
they who heretofore thought the best way to preserve their Civil Rights was to keep the Purse and to have always something to give should be for settling such an immense Revenue on the Crown as may make Parliaments unnecessary If they who were so careful in King Charles's Reign not to burthen the Nation with Taxes should give away the Peoples Wealth as if England were a Mine of Treasure never to be exhausted If they who have ever asserted that all Rents and Payments to the Crown were the Kingdoms Revenues and not Alienable but by Authority of Parliament should in a short space of Time come to Alienate all the Crown Land and to leave the King hardly a Turf of Ground either in England or Ireland If they who formerly thought it sufficient Matter of Impeachment for a Lord Treasurer or any Other intrusted by the King to pass large Grants from the Crown to Themselves should give to their Creatures and share among one another in a few years of Crown Lands near to the Value of two Millions If the very Men who have Asserted and Claim'd it to be their true antient and indubitable Right and that it ought to be esteem'd allow'd adjudg'd and deemed That the Raising or keeping a Standing Army within the Kingdom in time of Peace unless it be with the Consent of Parliament is against Law If they who once believ'd this Eagle in the Air frighted all Motions towards Liberty If they who heretofore thought Armies in time of Peace and our Freedoms inconsistent If the same Men should throw off a Whig Principle so fundamental If they should become the open Advocates for standing Forces and even submit to Troops compos'd of Fâ—reigners If in this manner the Old Whigs whose Foresight and Courage has hitherto preserv'd England should quite change their Minds and go thus retrograde from all their former Speeches Actions and Councils If they should thus come to cloath themselves with the Foul Ridiculous and Detested Garments of the Tories and give into the worst of their Measures And if all that has been here discours'd should happen then would the Constitution of this Country be utterly subverted For Men finding themselves thus forsaken by the Antient Friends to Liberty would believe they were bought and sold They would imagine that there was no such thing as Virtue and Honesty remaining in the Kingdom They would think all Pretensions to the Public Good to be nothing but Designs of Ambitious Persons to lift themselves up to high Honours upon the Shoulders of the People And when Nations have before their Eyes an Arm'd Power to Fear and none in whom they can put any Trust they seldom fail of submitting to the Yoak Free States yield to Slavery when the Men best esteem'd and most in Vogue are generally thought to be corrupted This was the Condition of Rome under Augustus as Tacitus finely describes it Vbi Militem donis Populum Annona Cunctos dulcedine otii pellexit insurgere paullatim Munia Senatus Magistratuum legum in se trahere nullo adversante cum ferocissimi per acies aut proscriptione cecidissent Ceteri Nobilium quanto quis servitio promptior opibus ac Honoribus extollerentur ac novis ex rebus aucti tuta praesentia quam vetera ac periculosa mallent neque Provinciae illum Statum rerum abnuebant suspecto Senatus populique imperio ob certamina potentium avaritiam magistratuum invalido legum auxilio quae vi ambitu postremo pecunia turbabantur When the best and noblest Spirits were all extinct and when 't was seen that the Remainder were contented with Wealth Titles and Preferments the Price of their Submission the Romansthought it their safest Course to commit all to the Care and Wisdom of a Single Person In the same manner If in times to come it should happen that our Nobility and Gentry should be more sollicitous to get a small Employment than to keep a great Estate If the Persons of Note and Figure shou'd be sway'd by their private Interest without any Regard to the Public Good If it should be visible to the Counties and Burroughs that Men covet to be chosen not for their Country's Service but in order to serve themselves If it should grow apparent that neither Side is at bottom better principled than the Other that Court and Country Party Whigs and Church-men are nothing but the Factions of Those who Have and Those who desire Preferment If in this manner the whole Mass of Blood in the Body Politick should be corrupted the Nation will throw off that Reverence to Parliaments which has hitherto preserv'd our Liberties and like the Neighbouring Countries either terrify'd or allur'd they will by degrees submit to unlimited Monarchy And so we shall lose one of the best Constitutions that was ever set afoot for the well Governing a People Handling as we do the Methods whereby a Nation may Increase in Wealth and Power we thought it necessary to describe those Parties and Factions which probably hereafter may come to influence in its Councils And this has been done in order to incite Good Men to watch over their Growth and Progress and such Good Men chiefly as design to engage on neither Side but to bend all their Care that no Side may be able to hurt the Commonwealth And if it should be ask'd Why the Care of Liberty and preserving our Civil Rights should be so much recommended in a Paper relating to Trade We answer that herein we follow Machiavel who says That when a Free State degenerates into a Tyranny the least Mischief that it can expect is to make no farther Advancement in its Empire and no farther Increase either in Riches or Power but for the most part it goes backward and declines This deep Statesman has a saying in another Place well worthy of eternal Remembrance That the Prince who aims at Glory and Reputation in the World should desire a Government where the Manners of his Subjects are corrupted and depraved not to Subvert and destroy it like Caesar but to rectifie and restore it like Romulus than which the Heavens cannot confer nor Man propose to himself greater Honor. It may be objected that in France where all Thoughts of Liberty are extinguish'd Trade and Riches have of late Years very much increas'd But this admits of an easy Answer An absolute Prince with great Abilities and Virtues by Care and Wisdom may make his Country flourish for a time However if his Successors are weak or wicked all shall be soon unravell'd and go backward and Poverty shall soon invade the same People which before began to thrive for to make a Nation very Rich and Powerful there must be a long Succession of good Princes which seldom happens or a long Succession of good Laws and good Government which may be always had in Countreys that preserve their Freedom And without doubt 't is on this Accompt that Machiavel has asserted That no