Selected quad for the lemma: son_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
son_n	daughter_n	mother_n	sister_n	25,437	5	10.5778	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39787	Two discourses concerning the affairs of Scotland, written in the year 1698	Fletcher, Andrew, 1655-1716.	1698 (1698)	Wing F1298; ESTC R6685	36,673	107

Christian Charity but banished natural compassion from amongst us that without remorse we might continue in them This explains to us by what means so much virtue and simplicity of manners could subsist in the Cities of Greece and the lesser Asia in the midst of so great curiosity and resinement in the Arts of Magnificence and Ornament For in antient times great Riches and consequently bad Arts to acquire them were not necessary for those things because if a man possessed a moderate number of Slaves he might chuse to employ them in any sort of magnificence either private or publick for use or ornament as he thought sit whilst he himself lived in the greatest simplicity having neither Coaches nor Horses to carry him as in triumph through the City nor a family in most things composed like that of a Prince and a multitude of idle Servants to consume his Estate Women were not then intolerably expensive but wholly imployed in the care of domestick Affairs Neither did the furniture of their houses amount to such vast sums as with us but was for the most part wrought by their Slaves Another advantage which the Antients had by this sort of Servants was That they were not under that uneasiness and unspeakable vexation which we suffer by our hired Servants who are never bred to be good for any thing tho most of the Slaves amongst the Antients were And tho we bestow the greatest pains or cost to educate one of them from his youth upon the least cross word he leaves us So that 't is more than probable this sort of Servants growing every day worse the unspeakable trouble arising from them without any other consideration will force the world to return to the former Among the Antients any Master who had the least judgment or discretion was served with emulation by all his Slaves that those who best performed their duty might obtain their liberty from him A Slave tho furnished with every thing necessary yet possessing nothing had no temptation to cheat his Master whereas a hired Servant whilst he remains unmarried will cheat his Master of what may be a stock to him when married and if after his marriage he continue to serve his Master he will be sure to cheat him much more When the Antients gave freedom to a Slave they were obliged to give him wherewithal to subsist or to put him into a way of living And how well and faithfully they were served by those they had made free whom from a long experience of their probity and capacity they often made Stewards of their Estates all antient History dos testify Now we having no regular way to enable a Servant to provide sufficient maintenance for his Family when he becomes independent on his Master his bare Wages out of which he is for the most part to provide himself with many necessaries for daily use not being enough for that purpose and no way left but to cheat his Master we ought not to expect any probity or fidelity in our Servants because for want of order in this point we subject them to such strong temptations I might insist upon many other advantages the Antients had in the way they were served if to perswade the expedient I propose I were not to make use of stronger Arguments than such as can be drawn from any advantages I mean those of necessity There are at this day in Scotland besides a great many poor Families very meanly provided for by the Church-boxes with others who by living upon bad Food fall into various diseases 200000 People begging from door to door These are not only no way advantageous but a very grievous burden to so poor a Country And tho the number of them be perhaps double to what it was formerly by reason of this present great distress yet in all times there have bin about 100000 of those Vagabonds who have lived without any regard or subjection either to the Laws of the Land or even those of God and Nature Fathers incestuously accompanying with their own Daughters the Son with the Mother and the Brother with the Sister No Magistrate could ever discover or be informed which way one in a hundred of these wretches died or that ever they were baptized Many murders have bin discovered among them and they are not only a most unspeakable oppression to poor Tenants who if they give not Bread or some kind of Provision to perhaps forty such Villains in one day are sure to be insulted by them but they rob many poor People who live in Houses distant from any Neighbourhood In years of Plenty many thousands of them meet together in the Mountains where they feast and riot for many days and at country Weddings Markets Burials and other the like publick occasions they are to be seen both Men and Women perpetually drunk cursing blaspheming and sighting together These are such outragious disorders that it were better for the Nation they were sold to the Gallies or West-Indies than that they should continue any longer to be a burden and curse upon us But numbers of People being great riches every Government is to blame that makes not a right use of them The wholsomness of our Air and healthfulness of our Climat affords us great numbers of People which in so poor a Country can never be all maintained by Manufactures or publick Work-houses or any other way but that which I have mentioned And to show that former Parliaments strugling with this otherwise insuperable difficulty have by the nature of the thing bin as it were forced upon remedies tending towards what I have proposed By an Act of Parliament in the year 1579. any subject of sufficient Estate is allowed to take the Child of any Beggar and educate him for his Service which Child is obliged to serve such a Master for a certain term of years and that term of years extended by another Act made in the year 1597 for Life So that here is a great advance towards my Proposition but either from some mistake about Christian or Civil liberty they did not proceed to consider the necessity of continuing that service in the Children of such Servants and giving their Masters a power of alienating that service to whom they should think fit The reason for the first of these is that being married in that sort of service their Masters must of necessity maintain their Wife and Children and so ought to have the same right to the service of the Children as of the Father And the reason for the power of Alienation is that no man is sure of continuing always in one sort of Employment and having educated a great many such Children when he was in an Employment that required many Servants if afterwards he should be obliged to quit it for one that required few or none he could not without great injustice be deprived of the power of alienating their service to any other man in order to reimburse to himself the