Selected quad for the lemma: state_n
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A26475
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The advocate
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Philopatris.
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1652
(1652)
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Wing A670; ESTC R1054
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9,683
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21
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were the Commodities of Spain Canaries and the Streights By both these means viz. by discouraging and beating us down abroad in the selling of som Commodities and by raising and enhaunsing us abroad in the price or buying up of others concluding with themselvs to wearie us out at length from all Trade and to have the sole buying and selling of all Commodities for us For this method and manner of managing their affairs daily adding to their stock and answerably diminishing the Stock and Treasure of this Nation and by laying it so as it run thus in a Circle each part of it as wee said strengthning another part it would unavoidably have tended to a greater and greater disenabling us to hold anie Trade with them and to have made themselvs for Wealth and Shipping the Masters over us A sufficient testimonie of which over and above what wee have said also wee might further see in the actual progress that they had gained upon us in our Shipping For 1. In our Trade of East-land whereas wee did use formerly to send thither 200 Sail of Shipping in a year wee now did not send 16 Sail The Hollanders in the mean time employing not less then 600 Sail thither and whereby ☞ had not a good Providence crossed or hindered a strict Alliance and Conjunction between som of those Eastern States and them wee must soon have given them their Price and been at their disposing for all Commodities belonging to Shipping and then it had been too great an hazard for us by anie Law made here to have recovered our Trade from them 2. In our Plantations they had three if not four Sail of Ships for our one whereas they never suffered us so much as to Trade at all in any place or Plantation settled by them 3. In India they have 20 Sail and above for our one 4. At Spain Canaries Zant with several other places in the Streights where they formerly rarely laded hither one ship of Goods they now lately laded hither more then wee And thus in the waie and manner of the managing the Trade in their shipping laie much of their vigilancie to gain their advantage and design upon us A second Cours therefore whereby they do and have upheld their advantages above us is The greatness of the Stock they emploie which as wee now intimated was more and more increased by the wisdom of this their Method in Shipping And which on the other side as it did encreas and grow great did enable them the more to give the Laws of Trade to us both in the Government of the Exchange and of the Markets abroad for Forreign Commodities A third Cours for the gaining and upholding their Advantages of us was The singular and prudent care they took in preserving the Credit of most of those Commodities which are their own proper Manufactures By which they keep up the Repute and Sale of them abroad taking hereby a very great advantage of the contrarie Neglect in us and by this means likewise very much damnifying and spoiling us Which that wee may clearly see of what Import this one thing alone is to us wee shall here set down certain general Canons or Rules belonging to Manufactures 1. That although Divine Providence in the greatness of his Wisdom hath placed natural commodities som here som there yet no Manufacture or artificial commoditie but may possibly bee had on transplanted into anie Countrie 2. That all Manufactures especially such as are of Necessitie if they are of a certain goodness They are like Coin of a certain value and price also and so on the contrarie If of an uncertain goodness They c. 3. That two persons selling or making commodities of a like goodness hee shall have the preference of the Market that will sell them the cheapest And so two Nations likewise 4. That the cheapness of Manufactures and artificial commodities doth altogether depend upon the plentie and cheapness of the matter and upon the like cheapness of price for Handie-labor And these though few beeing unalterable Laws in all Manufactures it cannot but bee acknowledged that it is through our want of the like Care as our Neighbors and onely through that that the Hollander hath anie kinde of Woollen Manufacture For 1. The matter of no VVoollen Manufacture groweth in his Countrie at all but hee is forced to fetch it from other places whereas wee have it here within this Nation plentie 2. The price of labor depending much upon the price of victuals hous-rent and other things necessarie It is certain especially to any that know both Countries that all this is much cheaper with us then with our Neighbors and are like so to bee 3. Our Nation as they were heretofore the onely workmen of these commodities so none can excel them for Art Skill or Goodness were but encouragement given them and an Order Regulation and Government of the Manufactures settled among them And therefore It is not our Neighbor's singular Industrie above us or a power they have to work cheaper then us so much as it is the Carelesness of this Nation in keeping our Manufactures to their due contents weight and goodness Their Neglect in settling a Regulation Government and Superspection over them and in Inflicting due and just punishments for the fals-making of them That is humbly conceived to bee the Caus of the so great thriving of our Neighbor's Cloathing and of the so great Ruine and Decaie on the contrarie of our own Woollen Manufactures and of the people depending upon them A fourth Cours taken by our Neighbors Is The Improvements of Trade that they have made by their Treaties or Articles of Confederations with other Princes and by making this their Care and Protection of Trade abroad in all places their Interest of State Thus taking hold of the Juncture of Circumstances and making use of the Necessitie of the King of Denmark they have farmed the Sound of him Thus also at the Treatie of Munster have they reserved a power of shutting us out of the Scheld and have carefully in that Peace concluded on several other Articles and Provisions in order to the securing and promoting of their Traffick And thus c. A fifth Cours and not the least means for the upholding and encreasing their Trade Is The smalness of their Custom or Port-duties also their prudent laying on and taking off Impositions for the furtherance of their own Manufactures and for the Incouragement of bringing in som and Discouragement of bringing in other Commodities and of which they have given us two ill Instances The one in laying on a great Tax upon our English Cloths and Manufactures The other in forbidding our Cloths wholly to bee imported if drest or died in the Cloth of both which wee have had som caus to complain long as beeing plainly an Inhibition of Commerce and if not strictly against the Laws of Nations yet at least against the Cours of Amitie Alliance and Friendship A sixt
1651. IT hath been a thing for many years generally received That the Design of Spain and which to this daie hee still in his Councils carrie's on is to get the Universal Monarchie of Christendom Nor is it a thing less true how little soëver observed that our Neighbors the Dutch after they had settled their Libertie and been a while encouraged by Prosperitie have likewise for som years aimed to laie a foundation to themselvs for ingrossing the Universal Trade not onely of Christendom but indeed of the greater part of the known world that so they might poiz the Affairs of any other State about them and make their own Considerable if not by the Largeness of their Countrie yet however by the Greatness of their VVealth and by their potencie at Sea in strength and multitude of Shipping For the clear and certain carrying on of which there beeing none that was like to bee so great a Bar to them in this their Aim as the English Nation nor any that laie so conveniently to keep up a Proportion of Trade with them It concerned them therefore by all means and waies possible to discourage and beat out the English in all places of Trade as far at least as was discreet for them without too much Alaruming them or having too early or hastie a Breach with them Their particular Practices to which purpose in the East-Indies at Guiny Greenland Russia with the several unfair Carriages of som among them to us in those places and even in our own Seas is not intended to bee here mentioned It sufficeth that these following Advantages they had clearly gotten above us 1. In the great Trade they did drive to East-land and to the Baltick Sea for Masts Timber Hemp Pitch Tar Copper Iron Salt-peter all sorts of Grain Pot-ashes c. the like most necessarie Commodities 2. In their Herring-fishing imploying yearly upon the Coast of this Land onely above 2000 Sail of great Vessels or Shipping 3. In the preserving and advancing their Manufactures their Cloathing Trade of late arising and increasing as it is judged to above 60000 Cloths yearly 4. In their East-India Trade and by it Monopolizing three sorts of Spices almost to the whole world as Cloves Nuts and Mace and lately much Cinnamon The means whereby they have pursued and upheld these Advantages were By the great number of Shipping they have constantly built and by the manner of managing their Trade and Shipping in a conformitie and direction to their Grand End For 1. Few Merchant's Ships among the Hollanders were ships of much Defence unless these going to India and so they were neither at so great a charge of Guns in building them nor did carrie a proportion of men or victual in setting them out near or answerable to English Shipping of the same Burthen 2. Several Trades they did drive in Fleets with great Flutes or Vessels having never a Gun at all in them nor more men then would possibly sail them as most of their East-land Trade their Herring-Buss Trade and their Salt Trade which were driven after this manner 3. Those their Fleets were and have been alwaies carefully and constantly attended with a Convoy at the Publick charge and which was alway ready before-hand and had their directions given them not from the State but from the several Admiralties whereby they were held to their Dutie and strictly tied up to that service 4. Much of the Trade which they did drive to the south-ward not in Fleets nor with Convoy but in single shipping they would often ensure in England so that when loss came it was wee somtimes that bare it and our stock that was lessened and diminished by it By all which means 1. They did engross the whole Trade of all Bulkie Commodities to themselvs singly as Timber Clap-board Masts Grain Salt c. 2. And were in som Commodities able to go as cheap again for Freight as wee in som half as cheap and near in all a full third penie cheaper then wee VVhich Cheapness of Freight produced again other great Advantages to themselvs For 1. In som Commodities it was above 20 in the Hundred gain in som 15 in others 10 and near 4 or 5 per Cent. in most which was a years Interest with them And by which 2. They were sure to get the preference of the Market of us in other Countries and if occasion were to under-sel us also as much per Cent. in all places and upon all Trades yea somtimes in our own Commodities And this together with an easie pretence of the unsafetie of our English shipping through our late Troubles 3. Compelled our Nation that wee might maintein a Stock going with them to hire and freight the Holland shipping without which indeed wee could not well have held up a Trade here with them either out or home VVhich beeing once begun by som was immediately by reason of the Advantage of it followed by as many others as could But This though a good and beneficial expedient for the particular Merchant begat notwithstanding several very great mischiefs to this Nation in general For 1. By this wee encouraged the building more and more of our Neighbors Shipping and discouraged our own which hereupon were laid up by the walls in great numbers 2. VVee encreased by this their great Trade for the Baltick Sea and East-land and gave them still the greater opportunitie to make themselvs the Mart and Masters over us of all Commodities belonging to the building or furnishing of Shipping whereby their Trade still came home in a Circle they like wise men laying such a Cours as one part of it strengthened another 3. VVee dis-obliged and discontented our own people and sea-men and insensibly weakned the strength and defence of this Nation For by this cours wee must at length have been reduced to have hired their Marriners when wee come to set out our Men of War nor was it possible had it held to have prevented it 4. They by this means carried away much unnecessarie Treasure out of this Nation taken for Freights and so insensibly impoverished also this Countrie our monie occasioning a Luxe to their people while our own Seamen starved at home for meer want and through lack of imploiment 5. And as the Cheapness of their Freight enabled them to under-sell us abroad in many Commodities carried to forreign Markets by them by us to sell So it enabled them equally to over-bid us abroad for the Forreign Commodities which they and wee bought and to rais the price of them upon us which while they had libertie to bring in hither they either prevented our Merchant of the first of the Market and then made us paie Sauce for them or if not they carried them into their Countrie or here watched the opportunitie of another seasonable vent of them And thus they served us as for all our Norwey East-land and Russia Commodities so also lately in our VVines Fruits Oils Currans c. which