A SHORT DISCOURSE About our Keeping our MONEY SHEWING That our MONEY may be kept among Our selves and yet our Confederates strongly Assisted BY A Descent upon FRANCE By E. L. LONDON Printed by B. Motte and are to be sold by John Whitlock near Stationers-Hall 1696. A SHORT DISCOURSE About our Keeping our MONEY c. OUR Money is running away by Millions year after year which will soon bring us if it be not done already to Beggery and Ruin And now all the Talk is of Mending our Money As if a Man had almost bled to death and were still bleeding and He observing his Blood to be bad should be consulting and contriving how to Mend his Blood whereas his first Care should be how to stop his Bleeding I confess our Money is not so good as it should be or rather 't is as bad as it can be But yet upon the whole matter we should think how to keep it before we think how to mend it For as things now go whether it be mended or not mended it will be carried all away It is now evident to all men but some Men saw it long since that our great Payments abroad and chiefly those in Flanders are the main Cause of the Exportation of our Money It therefore highly concerns us to put a stop to those Payments at any rate For we can bear them no longer We have lost so much Bloud already that 't is death to lose more But shall we not assist our Confederates Yes by all meanes to the utmost of our power For otherwise all Europe must be inslaved to the French and We among the rest It is therefore absolutely necessary that we keep our Money and 't is as necessary that we powerfully assist our Confederates Both which things tho seeming so inconsistent may at once be done by our Assailing the French Coast by Sea or in other words by a vigorous Descent upon France A Project of such a Defcent I presumed to poolish in the year Ninety one which Project was generally approved and the whole Kingdom was in Expectation that it would be prosecuted Also the year next after a Descent was intended and another the year following tho as it fell out those Designs were not put in Execution And in the third year was our Attempt at Camaret Bay But as to the Project it is briefly this That a good Body of Foot twenty thousand at least but the more the better be Shipp'd for the Coast of France there to move to and fro as they see occasion and to Land where they find it convenient and further to seize and fortify some open Sea-Town so as it may contain a great and strong Garrison Which Garrison being put in a State of defence the Naval Army to proceed to new Adventures and to seize and fortify other Places in like manner Here I am to make good the two things before mention'd First that in so doing we shall keep our Money and secondly that we shall effectually assist our Confederates To which two things I shall adde a third That the Design is very feasable and hardly possible to miscarry In the first place therefore while we assail the Sea-Coast of France and plant Garrisons upon it tho it be a great Expence we shall still keep our Money amongst our selves For whither should it go The French have good luck if they get any thing from us in this Affair And none else have to do with it At present our Army in Flanders carries our Money thither some say a Million and a half yearly and our Fleet kept upon the Coasts of Spain stops Money from coming to us from thence and a great Sum goes yearly to Piemont But by a Descent upon France our Money will be no way diminish'd and what ever is laid out will come back and Circulate amongst us Here will be no carrying out our Coin and Bullion nor the horrible disadvantage of Remittances In the second place By a Descent upon France we shall give most effectual Assistance to our Confederates If we did nothing else but overlay the French at Sea and thereby destroy their Trade and Navigation even this thing only would be an effectual Assistance For whereas now the French are rampant by the immense Riches 't is their Gazettiers word which they have taken from us they would then be impoverish'd to such a Degree as to be no way able to carry on the War against the Confederates And this thing we must do in the first place For we are ruin'd unless we powerfully protect our Trade and the same Force that protects the Trade of England powerfully will destroy that of France Which things I hope our Parliament hath done already by giving a larger Summe than formerly for our Sea-Service I have said before that our overlaying our Enemies by Sea will prove a great Assistance to our Friends But if beside this we also Assail the French Coast with Land-Forces that Assistance will be much greater For it will make so great a Diversion that both Flanders and Germany and likewise Piemont and Catalonia will feel an exceeding great Ease and Benefit by it We are not able to maintain an Army in Flanders it will bring swift Destruction upon us But we are able to maintain a Coast Warre And our Confederates must and will be content if we do for them as much as we are able Suppose we take forty thousand Men out of Flanders to assail the French Coasts If these draw away or keep back a greater number of Frenchmen as they will certainly do 't is the same thing or better And we may be making Descents in Normandy and Bretagne before the Armies in Flanders can take the field By these Descents we shall touch the Enemy in his most sensible part as His Majesty hath been pleas'd to express it that is on his Sea Coast How tender they are here we found at our Bombarding of Havre de Grace When we came before that Town their Militia's and Regular Troops were commanded thither from all Quarters with all haste possible and the Alarm reach'd Paris it self From whence that King as all our Relations agreed sent away his own Guards to the Sea Coasts What to do Not to hinder our Bombardment for therein they could do no service but to hinder the Descent of our Land-Forces who were not above seven thousand in number It was this handful of Men that caus'd all that Terror and Affrightment We may see therefore that tho the Project here offer'd should fail in the main though we should not be able to fortify and make good any Town nor so much as Land our Men yet the very Attempting these things in several places in one place to day and a hundred Miles off to morrow would so harass and torment the French that they would never be able to bear it But there is no fear that the Project here offer'd should fail in the main or not have its full
Effect In the third place the thing proposed is feasable and easy and hardly possible to miscarry 'T is hardly possible that the French should hinder our Landing 't is hardly possible they should hinder our Fortifying or should take from us the Places we fortify I shall speak first to our Landing And here I must confess that if we should resolve to Land at one place precisely and the French should discover our Design some Months before hand and should accordingly provide for the defence of that place with a great Body of Horse and Foot with Forts and Intrenchments and with Bombs and Cannon and we knowing all this should attempt that place notwithstanding we might fairly be repuls'd and baffled as we were at Camaret Bay But if we are at large to Land where we see convenient there is no such danger When we sail'd from that Bay towards Flanders along by the French Shores the whole Country was in a high Alarme and they brought down all their Forces to Guard their Coast But yet as I have it from those who saw it with their Eyes there were a great many places convenient for Landing that had no Guard at all either upon them or near them we seeing far and wide that the Coast was clear And both our Landmen and Seamen were most chearfully desirous to go upon French Ground if there had been Orders for it Nor had they in truth found any Opposition Sir Walter Rawleigh doth fully demonstrate that the Landing upon an Enemies Coast can by no means be hindred Provided the Assailants be Masters at Sea and in case the Coast be large and accessible Which thing is also confirm'd by the Experience of all Ages For 't is hardly to be found in History that ever any Attempt of this kind miscarried except Ours which I mention'd but now And Reason tells us that our Landing upon France to speak of that in particular cannot be prevented Suppose we have forty thousand Men imbark'd to assail the French Coast and the French have fifty thousand to defend it Their Coast upon Our Channell for That must be the Scene of these Actions is five hundred Miles in length so that here is a thousand Men for every ten Miles But how slender a Guard will this be against our Invading Army Had they a hundred thousand Men or a thousand for every five Miles of ground all would be found too few to oppose our Landing I hope I have made out that our Landing cannot be hinder'd by the French I must now shew that they cannot hinder our Fortifying It would be very strange if such a Body of Men having the Sea and a Fleet behind them and having at least ten days time to Intrench before a superiour or even an equal Force can be brought against them should not be able so to cover themselves as not to fear the Insults of any Enemy The Works we cast up at Landen in one short night the French Lines in Flanders and several late Circumvallations shew what great Things great Numbers can do But we must not think of Pioniers for this Work our Soldiers must do it themselves And they will do it chearfully if those that labour have some Pay extraordinary Which was the way of the old Princes of Orange the Grandfather and great Uncle of our King Moreover the place where we Intrench will be the place we intend for a Garrison And the Line which may be full mann'd by ten thousand Men when the Works are compleated may contain the whole Army for a time For none of these Garrisons should be less then ten thousand the greater they are the farther they will command and the better they will maintain themselves And now I come to the point remaining which is That 't is hardly possible that the French should take these Garrisons from us And this is evident of it self if the Places be as they ought relievable by Sea and not commanded by Land A Place that is compleatly fortified that hath a great Garrison with great store of Cannon and hath room for great Renforcements and that lying opposite to England with a narrow Sea between may receive these Renforcements and all manner of Supplies with every Snatch of Wind I say such a Place as this may justly be reputed Impregnable Thus I am come to the End of the Project which is the Establishing some Garrisons upon the Coast of France There is no more to be done the rest will do it self And as I have said elsewhere England will then be glorious when we have a Range of Garrisons the whole length of the Channel upon French Ground and maintain'd by French Contributions Every such Garrison with a thousand or two of Horse and Dragoons put into it would dismember a whole Province If Tourville when he Landed so easily at Torbay had had an Army on board him and had settled a rampant Garrison there would not the whole County of Devon and Cornwall to boot have been dismember'd by it And had not Deal or any place upon the Downs done the same by Kent and any place in Sussex and another in Dorset dismembred each of those Counties Especially if the French were still Masters at Sea and had still an Army on board to pour in upon us when they pleas'd from any of those places Consider what a horrible Condition we had then been in and in the same Condition will France be in case this Project be duely prosecuted They will be so distracted and confounded by it that they will never be able to resist the Confederates assailing them in all Quarters We may then hope for a good and speedy End of this Warre whereas by keeping our Army in Flanders there is no hopes of it For as things go there tho our Forces be never so great tho we over-power the Enemy never so much we must account it a Glorious Success if we take one Town in a year But what doth this signify towards making an end of the Warre At this rate we may be twenty years in recovering Flanders And we for our parts shall be ruin'd in the tenth part of that time For if our Forrain Payments continue two years longer they will entirely Ruine us and I doubt one year will do it If from Flanders we could carry the Warre into France there would be some hopes But 't is plain we cannot do this because we do not Tho 't is a great wonder that we cannot Why cannot We March into France as well as the French have march'd so often into Flanders the Dauphin into Germany two years ago and the Grand Visier to Vienna a hundred Miles within the Emperor's Quarters As for the French Lines they are a meer Cuckow Hedge We might not only fly over it as we did at Namur to besiege that place but might go beside it their Quarters beyoud the Maes lying open But as I have said elsewhere The great and swift Conquerours in all Ages never lay pelting
at Frontier Garrisons but broke into the Countries We shall never see a good Conclusion of this Warre till the Warre be carried into France and since that cannot be done by Land we must do it by Sea which is the End and Drift of the Design here proposed Some loose things are here added relating to the Discourse above-written 1. No great number of Horse are required for this Service For they are not useful either in Landing or Fortifying which are the things to be done It seems therefore sufficient that a thousand or two of them be imbark'd at first and about twice as many ly ready in England till there be occasion for them that is till some Garrisons be settled to which they may go For to have them all on Ship-board while the Fleet and Army is upon Wing and may be plying to and again for several days would be too chargeable and cumbersome 2. It is no way necessary that the Places we fortify should be good Ports The French have few such upon this Coast and for these Places 't is sufficient if they are relievable by Sea and can receive and secure small Vessels For the business of these Garrisons is that we may harrass and torment the French from these Garrisons Perhaps another year when the French are weaken'd and humbled we may think of Attacquing their best Ports and of a Voyage Royal. But at present we should attempt nothing but what we are sure we can do for what we are sure we can do will sufficiently ruin the French King It will cost us some Labour but we shall run no Hazard 3. A Voyage Royal or a main Invasion will not be of that advantage as the desultory Sea Warre here proposed In that way we may perhaps do something if our Force be throughout superiour and We cleerly and for continuance Masters of the Field But in the otherway we shall be sure to do something and to gain our point tho the Enemies Force should be much superiour to Ours By the first way we shall only divide the Enemies Force by dividing our own without any further Advantage 4. Forty thousand of our Men on Shipboard will do more Service to Flanders by the Diversion they make then a much greater number kept there And 't is well known how great benefit the Duke of Savoy received by our Fleet with a few Land-Men aboard hovering about Provence last Summer It drew so many French to guard that Coast that the Duke took Casal the while without Interruption 5. That brave-spirited Prince deserves our highest Regards And the Assistance we have given him may seem well bestowed But we cannot send more Money to Piemont whence it will never return It were better for us to expend twice or thrice as much in our own Seas for That Money will return or rather will never go from us And this powerful Revulsive will be felt in Piemont to its great Ease and Benefit But let it be as it will we must send away no more Money 6. Our Silver Coin that is left as Mr. Lowndes computes it may be about five Millions and a half but some think it cannot be neer so much Whereof four Millions being Clip'd half way is in effect but two Millions And so three Millions and a half is the Summe effective What will become of us if a full Moiety of this Money be carried to Piemont and Flanders this very next year for the growing Expence beside great Debts that must be satisfied And either the Payments must be there made by Money in specie or they must be made by Bills with most grievous loss the Exchange being so high against us So that 't were better our Money went at once And Merchants know that forrain Payments whether made by Bills or in specie are the same thing in effect and carry Money alike out of the Kingdom 7. This height of the Exchange against us occasion'd by our great Payments abroad is an infinite disadvantage to our Merchants and will continue as long as those Payments do to the ruin of our Trade and consequently of our Nation As for our Clipp'd Money That had no effect upon the Exchange till Guineas did rise which was less than a year since And when our Coin is reform'd that Effect will cease But our forrain Payments are the more durable and substantial Cause It is these Payments that make Silver more valuable and better and dearer in other Parts than it is in England We cannot have weight for weight nor receive so many Ounces there as we pay here It is most certain that our Money never flyes from us but when Silver is more valuable in other places than in England Now Silver as all other Commodities is there most valuable and dearest where it is most in demand And 't is most in demand where there are greatest Occasions for it and the most and greatest Payments to be made They therefore that are to make these Payments must buy the Convenience of having Money there for that Use and the Exchange will run high against them Which is our present case 8. I have omitted One Advantage which we shall have in our Descents upon France and that is that we shall never want Men for this Service Men will be as forward and willing to go for France provided they have good English Officers as now they are backward and unwilling to go into Flanders The Service in Flanders having got a very ill Name amongst our common Men. 9. I have also omitted one Leak of our Money which is to be well consider'd We keep an Army in England at a great Expence and most of this Army are Forrainers Who living very close and spending little lay up a good part of their Pay It deserves an Enquiry whether it be true that is said of them That they are continually even the common Soldiers and much more the Officers sending their Money which they thus save to their own Countries If it be so tho the particular Summes be not very great yet there being many thousands of them it may amount to a large Summe in the whole And it may prove as bad to keep Forrainers in England as to maintain an English Army in Forrain Parts Some think it no way necessary to have a Forrain Army in England For the People of England are so firmly Knit to his Majesty both by Interest and Affection that there is little need of Forrainers to force us to Obedience Aristotle is too severe when he says in his Politicks Lib. 5. Cap. 10. That forrain Guards are Tyrannical for just and good Princes may have them But some think that in England under another King forrain Guards and a forrain Army might be of dreadfull danger to our Liberties Tho under his Majesty now regnant who hath been our Redeemer and is still our Protector and Preserver there is no Cause to fear I most humbly submit these things to the Consideration of our
States now Assembled 'T is They that must take care Nequid Respublica detrimenti capiat That the Kingdom receive no prejudice or rather as things go now That it be not destroyed Which it must be if we part with more Money and which therefore we must not do No Concerting of Measures no Treaties or Agreements can oblige us to Impossibilities and that which cannot be done without destroying the Kingdom is morally and honestly impossible We may say honestly and truly that for us to part with more Money is a thing that cannot possibly be done SInce the writing of the foregoing Treatise the Commons with great Prudence have Address'd the King that he will be pleased to procure that the Commodities and Provisions sent from England to our Forces Abroad may be exempted from Duties and Excises Which is we may presume in order to the supplying our Flanders Army with those Things from England instead of sending Money for that Use And this I confess will put a great Stop to the carrying out our Money But no small Quantities of Money must still go to Flanders For tho the common Soldiers may be content with Provisions brought by Sea yet the Officers will not They must fare better and live like Gentlemen and spend their Money Which Money thus spent will amount to a large Summe And what is spent in Flanders is lost to England But in our Descents we shall spend no Money and all must be content with what they have from England or can get from the Enemy Moreover tho our supplying our Flanders Army from England may lessen the Necessity of a Descent yet the Convenience and Advantage of it continues the same And we may be confident the French dread it above all things in the World According to all humane probability it will in one Summer give the French Tyranny a mortal Wound if not break it to pieces Especially if our whole Quota our whole eighty seven thousand Men were employed upon it And if but forty thousand were thus employed the rest if it must be so being in Flanders and elsewhere we might well expect great things Some think that a Naval Army might do great things without the help of Garrisons But that is a mistake For they can do nothing as to ravaging and commanding the Country without Horse and these cannot readily disbark and reimbark Beside by being long on Ship-board the Horses will be disabled and spoild And in this way it will be thought a great Adventure if we go five Miles from the Sea-side But if we have nothing to do but to cross over to a Garrison or strong Quarter of our own where we may Land without any possibility of Interruption and where a good Body of Horse lyes ready to joyn us we may make a much greater Impression In case we have only one Garrison the French may perhaps coop it up with Lines after their Flanders fashion But in case we have several back'd by our Naval Army they can never bear up against them So that tho they had no other Enemy and should oppose us with treble our Force yet we should be too hard for them having so great an advantage And this is the way to put a speedy and victorious End to the Warre without sending out or carrying out our Money Whereas otherwise this heavy and destructive Warre is like to continue our Money like to be all gone and the Kingdom to be utterly ruin'd And thus much hath been said about Keeping our Money The Mending I leave to Others But the admirable Resolves of the House of Commons have made that work short and easy FINIS