Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	drink_v	root_n	wine_n	34,794	5	10.5067	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60932	The desolation of France demonstrated, or, Evident proofs that one half of the people of that kin[g]dom are destroyed two thirds of its captial stock consumed, and the nation reduc'd to such a condition that it cannot be restored to the flourishing state it was in thirty years ago, in less than two hundred years, and not then neither, except the whole frame of their government be new modell'd / by a person of duality, a native of France.	Souligné, de.	1697 (1697)	Wing S4718; ESTC R8752	142,366	298

the English Government the Protestant Religion c. And that the People of England spent always much more than those of France 2. The Fruits or Profits of the Labour of People could never be so great in France as in England as I proved before 3. Above the two thirds of the Working-Men in France have perished one way or other as I said before and must often repeat it and the excess of Misery under which that People groans cannot be expressed 4. There is no Trade within or without the Kingdom Arts and Manufactures are all decayed and a great part of the People are turned Beggars c. But because it seems to be impossible that the French People should Live and Subsist at so little Expense I must Discover how they do it 't is by consuming their Stock perhaps to the value of above 4 or 500 Millions every Year without reckoning the great and general Decay in all the Stocks and Revenues caused by the Depopulation which puts the Kingdom to the loss of more than 2000 Millions yearly during this War as I could easily demonstrate 'T is not so much by selling away Lands Houses and Offices that the People devours these 4 or 500 Millions of their Stock tho' they may perhaps sell some for the 10th or 12th part of their former value as 't is by selling away their Houshold-Goods Cattle and Timber-Wood their Plate and Jewels when there is any or lending to those who will never pay or by borrowing giving or taking to trust either their Money or Commodities Labour or Time by not paying their old Debts which is a general Disease in all the Kingdom and makes up a dreadful Article or by selling and quitting their actual Debts for much less than they were worth formerly and such other usual Ways by which they waste their Stock more and more and yet for all this a great many dye of Hunger every day To comprehend this matter the better let us suppose a Man who had 30 years ago 100 pound of Revenue and pays now the Taxes upon the Foot of the Ancient Revenue of his Land and not upon the Foot of the present for the Court Taxes all the Subjects now according to the Ancient Estimate that Man's Lands being fallen two thirds of their former Revenue if he pays only 30 pounds to the King Yearly which would be look'd upon now a days as a great moderation there is nothing left for him of his Revenue if he pays 50 or 100 l. as 't is usual now for they are Taxed in that proportion and worse sometimes how can he pay that Tax which is three times more than his Rent and live without wasting the Stock If as I said before all the Estates Real and Personal in the Kingdom are worth but 130 Millions of Livers and that the King alone raises 200 which comes into his Coffers free without that which is necessary to enrich the Farmers of Impositions and to maintain 30 or 40 thousand Men under them at the People's Charges called Gabeleurs and Rats de Cave c. and besides to maintain the Officers of Judicature and innumerable other Civil Officers as I said before without mentioning the Clergy who by their Subtilty and Craft do always Cheat and Plunder the People If I say this be the State of affairs in France we are obliged to believe that as the King and all those Ravenous Birds devour the Kingdom every one is also forced to live upon the Quick and devour his own Stock and that so much the more that the Clergy alone possess as I have said the half of the Real and Personal-Estates and do not contribute to the King proportionably as the other Subjects do and therefore their Stock does not Decay so much because they are not obliged to Devour it by reason that they can live very plentifully on their Rents especially considering that they may retrench the great numbers of their Monks and Priests without any inconveniency I did above mention the Common Taxes which swallow up the whole Revenue of the People and more What will it be then when the King forces People as he does continually to lend him Money or to purchase his new Offices and Titles or to take Augmentation of Wages if Officers or to give an Account of the Adminstration of some Imployments or Functions or when a Man or his Father or Grand-Father or any other to whom he may have some Relation is Accused and perhaps without any proofs of having robbed the King or the People and thereupon is condemned to pay the King the greatest part of all that he has A hundred such Methods are practised every day to the Ruine of the most Opulent Subjects all of a sudden It cannot be denyed that this is the Condition of France at this day and that there are but very few who do not consume their Stock except those who never had any thing and who help the King to destroy all I confess that as the French People live in the Country those poor Souls do not spend a penny a day in Food one with another The Country-People in Ireland feed much better than those of France the Irish eat their belly full of meat when they please nor don't want Butter Cheese Bread Potatos and in many places they have abundance of Salt and Fresh-Water-Fish Oysters Musles Crabs Langosts and Cockles for tho' they are very lazy the Land is plentiful in all those things and then they pay almost no Taxes and besides they smoak Tobaco Men Women and Children and notwithstanding all this Men of understanding who know that Nation perfectly and have Written concerning it assure us That they do not spend a penny a day one with another for their Dyet They own indeed that wearing commonly good Cloaths they may spend one with another including their Rayment about 2 pence per Diem or 52 shill per Annum whereas the Country-People in France spends very little in Cloaths at least two thirds less than the People in Ireland Those who are acquainted with the Condition of France know that most part of the Country-people did feed only upon Black-Bread before the War neither had they their Belly full of that and the best of their other cheer was some Fruits Herbs and Roots with sowr Milk without any Butter or Fat unless some stinking Oyl of Walnut or Rape-Seed except it may be in those places where Olive-Trees are plentiful they sold their Butter to pay the Taille and drank nothing but meer Water or Water which had past over the drained Grapes or Apples when the Wine and Syder had been pressed out of them their chiefest and almost only Food was Black-Bread or Rye-Bread baked with all the Bran commonly very bad that does not cost a Half-penny per Pound of which the Women and Children cannot eat three quarters of a pound a day one with another nor Men who are at present in small numbers double that quantity As