Page images
PDF
EPUB

carbone nigro. And so I shall leave them, and this from Italy, or France, or Flanders, they are in great part of the work.

VI. I come to the sixth part, which is trade; and that is either at home or abroad. And I begin with that which is at home, which enableth the subjects of the kingdom to live, and layeth a foundation to a foreign trade by traffic with others, which enableth them to live plentifully and happily.

1. For the home trade, I first commend unto your consideration the encouragement of tillage, which will enable the kingdom for corn for the natives, and to spare for exportation: and I myself have known, more than once, when, in times of dearth, in queen Elizabeth's days, it drained much coin of the kingdom, to furnish us with corn from foreign parts.

2. Good husbands will find the means, by good husbandry, to improve their lands, by lime, chalk, marl, or sea-sand, where it can be had: but it will not be amiss, that they be put in mind thereof, and encouraged in their industries.

3. Planting of orchards, in a soil and air fit for them, is very profitable, as well as pleasurable; cider and perry are notable beverages in sea voyages. 4. Gardens are also very profitable, if planted | with artichokes, roots, and such other things as are fit for food; whence they be called kitchen gardens, and that very properly.

5. The planting of hop-yards, sowing of woad and rape seed, are found very profitable for the planters, in places apt for them, and consequently profitable for the kingdom, which for divers years was furnished with them from beyond the seas.

6. The planting and preserving of woods, especially of timber, is not only profitable, but commendable, therewith to furnish posterity, both for building and shipping.

7. The kingdom would be much improved by draining of drowned lands, and gaining that in from the overflowing of salt waters and the sea, and from fresh waters also.

8. And many of those grounds would be exceeding fit for dairies, which, being well housewived, are exceeding commodious.

9. Much good land might be gained from forests and chases, more remote from the king's access, and from other commonable places, so as always there be a due care taken, that the poor commoners have no injury by such improvement.

10. The making of navigable rivers would be very profitable; they would be as so many indraughts of wealth, by conveying of commodities with ease from place to place.

11. The planting of hemp and flax would be an unknown advantage to the kingdom, many places therein being as apt for it, as any foreign parts.

12. But add thereunto, that if it be converted into linen-cloth or cordage, the commodity thereof will be multiplied.

13. So it is of the wools and leather of the kingdom, if they be converted into manufactures.

14. Our English dames are much given to the wearing of costly laces; and, if they be brought

esteem; whereas, if the like laces were made by the English, so much thread as would make a yard of lace, being put into that manufacture, would be five times, or, perhaps, ten or twenty times the value. 15. The breeding of cattle is of much profit, especially the breed of horses, in many places, not only for travel, but for the great saddle; the English horse, for strength, and courage, and swiftness together, not being inferior to the horses of any other kingdom.

16. The minerals of the kingdom, of lead, iron, copper, and tin, especially, are of great value, and set many able-bodied subjects on work; it were great pity they should not be industriously followed.

17. But of all minerals, there is none like to that of fishing, upon the coasts of these kingdoms, and the seas belonging to them: our neighbours within half a day's sail of us, with a good wind, can show us the use and value thereof; and, doubtless, there is sea-room enough for both nations without offending one another; and it would exceedingly support the navy.

18. This realm is much enriched, of late years, by the trade of merchandise which the English drive in foreign parts; and, if it be wisely managed, it must of necessity very much increase the wealth thereof: care being taken, that the exportation exceed in value the importation: for then the balance of trade must of necessity be returned in coin or bullion.

19. This would easily be effected, if the merchants were persuaded or compelled to make their returns in solid commodities, and not too much thereof in vanity, tending to excess.

20. But especially care must be taken, that monopolies, which are the cankers of all trading, be not admitted under specious colours of public good.

21. To put all these into a regulation, if a constant commission to men of honesty and understanding were granted, and well pursued, to give order for the managing of these things, both at home and abroad, to the best advantage; and that this commission were subordinate to the council-board; it is conceived it would produce notable effects.

VII. The next thing is that of colonies and foreign plantations, which are very necessary, as outlets, to a populous nation, and may be profitable also if they be managed in a discreet way.

1. First, in the choice of the place, which requireth many circumstances; as, the situation, near the sea, for the commodiousness of an intercourse with England; the temper of the air and climate, as may best agree with the bodies of the English, rather inclining to cold than heat; that it be stored with woods, mines, and fruits, which are naturally in the place; that the soil be such as will probably be fruitful for corn, and other conveniencies, and for breeding of cattle; that it hath rivers, both for passage between place and place, and for fishing also, if it may be; that the natives be not so many, but that there may be elbow-room enough for them, and for the adventives also; all which are likely to be found in the West Indies.

And

2. It should be also such as is not already planted | of the fruits of the earth, and seas and waters adby the subjects of any christian prince or state, nor joining, may be found in abundance. over-nearly neighbouring to their plantation. it would be more convenient, to be chosen by some of those gentlemen or merchants which move first in the work, than to be designed unto them from the king for it must proceed from the option of the people, else it sounds like an exile; so the colonies must be raised by the leave of the king, and not by his command.

3. After the place is made choice of, the first step must be, to make choice of a fit governor; who although he have not the name, yet he must have the power of a viceroy and if the person who principally moved in the work be not fit for that trust, yet he must not be excluded from command; but then his defect in the governing part must be supplied by such assistants as shall be joined with him, or as he shall very well approve of.

4. As at their setting out they must have their commission or letters patents from the king, that so they may acknowledge their dependency upon the crown of England, and under his protection; so they must receive some general instructions, how to dispose of themselves, when they come there, which must be in nature of laws unto them.

11. In a short time they may build vessels and ships also, for traffic with the parts near adjoining, and with England also, from whence they may be furnished with such things as they may want, and, in exchange or barter, send from thence other things, with which quickly, either by nature or art, they may abound.

12. But these things would by all means be prevented; that no known bankrupt, for shelter; nor known murderer or other wicked person, to avoid the law; nor known heretic or schismatic, be suffered to go into those countries; or, if they do creep in there, not to be harboured or continued; else, the place would receive them naught, and return them into England, upon all occasions, worse.

13. That no merchant, under colour of driving a trade thither or from thence, be suffered to work upon their necessities.

14. And that to regulate all these inconveniences, which will insensibly grow upon them, that the king be pleased to erect a subordinate council in England, whose care and charge shall be, to advise, and put in execution, all things which shall be found fit for the good of those new plantations: who, upon all occasions, shall give an account of their proceedings to the king, or to the council-board, and from them receive such directions as may best agree with the government of that place.

5. But the general law by which they must be guided and governed, must be the common law of England; and to that end, it will be fit that some man reasonably studied in the law, and otherwise qualified for such a purpose, be persuaded, if not thereunto inclined of himself, which were the best,lected, partly upon reservation of moderate rents to go thither as chancellor amongst them, at first; and when the plantation were more settled, then to have courts of justice there as in England.

6. At the first planting, or as soon after as they can, they must make themselves defensible both against the natives and against strangers; and to that purpose they must have the assistance of some able military man, and convenient arms and ammunition for their defence.

7. For the discipline of the church in those parts, it will be necessary, that it agree with that which is settled in England, else it will make a schism and a rent in Christ's coat, which must be seamless; and, to that purpose, it will be fit, that by the king's supreme power in causes ecclesiastical, within all his dominions, they be subordinate under some bishop and bishopric of this realm.

8. For the better defence against a common enemy, I think it would be best, that foreign plantations should be placed in one continent, and near together; whereas, if they be too remote, the one from the other, they will be disunited, and so the weaker.

9. They must provide themselves of houses, such as for the present they can, and, at more leisure, such as may be better; and they first must plant for corn and cattle, &c. for food and necessary sustenance; and after, they may enlarge themselves for those things which may be for profit and pleasure, and to traffic withal also.

10. Woods for shipping, in the first place, may doubtless be there had, and minerals there found, perhaps, of the richest; howsoever, the mines out

15. That the king's reasonable profit be not neg

and services; and partly upon customs; and partly upon importation and exportation of merchandise; which for a convenient time after the plantation begin, would be very easy, to encourage the work; but, after it is well settled, may be raised to a considerable proportion, worthy the acceptation.

[Yet these cautions are to be observed in these undertakings.

1. That no man be compelled to such an employment; for that were a banishment, and not a service fit for a free man.

2. That if any transplant themselves into plantations abroad, who are known schismatics, outlaws, or criminal persons, that they be sent for back upon the first notice; such persons are not fit to lay the foundation of a new colony.

3. To make no extirpation of the natives under pretence of planting religion: God surely will not way be pleased with such sacrifices.

4. That the people sent thither be governed according to the laws of this realm, whereof they are, and still must be subjects.

5. To establish there the same purity of religion, and the same discipline for church government, without any mixture of popery or anabaptism, lest they should be drawn into factions and schisms, and that place receive them there bad, and send them back worse.

6. To employ them in profitable trades and manufactures, such as the clime will best fit, and such as may be useful to this kingdom, and return to them an exchange of things necessary.

7. That they be furnished and instructed for the military part, as they may defend themselves; lest, on a sudden, they be exposed as a prey to some other nation, when they have fitted the colony for them.

8. To order a trade thither, and thence, in such a manner as some few merchants and tradesmen, under colour of furnishing the colony with necessaries, may not grind them, so as shall always keep them in poverty.

9. To place over them such governors as may be qualified in such manner as may govern the place, and lay the foundation of a new kingdom.

10. That care be taken, that when the industry of one man hath settled the work, a new man, by insinuation or misinformation, may not supplant him without a just cause, which is the discouragement of all faithful endeavours.

11. That the king will appoint commissioners in the nature of a council, who may superintend the works of this nature, and regulate what concerns the colonies, and give an account thereof to the king, or to his council of state.

Again, For matter of trade, 1 confess it is out of my profession; yet in that I shall make a conjecture also, and propound some things to you, whereby, if | I am not much mistaken, you may advance the good of your country and profit of your master.

1. Let the foundation of a profitable trade be thus laid, that the exportation of home commodities be more in value than the importation of foreign; so we shall be sure that the stocks of the kingdom shall yearly increase, for then the balance of trade must be returned in money or bullion.

2. In the importation of foreign commodities, let not the merchant return toys and vanities, as sometimes it was elsewhere apes and peacocks, but solid merchandise, first for necessity, next for pleasure, but not for luxury.

3. Let the vanity of the times be restrained, which the neighbourhood of other nations have induced; and we strive apace to exceed our pattern: let vanity in apparel, and, which is more vain, that of the fashion, be avoided. I have heard that in Spain, a grave nation, whom in this I wish we might imitate, they do allow the players and courtesans the vanity of rich and costly clothes; but to sober men and matrons they permit it not upon pain of infamy; a severer punishment upon ingenuous natures than a pecuniary mulct.

4. The excess of diet in costly meats and drinks fetched from beyond the seas would be avoided; wise men will do it without a law, I would there might be a law to restrain fools. The excess of wine costs the kingdom much, and returns nothing but surfeits and diseases; were we as wise as easily we might be, within a year or two at the most, if we would needs be drunk with wines, we might be drunk with half the cost.

6. But instead of crying up all things, which are either brought from beyond sea, or wrought here by the hands of strangers, let us advance the native commodities of our own kingdom, and employ our countrymen before strangers; let us turn the wools of the land into clothes and stuffs of our own growth, and the hemp and flax growing here into linen cloth and cordage: it would set many thousand hands on work, and thereby one shilling worth of the materials would by industry be multiplied to five, ten, and many times to twenty times more in the value being wrought..

7. And of all sorts of thrift for the public good, I would above all others commend to your care the encouragement to be given to husbandry, and the improving of lands for tillage; there is no such usury as this. The king cannot enlarge the bounds of these islands, which make up his empire, the ocean being the unremovable wall which encloseth them; but he may enlarge and multiply the revenue thereof by this honest and harmless way of good husbandry.

8. A very great help unto trade are navigable rivers; they are so many indraughts to attain wealth; wherefore by art and industry let them be made; but let them not be turned to private profit.

9. In the last place, I beseech you, take into your serious consideration that Indian wealth, which this island and the seas thereof excel in, the hidden and rich treasure of fishing. Do we want an example to follow? I may truly say to the English, "Go to the pismire, thou sluggard." I need not expound the text: half a day's sail with a good wind, will show the mineral and the miners.

10. To regulate all these it will be worthy the care of a subordinate council, to whom the ordering of these things may be committed, and they give an account thereof to the state.]

VIII. I come to the last of those things which I propounded, which is, the curiality.

The other did properly concern the king, in his royal capacity, as pater patriæ; this more properly as pater-familias: and herein,

1. I shall in a word, and but in a word only, put you in mind, that the king in his own person, both in respect of his household or court, and in respect of his whole kingdom, for a little kingdom is but as a great household, and a great household as a little kingdom, must be exemplary, "Regis ad exemplum," etc. But for this God be praised, our charge is easy; for our gracious master, for his learning and piety, justice and bounty, may be, and is, not only fair precedent to his own subjects, but to foreign princes also; yet he is still but a man, and seasonable mementos may be useful; and, being discreetly used, cannot but take well with him.

2. But your greatest care must be, that the great men of his court, for you must give me leave to be 5. If we must be vain and superfluous in laces plain with you, for so is your injunction laid upon and embroideries, which are more costly than either me, yourself in the first place, who are first in the warm or comely, let the curiosity be the manufac-eye of all men, give no just cause of scandal; either ture of the natives; then it should not be verified of by light, or vain, or by oppressive carriage. us "materiam superabat opus." 3. The great officers of the king's household had

need be both discreet and provident persons, both for his honour and for his thrift; they must look both ways, else they are but half-sighted: yet in the choice of them there is more latitude left to affection, than in the choice of counsellors, and of the great officers of state, before touched, which must always be made choice of merely out of judgment; for in them the public hath a great interest.

[And yet in these, the choice had need be of honest and faithful servants, as well as of comely outsides, who can bow the knee, and kiss the hand, and perform other services, of small importance compared with this of public employment. King David, Psal. ci. 6, 7, propounded a rule to himself for the choice of his courtiers. He was a wise and a good king; and a wise and a good king shall do well to follow such a good example: and if he find any to be faulty, which perhaps cannot suddenly be discovered, let him take on him this resolution as king David did, "There shall no deceitful person dwell in my house." But for such as shall bear office in the king's house, and manage the expenses thereof, it is much more requisite to make a good choice of such servants, both for his thrift and for his honour.]

4. For the other ministerial officers in court, as, for distinction' sake, they may be termed, there must also be an eye unto them and upon them. They have usually risen in the household by degrees, and it is a noble way, to encourage faithful service: but the king must not bind himself to a necessity herein, for then it will be held ex debito: neither must he alter it, without an apparent cause for it but to displace any who are in, upon displeasure, which for the most part happeneth upon the information of some great man, is by all means to be avoided, unless there be a manifest cause for it.

5. In these things you may sometimes interpose, to do just and good offices; but for the general, I should rather advise, meddle little, but leave the ordering of those household affairs to the whitestaffs, which are those honourable persons, to whom it properly belongeth to be answerable to the king for it; and to those other officers of the green-cloth, who are subordinate to them, as a kind of council, and a court of justice also.

6. Yet for the green-cloth law, take it in the largest sense, I have no opinion of it, farther than it is regulated by the just rules of the common laws of England.

7. Towards the support of his Majesty's own table, and of the prince's, and of his necessary officers, his Majesty hath a good health by purveyance, which justly is due unto him; and, ifjustly used, is no great burden to the subject; but by the purveyors and other under-officers is many times abused. In many parts of the kingdom, I think, it is already reduced to a certainty in money; and if it be indifferently and discreetly managed, it would be no hard matter to settle it so throughout the whole kingdom; yet to be renewed from time to time: for that will be the best and safest, both for the king and people.

revenues of his crown, both certain and casual, without diminution, and to lay up treasure in store against a time of extremity; empty coffers give an ill sound, and make the people many times forget their duty, thinking that the king must be beholden to them for his supplies.

9. I shall by no means think it fit, that he reward any of his servants with the benefit of forfeitures, either by fines in the court of Star-chamber, or high commission courts, or other courts of justice, or that they should be farmed out, or bestowed upon any, so much as by promise, before judgment given; it would neither be profitable nor honourable.

[ocr errors]

10. Besides matters of serious consideration, in the courts of princes, there must be times for pastimes and disports: when there is a queen and ladies of honour attending her, there must sometimes be masques, and revels, and interludes; and when there is no queen, or princess, as now, yet at festivals, and for entertainment of strangers, or upon such occasions, they may be fit also: yet care would be taken, that in such cases they be set off more with wit and activity than with costly and wasteful expenses.

11. But for the king and prince, and the lords and chivalry of the court, I rather commend, in their turns and seasons, the riding of the great horse, the tilts, the barriers, tennis, and hunting, which are more for the health and strength of those who exercise them, than in an effeminate way to please themselves and others.

And now the prince groweth up fast to be a man, and is of a sweet and excellent disposition; it would be an irreparable stain and dishonour upon you, having that access unto him, if you should mislead him, or suffer him to be misled by any loose or flattering parasites: the whole kingdom hath a deep. interest in his virtuous education; and if you, keeping that distance which is fit, do humbly interpose yourself, in such a case he will one day give you thanks for it.

12. Yet dice and cards may sometimes be used for recreation, when field-sports cannot be had; but not to use it as a mean to spend the time, much less to mispend the thrift of the gamesters.

Sir, I shall trouble you no longer: I have run over these things as I first propounded them; please you to make use of them, or any of them, as you shall see occasion; or to lay them by, as you shall think best, and to add to them, as you daily may, out of your experience.

I must be bold, again, to put you in mind of your present condition; you are in the quality of a centinel; if you sleep, or neglect your charge, you are an undone man, and you may fall much faster than you have risen.

I have but one thing more to mind you of, which nearly concerns yourself; you serve a great and gracious master, and there is a most hopeful young prince, whom you must not desert; it behoves you to carry yourself wisely and evenly between them both adore not so the rising son, that you forget 8. The king must be put in mind to preserve the the father, who raised you to this height; nor be

[ocr errors]

impartial pen, whose aim neither was nor can be taken to be at any particular by design, will prevail more and take better impression than a downright advice; which perhaps may be mistaken as if it were spoken magisterially.

you so obsequious to the father, that you give just cause to the son to suspect that you neglect him: but carry yourself with that judgment, as, if it be possible, may please and content them both; which, truly, I believe, will be no hard matter for you to do: so may you live long beloved of both. [If you find in these or any other your observ-your king and country; you shall not be a meteor or ations, which doubtless are much better than these loose collections, any thing which you would have either the father or the son to take to heart, an admonition from a dead author, or a caveat from an

Thus may you live long a happy instrument for

a blazing star, but stella fixa: happy here and more happy hereafter. "Deus manu suâ te ducat:"] which is the hearty prayer of

Your most obliged and devoted Servant.

AN

ADVERTISEMENT TOUCHING AN HOLY WAR.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR MDCXXII.

MY LORD,

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,

LANCELOT ANDREWS,

LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER, AND COUNSELLOR OF ESTATE TO HIS MAJESTY.

AMONGST Consultations, it is not the least to represent to a man's self like examples of calamity in others. For examples give a quicker impression than arguments; and besides, they certify us, that which the Scripture also tendereth for satisfaction; "that no new thing is happened unto us." This they do the better, by how much the examples are liker in circumstances to our own case; and more especially if they fall upon persons that are greater and worthier than ourselves. For as it savoureth of vanity, to match ourselves highly in our own conceit; so on the other side it is a good sound conclusion, that if our betters have sustained the like events, we have the less cause to be grieved.

In this kind of consolation I have not been wanting to myself, though as a christian, I have tasted, through God's great goodness, of higher remedies. Having therefore, through the variety of my reading, set before me many examples both of ancient and latter times, my thought, I confess, have chiefly stayed upon three particulars, as the most eminent and the most resembling. All three persons that had held chief place of authority in their countries; all three ruined, not by war, or by any other disaster, but by justice and sentence, as delinquents and criminals; all three famous writers, insomuch as the remembrance of their calamity is now as to posterity but as a little picture of night-work, remaining amongst the fair and excellent tables of their acts and works: and all three, if that were any thing to the matter, fit examples to quench any man's ambition of rising again; for that they were every one of them restored with great glory, but to their farther ruin and destruction, ending in a violent death. The men were, Demosthenes, Cicero, and Seneca; persons that I durst not claim affinity with, except the similitude of our fortunes had contracted it. When I had cast mine eyes upon these examples, I was carried on farther to observe, how they bid bear their fortunes, and principally, how they did employ their times, being banished, and disabled for public business: to the end that I might learn by them; and that they might be as well my counsellors as my comforters. Whereupon I happened to note how diversely their fortunes wrought upon them; especially in that point at which I did most aim, which was the employing of their times and pens. In Cicero, I saw that during his banishment, which was almost two years, he was so softened and dejected, as he wrote nothing but a few womanish epistles. And yet, in mine opinion, he had least reason of the three to be discouraged: for that although it was judged, and judged by the highest kind of judgment, in form of statute or law, that he should be banished, and his whole estate confiscated and seized, and his houses pulled down, and that it should be highly penal for any man to propound a repeal; yet his case even then had no great blot of ignominy; for it was but a tempest of popularity which overthrew him. Demosthenes contrariwise, though his case was foul, being condemned

« PreviousContinue »