CHAP. II. Of the Government and Natural Disposition of the People.
MARY-LAND, not from the remoteness of her situation, but from the regularity of her well ordered Government, may (without sin, I think) be called Singular: And though she is not supported with such large Revenues as some of her Neighbours are, yet such is her wisdom in a reserved silence, and not in pomp, to shew her well-conditioned Estate, in relieving at a distance the proud poverty of those that wont be seen they want, as well as those which by undeniable necessities are drove upon the Rocks of pinching wants: Yet such a loathsome creature is a common and folding-handed Beggar, that upon the penalty of almost a perpetual working in Imprisonment, they are not to appear, nor lurk near our vigilant and laborious dwellings. The Country hath received a general spleen and antipathy against the very name and nature of it; and though there were no Law provided (as there is) to suppress it, I am certainly confident, there is none within the Province that would lower themselves so much below the dignity of men to beg, as long as limbs and life keep house together; so much is a vigilant industrious care esteem’d. {45}
He that desires to see the real Platform of a quiet and sober Government extant, Superiority with a meek and yet commanding power sitting at the Helme, steering the actions of State quietly, through the multitude and diversity of Opinionous waves that diversly meet, let him look on Mary-Land with eyes admiring, and he’ll then judge her, The Miracle of this Age.
Here the Roman Catholick, and the Protestant Episcopal (whom the world would perswade have proclaimed open Wars irrevocably against each other), contrarywise concur in an unanimous parallel of friendship, and inseparable love intayled into one another: All Inquisitions, Martyrdom, and Banishments are not so much as named, but unexpressably abhorr’d by each other.
The several Opinions and Sects that lodge within this Government, meet not together in mutinous contempts to disquiet the power that bears Rule, but with a reverend quietness obeys the legal commands of Authority. (See note No. [21]) Here’s never seen Five Monarchies in a Zealous Rebellion, opposing the Rights and Liberties of a true setled Government, or Monarchical Authority: Nor did I ever see (here in Mary-Land) any of those dancing Adamitical Sisters, that plead a primitive Innocency for their base obscenity, and naked deportment; but I conceive if some of them were there at some certain time of the year, between the Months of January and February, {46} when the winds blow from the North-West quarter of the world, that it would both cool, and (I believe) convert the hottest of these Zealots from their burning and fiercest concupiscence. (See note No. [22]).
The Government of this Province doth continually, by all lawful means, strive to purge her Dominions from such base corroding humors, that would predominate upon the least smile of Liberty, did not the Laws check and bridle in those unwarranted and tumultuous Opinions. And truly, where a kingdom, State or Government, keeps or cuts down the weeds of destructive Opinions, there must certainly be a blessed harmony of quietness. And I really believe this Land or Government of Mary-Land may boast, that she enjoys as much quietness from the disturbance of Rebellious Opinions, as most States or Kingdoms do in the world: For here every man lives quietly, and follows his labour and imployment desiredly; and by the protection of the Laws, they are supported from those molestious troubles that ever attend upon the Commons of other States and Kingdoms, as well as from the Aquafortial operation of great and eating Taxes. Here’s nothing to be levyed out of the Granaries of Corn; but contrarywise, by a Law every Domestick Governor of a Family is enjoyned to make or cause to be made so much Corn by a just limitation, as shall be sufficient for him and his Family (see note No. [23]): So that by this wise and Janus-like providence, the thin-jawed Skeliton with his starv’d Carkess is never {47} seen walking the Woods of Mary-Land to affrighten Children.
Once every year within this Province is an Assembly called, and out of every respective County (by the consent of the people) there is chosen a number of men, and to them is deliver’d up the Grievances of the Country; and they maturely debate the matters, and according to their Consciences make Laws for the general good of the people; and where any former Law that was made, seems and is prejudicial to the good or quietness of the Land, it is repeal’d. These men that determine on these matters for the Republique, are called Burgesses, and they commonly sit in Junto about six weeks, being for the most part good ordinary Householders of the several Counties, which do more by a plain and honest Conscience, than by artificial Syllogisms drest up in gilded Orations. (See note No. [24]).
Here Suits and Tryals in Law seldome hold dispute two Terms or Courts, but according as the Equity of the Cause appears is brought to a period. (See note No. [25]) The Temples and Grays-Inne are clear out of fashion here: Marriot (see note No. [26]) would sooner get a paunch-devouring meal for nothing, than for his invading Counsil. Here if the Lawyer had nothing else to maintain him but his bawling, he might button up his Chops, and burn his Buckrom Bag, or else hang it upon a pin untill its Antiquity had eaten it up with durt and dust: Then with a {48} Spade, like his Grandsire Adam, turn up the face of the Creation, purchasing his bread by the sweat of his brows, that before was got by the motionated Water-works of his jaws. So contrary to the Genius of the people, if not to the quiet Government of the Province, that the turbulent Spirit of continued and vexatious Law, with all its querks and evasions, is openly and most eagerly opposed, that might make matters either dubious, tedious, or troublesom. All other matters that would be ranging in contrary and improper Spheres, (in short) are here by the Power moderated, lower’d and subdued. All villanous Outrages that are committed in other States, are not so much as known here: A man may walk in the open Woods as secure from being externally dissected, as in his own house or dwelling. So hateful is a Robber, that if but once imagin’d to be so, he’s kept at a distance, and shun’d as the Pestilential noysomness. (See note No. [27]).
It is generally and very remarkably observed, That those whose Lives and Conversations have had no other gloss nor glory stampt on them in their own Country, but the stigmatization of baseness, were here (by the common civilities and deportments of the Inhabitants of this Province) brought to detest and loath their former actions. Here the Constable hath no need of a train of Holberteers (see note No. [28]), that carry more Armour about them, than heart to guard him: Nor is he ever troubled to leave his {49} Feathered Nest to some friendly successor, while he is placing of his Lanthern-horn Guard at the end of some suspicious Street, to catch some Night-walker, or Batchelor of Leachery, that has taken his Degree three story high in a Bawdy-house. Here’s no Newgates for pilfering Felons, nor Ludgates for Debtors, nor any Bridewels (see note No. [29]) to lash the soul of Concupiscence into a chast Repentance. For as there is none of these Prisons in Mary-Land, so the merits of the Country deserves none, but if any be foully vitious, he is so reserv’d in it, that he seldom or never becomes popular. Common Alehouses (whose dwellings are the only Receptacles of debauchery and baseness, and those Schools that trains up Youth, as well as Age, to ruine), in this Province there are none; neither hath Youth his swing or range in such a profuse and unbridled liberty as in other Countries; for from an antient Custom at the primitive seating of the place, the Son works as well as the Servant (an excellent cure for untam’d Youth), so that before they eat their bread, they are commonly taught how to earn it; which makes them by that time Age speaks them capable of receiving that which their Parents indulgency is ready to give them, and which partly is by their own laborious industry purchased, they manage it with such a serious, grave and watching care, as if they had been Masters of Families, trained up in that domestick and governing power from their Cradles. These Christian Natives of the Land, {50} especially those of the Masculine Sex, are generally conveniently confident, reservedly subtile, quick in apprehending, but slow in resolving; and where they spy profit sailing towards them with the wings of a prosperous gale, there they become much familiar. The Women differ something in this point, though not much: They are extreme bashful at the first view, but after a continuance of time hath brought them acquainted, there they become discreetly familiar, and are much more talkative then men. All Complemental Courtships, drest up in critical Rarities, are meer strangers to them, plain wit comes nearest their Genius; so that he that intends to Court a Mary-Land Girle, must have something more than the Tautologies of a long-winded speech to carry on his design, or else he may (for ought I know) fall under the contempt of her frown, and his own windy Oration. (See note No. [30]).
One great part of the Inhabitants of this Province are desiredly Zealous, great pretenders to Holiness; and where any thing appears that carries on the Frontispiece of its Effigies the stamp of Religion, though fundamentally never so imperfect, they are suddenly taken with it, and out of an eager desire to any thing that’s new, not weighing the sure matter in the Ballance of Reason, are very apt to be catcht. (See note No. [31]) Quakerism is the only Opinion that bears the Bell away (see note No. [32]) The Anabaptists (see note No. [33]) have little to say here, {51} as well as in other places, since the Ghost of John of Leyden haunts their Conventicles. The Adamite, Ranter, and Fifty-Monarchy men, Mary-Land cannot, nay will not digest within her liberal stomach such corroding morsels: So that this Province is an utter Enemy to blasphemous and zealous Imprecations, drain’d from the Lymbeck of hellish and damnable Spirits, as well as profuse prophaness, that issues from the prodigality of none but cract-brain Sots.
’Tis said the Gods lower down that Chain above,
That tyes both Prince and Subject up in Love;
And if this Fiction of the Gods be true,
Few, Mary-Land, in this can boast but you:
Live ever blest, and let those Clouds that do
Eclipse most States, be always Lights to you;
And dwelling so, you may for ever be
The only Emblem of Tranquility.
CHAP. III. The necessariness of Servitude proved, with the common usage of Servants in Mary-Land, together with their Priviledges.
AS there can be no Monarchy without the Supremacy of a King and Crown, nor no King without Subjects, nor any Parents without it be by the fruitful off-spring of Children; neither can there be any Masters, unless it be by the inferior Servitude of those that dwell under them, by a commanding enjoynment: And since it is ordained from the original and superabounding wisdom of all things, That there should be Degrees and Diversities amongst the Sons of men, in acknowledging of a Superiority from Inferiors to Superiors; the Servant with a reverent and befitting Obedience is as liable to this duty in a measurable performance to him whom he serves, as the loyalest of Subjects to his Prince. Then since it is a common and ordained Fate, that there must be Servants as well as Masters, and that good Servitudes are those Colledges of Sobriety that checks in the giddy and wild-headed youth from his profuse and uneven course of life, by a limited constrainment, as well as it otherwise agrees with the moderate and discreet Servant: Why should there be such an exclusive {53} Obstacle in the minds and unreasonable dispositions of many people, against the limited time of convenient and necessary Servitude, when it is a thing so requisite, that the best of Kingdoms would be unhing’d from their quiet and well setled Government without it. Which levelling doctrine we here of England in this latter age (whose womb was truss’d out with nothing but confused Rebellion) have too much experienced, and was daily rung into the ears of the tumultuous Vulgar by the Bell-weather Sectaries of the Times: But (blessed be God) those Clouds are blown over, and the Government of the Kingdom coucht under a more stable form.
There is no truer Emblem of Confusion either in Monarchy or Domestick Governments, then when either the Subject, or the Servant, strives for the upper hand of his Prince, or Master, and to be equal with him, from whom he receives his present subsistance: Why then, if Servitude be so necessary that no place can be governed in order, nor people live without it, this may serve to tell those which prick up their ears and bray against it, That they are none but Asses, and deserve the Bridle of a strict commanding power to reine them in: For I’me certainly confident, that there are several Thousands in most Kingdoms of Christendom, that could not at all live and subsist, unless they had served some prefixed time, to learn either some Trade, Art, or Science, and by either of them to extract their present livelihood. {54}
Then methinks this may stop the mouths of those that will undiscreetly compassionate them that dwell under necessary Servitudes; for let but Parents of an indifferent capacity in Estates, when their Childrens age by computation speak them seventeen or eighteen years old, turn them loose to the wide world, without a seven years working Apprenticeship (being just brought up to the bare formality of a little reading and writing) and you shall immediately see how weak and shiftless they’le be towards the maintaining and supporting of themselves; and (without either stealing or begging) their bodies like a Sentinel must continually wait to see when their Souls will be frighted away by the pale Ghost of a starving want.
Then let such, where Providence hath ordained to live as Servants, either in England or beyond Sea, endure the prefixed yoak of their limited time with patience, and then in a small computation of years, by an industrious endeavour, they may become Masters and Mistresses of Families themselves. And let this be spoke to the deserved praise of Mary-Land, That the four years I served there were not to me so slavish, as a two years Servitude of a Handicraft Apprenticeship was here in London; Volenti enim nil difficile: Not that I write this to seduce or delude any, or to draw them from their native soyle, but out of a love to my Countrymen, whom in the general I wish well to, and that the lowest of them may live in such a capacity of Estate, as that the bare interest of {55} their Livelihoods might not altogether depend upon persons of the greatest extendments.
Now those whose abilities here in England are capable of maintaining themselves in any reasonable and handsom manner, they had best so to remain, lest the roughness of the Ocean, together with the staring visages of the wilde Animals, which they may see after their arrival into the Country, may alter the natural dispositions of their bodies, that the stay’d and solid part that kept its motion by Doctor Trigs purgationary operation, may run beyond the byas of the wheel in a violent and laxative confusion.
Now contrarywise, they who are low, and make bare shifts to buoy themselves up above the shabby center of beggarly and incident casualties, I heartily could wish the removal of some of them into Mary-Land, which would make much better for them that stay’d behind, as well as it would advantage those that went.
They whose abilities cannot extend to purchase their own transportation into Mary-Land (and surely he that cannot command so small a sum for so great a matter, his life must needs be mighty low and dejected), I say they may for the debarment of a four years sordid liberty, go over into this Province and there live plentiously well. And what’s a four years Servitude to advantage a man all the remainder of his dayes, making his predecessors happy in his {56} sufficient abilities, which he attained to partly by the restrainment of so small a time?
Now those that commit themselves into the care of the Merchant to carry them over, they need not trouble themselves with any inquisitive search touching their Voyage; for there is such an honest care and provision made for them all the time they remain aboard the Ship, and are sailing over, that they want for nothing that is necessary and convenient.
The Merchant commonly before they go aboard the Ship, or set themselves in any forwardness for their Voyage, has Conditions of Agreements drawn between him and those that by a voluntary consent become his Servants, to serve him, his Heirs or Assigns, according as they in their primitive acquaintance have made their bargain (see note No. [34]) some two, some three, some four years; and whatever the Master or Servant tyes himself up to here in England by Condition, the Laws of the Province will force a performance of when they come there: Yet here is this Priviledge in it when they arrive, If they dwell not with the Merchant they made their first agreement withall, they may choose whom they will serve their prefixed time with; and after their curiosity has pitcht on one whom they think fit for their turn, and that they may live well withall, the Merchant makes an Assignment of the Indenture over to him whom they of their free will have chosen to be their Master, in the same nature as we here in England (and no {57} otherwise) turn over Covenant Servants or Apprentices from one Master to another. Then let those whose chaps are always breathing forth those filthy dregs of abusive exclamations, which are Lymbeckt from their sottish and preposterous brains, against this Country of Mary-Land, saying, That those which are transported over thither, are sold in open Market for Slaves, and draw in Carts like Horses; which is so damnable an untruth, that if they should search to the very Center of Hell, and enquire for a Lye of the most antient and damned stamp, I confidently believe they could not find one to parallel this: For know, That the Servants here in Mary-Land of all Colonies, distant or remote Plantations, have the least cause to complain, either for strictness of Servitude, want of Provisions, or need of Apparel: Five dayes and a half in the Summer weeks is the alotted time that they work in; and for two months, when the Sun predominates in the highest pitch of his heat, they claim an antient and customary Priviledge, to repose themselves three hours in the day within the house, and this is undeniably granted to them that work in the Fields.
In the Winter time, which lasteth three months (viz.), December, January, and February, they do little or no work or imployment, save cutting of wood to make good fires to sit by, unless their Ingenuity will prompt them to hunt the Deer, or Bear, or recreate themselves in Fowling, to slaughter the Swans, Geese, and Turkeys (which this Country affords in a most {58} plentiful manner): For every Servant has a Gun, Powder and Shot allowed him, to sport him withall on all Holidayes and leasurable times, if he be capable of using it, or be willing to learn.
Now those Servants which come over into this Province, being Artificers, they never (during their Servitude) work in the Fields, or do any other imployment save that which their Handicraft and Mechanick endeavours are capable of putting them upon, and are esteem’d as well by their Masters, as those that imploy them, above measure. He that’s a Tradesman here in Mary-Land (though a Servant), lives as well as most common Handicrafts do in London, though they may want something of that Liberty which Freemen have, to go and come at their pleasure; yet if it were rightly understood and considered, what most of the Liberties of the several poor Tradesmen are taken up about, and what a care and trouble attends that thing they call Liberty, which according to the common translation is but Idleness, and (if weighed in the Ballance of a just Reason) will be found to be much heavier and cloggy then the four years restrainment of a Mary-Land Servitude. He that lives in the nature of a Servant in this Province, must serve but four years by the Custom of the Country; and when the expiration of his time speaks him a Freeman, there’s a Law in the Province, that enjoyns his Master whom he hath served to give him Fifty Acres of Land, Corn to serve him a whole year, three Suits of Apparel, {59} with things necessary to them, and Tools to work withall; so that they are no sooner free, but they are ready to set up for themselves, and when once entred, they live passingly well. (See note No. [35]).
The Women that go over into this Province as Servants, have the best luck here as in any place of the world besides; for they are no sooner on shoar, but they are courted into a Copulative Matrimony, which some of them (for aught I know) had they not come to such a Market with their Virginity, might have kept it by them untill it had been mouldy, unless they had let it out by a yearly rent to some of the Inhabitants of Lewknors-Lane (see note No. [36]) or made a Deed of Gift of it to Mother Coney, having only a poor stipend out of it, untill the Gallows or Hospital called them away. Men have not altogether so good luck as Women in this kind, or natural preferment, without they be good Rhetoricians, and well vers’d in the Art of perswasion, then (probably) they may ryvet themselves in the time of their Servitude into the private and reserved favour of their Mistress, if Age speak their Master deficient.
In short, touching the Servants of this Province, they live well in the time of their Service, and by their restrainment in that time, they are made capable of living much better when they come to be free; which in several other parts of the world I have observed, That after some servants have brought their indented and limited time to a just and legal period {60} by Servitude, they have been much more incapable of supporting themselves from sinking into the Gulf of a slavish, poor, fettered, and intangled life, then all the fastness of their prefixed time did involve them in before.
Now the main and principal Reason of those incident casualties, that wait continually upon the residences of most poor Artificers, is (I gather) from the multiciplicity or innumerableness of those several Companies of Tradesmen, that dwell so closely and stiflingly together in one and the same place, that like the chafing Gum in Watered-Tabby, they eat into the folds of one anothers Estates. And this might easily be remedied, would but some of them remove and disperse distantly where want and necessity calls for them; their dwellings (I am confident) would be much larger, and their conditions much better, as well in reference to their Estates, as to the satisfactoriness of their minds, having a continual imployment, and from that imployment a continual benefit, without either begging, seducing, or flattering for it, encroaching that one month from one of the same profession, that they are heaved out themselves the next. For I have observed on the other side of Mary-Land, that the whole course of most Mechanical endeavours, is to catch, snatch, and undervalue one another, to get a little work, or a Customer; which when they have attained by their lowbuilt and sneaking circumventings, it stands upon so flashy, mutable, and transitory {61} a foundation, that the best of his hopes is commonly extinguisht before the poor undervalued Tradesman is warm in the enjoyment of his Customer.
Then did not a cloud of low and base Cowardize eclipse the Spirits of these men, these things might easily be diverted; but they had as live take a Bear by the tooth, as think of leaving their own Country, though they live among their own National people, and are governed by the same Laws they have here, yet all this wont do with them; and all the Reason they can render to the contrary is, There’s a great Sea betwixt them and Mary-Land, and in that Sea there are Fishes, and not only Fishes but great Fishes, and then should a Ship meet with such an inconsiderable encounter as a Whale, one blow with his tayle, and then Lord have Mercy upon us: Yet meet with these men in their common Exchange, which is one story high in the bottom of a Celler, disputing over a Black-pot, it would be monstrously dreadful here to insert the particulars, one swearing that he was the first that scaled the Walls of Dundee, when the Bullets flew about their ears as thick as Hailstones usually fall from the Sky; which if it were but rightly examined, the most dangerous Engagement that ever he was in, was but at one of the flashy battels at Finsbury, (see note No. [37]) where commonly there’s more Custard greedily devoured, than men prejudiced by the rigour of the War. Others of this Company relating their several dreadful exploits, {62} and when they are just entring into the particulars, let but one step in and interrupt their discourse, by telling them of a Sea Voyage, and the violency of storms that attends it, and that there are no back-doors to run out at, which they call, a handsom Retreat and Charge again; the apprehensive danger of this is so powerful and penetrating on them, that a damp sweat immediately involves their Microcosm, so that Margery the old Matron of the Celler, is fain to run for a half-peny-worth of Angelica to rub their nostrils; and though the Port-hole of their bodies has been stopt from a convenient Evacuation some several months, theyl’e need no other Suppository to open the Orifice of their Esculent faculties then this Relation, as their Drawers or Breeches can more at large demonstrate to the inquisitive search of the curious.
Now I know that some will be apt to judge, that I have written this last part out of derision to some of my poor Mechanick Country-men: Truly I must needs tell those to their face that think so of me, that they prejudice me extremely, by censuring me as guilty of any such crime: What I have written is only to display the sordidness of their dispositions, who rather than they will remove to another Country to live plentiously well, and give their Neighbors more Elbow-room and space to breath in, they will croud and throng upon one another, with the pressure of a beggarly and unnecessary weight. {63}
That which I have to say more in this business, is a hearty and desirous wish, that the several poor Tradesmen here in London that I know, and have borne an occular testimony of their want, might live so free from care as I did when I dwelt in the bonds of a four years Servitude in Mary-Land.
Be just (Domestick Monarchs) unto them
That dwell as Household Subjects to each Realm;
Let not your Power make you be too severe,
Where there’s small faults reign in your sharp Career:
So that the Worlds base yelping Crew
May’nt bark what I have wrote is writ untrue,
So use your Servants, if there come no more,
They may serve Eight, instead of serving Four.