PART II. - CHAPTER X.
FALLING OF RENTS.
[AUBREY addressed to his friend Mr. Francis Lodwyck, merchant of London, a project on the wool trade; proposing, amongst other things, a duty on the importation of Spanish wool, with a view to raise the price of English wool, and consequently the rent of land. (See the Note on this subject in the preceding page.) Mr. Lodwyck's letter in reply, fully discussing the question, may be consulted in Aubrey's manuscript by any one interested in the subject It is inserted in the chapter now under consideration; which contains also a printed pamphlet with the following title:- "A Treatise on Wool, and the Manufacture of it; in a letter to a friend: occasioned upon a discourse concerning the great abatements and low value of lands. Wherein it is shewed how their worth and value may be advanced by the improvement of the manufacture and price of our English wooll. Together with the Presentment of the Grand Jury of the County of Somerset at the General Quarter Sessions begun at Brewton the 13th day of January 1684. London. Printed for William Crooke, at the Green Dragon without Temple Bar. 1685." (Sm. 4to. pp. 32.) - J. B.]
THE falling of rents is a consequence of the decay of the Turky-trade; which is the principall cause of the falling of the price of wooll. Another reason that conduces to the falling of the prices of wooll is our women's wearing so much silk and Indian ware as they doe. By these meanes my farme at Chalke is worse by sixty pounds per annum than it was before the civill warres.
The gentry living in London, and the dayly concourse of servants out of the country to London, makes servants' wages deare in the countrey, and makes scarcity of labourers.
Sir William Petty told me, that when he was a boy a seeds-man had five pounds per annum wages, and a countrey servant-maid between 30 and 40s. wages. [40s. per ann. to a servant-maid is now, 1743, good wages in Worcestershire.- MS. NOTE, ANONYMOUS.] ___________________________________
Memorandum. Great increase of sanfoine now, in most places fitt for itt; improvements of meadowes by watering; ploughing up of the King's forrests and parkes, &c. But as to all these, as ten thousand pounds is gained in the hill barren countrey, so the vale does lose as much, which brings it to an equation. ___________________________________
The Indians doe worke for a penny a day; so their silkes are exceeding cheap; and rice is sold in India for four pence per bushell.