So use your Servants, if there come no more,
They may serve Eight, instead of serving Four.
CHAP. IV. Upon Trafique, and what Merchandizing Commodities this Province affords, also how Tobacco is planted and made fit for Commerce.
TRafique, Commerce, and Trade, are those great wheeles that by their circular and continued motion, turn into most Kingdoms of the Earth the plenty of abundant Riches that they are commonly fed withall: For Trafique in his right description, is the very soul of a Kingdom; and should but Fate ordain a removal of it for some years, from the richest and most populous Monarchy that dwells in the most fertile clyme of the whole Universe, he would soon find by a woful experiment, the miss and loss of so reviving a supporter. And I am certainly confident, that England would as soon feel her feebleness by withdrawment of so great an upholder; as well in reference to the internal and healthful preservative of her Inhabitants, for want of those Medicinal Drugs that are landed upon her Coast every year, as the external profits, Glory and beneficial Graces that accrue by her.
Paracelsus might knock down his Forge, if Trafique and Commerce should once cease, and grynde the hilt of his Sword into Powder, and take some of the Infusion to make him so valorous, that he might cut his {65} own Throat in the honor of Mercury: Galen might then burn his Herbal, and like Joseph of Arimathea, build him a Tomb in his Garden, and so rest from his labours: Our Physical Collegians of London would have no cause then to thunder Fire-balls at Nich. Culpeppers Dispensatory (see note No. [38]) All Herbs, Roots, and Medicines would bear their original christening, that the ignorant might understand them: Album grecum would not be Album grecum (see note No. [39]) then, but a Dogs turd would be a Dogs turd in plain terms, in spight of their teeth.
If Trade should once cease, the Custom-house would soon miss her hundreds and thousands Hogs-heads of Tobacco (see note No. [40]) that use to be throng in her every year, as well as the Grocers would in their Ware-houses and Boxes, the Gentry and Commonalty in their Pipes, the Physician in his Drugs and Medicinal Compositions; The (leering) Waiters for want of imployment, might (like so many Diogenes) intomb themselves in their empty Casks, and rouling themselves off the Key into the Thames, there wander up and down from tide to tide in contemplation of Aristotles unresolved curiosity, until the rottenness of their circular habitation give them a Quietus est, and fairly surrender them up into the custody of those who both for profession, disposition and nature, lay as near claim to them, as if they both tumbled in one belly, and for name they jump alike, being according to the original translation both Sharkes. {66}
Silks and Cambricks, and Lawns to make sleeves, would be as soon miss’d at Court, as Gold and Silver would be in the Mint and Pockets: The Low-Country Soldier would be at a cold stand for Outlandish Furrs to make him Muffs, to keep his ten similitudes warm in the Winter, as well as the Furrier for want of Skins to uphold his Trade.
Should Commerce once cease, there is no Country in the habitable world but would undoubtedly miss that flourishing, splendid and rich gallantry of Equipage, that Trafique maintained and drest her up in, before she received that fatal Eclipse: England, France, Germany and Spain, together with all the Kingdoms——
But stop (good Muse) lest I should, like the Parson of Pancras (see note No. [41]) run so far from my Text in half an hour, that a two hours trot back again would hardly fetch it up: I had best while I am alive in my Doctrine, to think again of Mary-Land, lest the business of other Countries take up so much room in my brain, that I forget and bury her in oblivion.
The three main Commodities this Country affords for Trafique, are Tobacco, Furrs, and Flesh. Furrs and Skins, as Beavers, Otters, Musk-Rats, Rackoons, Wild-Cats, and Elke or Bufieloe (see note No. [42]), with divers others, which were first made vendible by the Indians of the Country, and sold to the Inhabitant, and by them to the Merchant, and so {67} transported into England and other places where it becomes most commodious.