The favourable reception of this volume, encouraged the author to follow it by a second in the next year, with a similar title, and the addition of a map of South Britain, by Herman Moll, the geographer. A third volume, the same also in title, was added in 1727, containing the northern counties of England, and the south of Scotland; and this completes the work. The useful information contained in these volumes, is conveyed in the familiar form of letters. In commending the work to the notice of the public, he says, "I have endeavoured that these letters shall not be a journal of trifles. If it is on that account too grave for some people, I hope it will not for others. I have studied the advancement and increase of knowledge for those that read, and shall be as glad to make them wise, as to make them merry; yet I hope they will not find the story so ill told, or so dull, as to tire them so soon, or so barren as to put them to sleep over it. The observations here made, as they principally regard the present state of things, so, as near as can be, they are adapted to the present state of the times."
[97] This highly useful book is reprinted in the present edition, and should be in the hands of every young tradesman.
[98] The title is as follows: A Plan of the English Commerce. Being a complete Prospect of the Trade of this Nation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign. In three parts. I. Containing a View of the present Magnitude of the English Trade, as it respects, 1. The Exportation of our own Growth and Manufacture. 2. The Importation of Merchant Goods from Abroad. 3. The prodigious Consumption of both at Home. Part II. Containing an Answer to that great and important Question now depending, whether our Trade, and especially our Manufactures, are in a declining condition or no? Part III. Containing several Proposals entirely new, for extending and improving our Trade, and promoting the Consumption of our Manufactures in Countries wherewith we have hitherto had no Commerce. Humbly offered to the Consideration of King and Parliament.
[99] He appears to have published two or three works after the Plan of English Commerce, under the assumed name of Andrew Moreton. The first a very remarkable work for the suggestions it contains in anticipation of another age. Augusta Triumphans; or, The Way to make London the most flourishing City in the Universe. I. By establishing an University, where Gentlemen may have Academical Education under the Eye of their Friends. II. To prevent much Murder, &c., by an Hospital for Foundlings. III. By suppressing pretended Madhouses, where many of the Fair Sex are unjustly confined, while their Husbands keep Mistresses, &c., and many Widows are locked up for the sake of their Jointure. IV. To save our Youth from Destruction, by clearing our Streets of impudent Strumpets, suppressing Gaming Tables, and Sunday Debauches. V. To avoid the expensive Importation of Foreign Musicians, by forming an Academy of our own. VI. To save our lower Class of People from utter Ruin, and render them useful, by preventing the immoderate Use of Geneva. With a frank exposure of many other common Abuses, and incontestible Rules for Amendment. Concluding with an effectual Method to prevent Street Robberies. And a Letter to Col. Robinson, on Account of the Orphans' Tax.
The second pamphlet, published in 1729, is entituled, Second Thoughts are Best; or a further Improvement of a late Scheme to prevent Street Robberies. In which our Streets will be so strongly guarded, and so gloriously illuminated, that any part of London will be as safe and pleasant at Midnight as at Noonday; and Burglary totally impracticable. With some Thoughts for suppressing Robberies in all the public Roads of England, &c. Humbly offered for the Good of his Country, submitted to the consideration of the Parliament, and dedicated to his sacred Majesty King George II. By Andrew Moreton, Esq.
Mr. Wilson has given the analysis of what must be considered the last literary effort of De Foe. The MS. work is in the possession of the Rev. Henry De Foe Baker, by whose kindness Mr. Wilson was permitted to examine it. [See Life of De Foe, vol. iii. p. 599.] The analysis is as follows:
The Complete Gentleman, containing useful Observations on the general Neglect of Education of English Gentlemen, with the Reason and Remedies. The apparent Differences between a Well-born and Well-bred Gentleman. And Instructions how Gentlemen may recover a Deficiency of their Latin, and be Men of Learning without the Pedantry of Schools.
Chap. I. Of the gentlemen born, in the common acceptation of the word, and as the gentry amongst us are pleased to understand it. Chap. II. Some examples from history, and from good information, of the want of care taken in the education of princes, and children of the nobility in former times, as well in this nation as in foreign countries, and how fatal the effects of it have been in their future conduct; with some few examples of the contrary also. Chap. III. Examples of the different educations of princes and persons of rank from the beginning of the sixteenth century, viz., from the reign of Henry VIII. inclusive. With observations down to the present time, on the happiness of those reigns in general, when the princes have been educated in principles of honour and virtue; and something of the contrary. Chap. IV. Of royal education. Chap. V. The head of this chapter is erased. Chap. VI. Of the G——; of himself, his family, and fortune.
Part the Second. Chap. I. Of the fund for increase of our nobility and gentry in England: being the beginning of those we call bred gentlemen: with some account of difference. Chap. II. There is no head to this chapter. Chap. III. Of the general ignorance of the English gentry, and the true cause of it in the manner of their introduction into life. Chap. IV. Of what may be the unhappy cause of the general defect in the education of our gentry; with a rational proposal for preventing those consequences.
[100] His latter days were stung by the base ingratitude and unfilial and unbrotherly conduct of his son, to whom, in a touching letter to Mr. Baker, he says he transferred his property, with the duty of maintaining his mother and sisters, and that he positively squandered it upon himself! Mr. Wilson has obtained permission from the great great grandson of Mr. Baker, the gentleman mentioned in the text, to publish the letter from De Foe to his ancestor. It gives a most distressing picture of the sorrows amid which his useful life closed; but as it is the duty of history faithfully and not fancifully to relate the lives of illustrious men, and the constant exposure of the world's ingratitude to its best benefactors, may in time shame it to a better feeling, we leave the true but mournful tale to speak its own lesson: and however agreeable it might have been to show the author of Robinson Crusoe gradually quitting the world he had spent his useful life to improve and delight, in the quiet and repose which might seem the harbinger of the peace he anticipated in a brighter, we must take leave of him, while in misery and in anger, surrounded by clouds and darkness, and stung by the worst of sorrows.