Trade brought Riches, and Riches Luxury; Luxury brought Sickness, and Sickness wanted Physic; which required some to separate themselves to study the Nature of Plants and Simples, as also of those several Diseases which bring Men to their Ends, who for their Advice received Gratuities from their Patients: These brought in Apothecaries and Surgeons, as necessary Attendants to their Employments; all which were maintained by keeping People in their Healths. Many also of ripe Parts were fitted for the Service of the Church, others of the State; great Numbers were employed in providing Necessaries of Meat, Drink, and Apparel, others in fitting Things for Delights and Pleasure, and by this Means leaving Husbandry and Manufactures, flock’d off daily to Livelihoods, which though useful and convenient in their respective Stations, yet cannot be said to encrease the Riches of this Nation, but to live by getting from one another; Husbandry and Manufactures being the profitable Employments, out of which it gathers its Wealth.
Husbandry.The next Part of the Inland Trade of this Kingdom is Husbandry, which anteceded Buying and Selling in point of Time, though the other is treated of first in this Discourse; and this consists either in Feeding or Tillage, by both which we raise great Store of Cattle, Corn, and Fruits, fit for the Food, Service, and Trade of the Inhabitants.
Feeding.To begin with Feeding: And here I might enumerate the various Sorts of Cattle raised and bred by the Care of the Husbandman; but those of most Note with respect to our Trade, are,
1. The Beef; which besides the Excellency of its Flesh for Food, affords many Necessaries for our Trade, and is very serviceable in Tillage; with this we both nourish our Inhabitants at home, victual our Ships for Foreign Voyages, and load them with the several Manufactures wherewith it doth supply us; from the Milk we make Butter and Cheese, from the Flesh, Beef, from the Skin, Leather, from the Fat, Tallow, and of the Horns several useful Necessaries; the Overplus whereof, above our own Consumption, we export, and sell in Foreign Markets.
2. The Sheep; whose Golden Fleece being the Primum of our Woollen-Manufactures, does thereby employ Multitudes of our People; which being of different Lengths and Fineness, makes them of various Sorts; whereof they afford us a yearly Crop whilst living, and at their Deaths we have their Flesh and Skins; the first serves for our Food, and of the last we make Things, fit to be used at Home, and traded with Abroad.
3. Horses; whose Labour is so necessary, that we can neither carry on our Husbandry or Trade without them; besides their Fitness for War, being accounted the boldest in the World; and for all these Uses are transported abroad; for the first, to our Plantations in America; and for the last, to some of our Neighbouring Nations: But their Flesh is of no Use, their Skins of little, the Leather made of them being very ordinary, only the longest of their Hair is used in Weaving.
There are sundry other Sorts of Beasts, some whereof require no Care in Raising, others little, such as the Stag, the Deer, the Rabbet, the Hare, the Badger, the Goat, and many others, whose Skins are necessary for our Trade, and useful in our Manufactures.
Tillage.Tillage is that whereby we raise our Corn by turning up the Earth; the several Sorts whereof are Wheat, Rye, Barley, Pease, Beans, Vetches, Oats, &c. which not only afford Nourishment to ourselves, and the Beasts we use in Labour, but serve also for Trade; as they give Employment to our People at home, and are transported abroad, more or less, according to the Overplus of our Expence, and the Want of our Neighbours, besides the great Quantities us’d in our Navigation.
These Products are all clear Profit to the Nation, being raised from Earth and Labour; but their chief Advantages arise from their being exported, either in their own Kinds, or when wrought up, the Remainder, which is spent at home, tending rather to supply our Wants, than to advance our Wealth: Which Exports being more or less, according to the Price they bear in other Countries, and those arising from the Proportion their Lands holds with ours in their Yearly Rents, are not so great in Specie, as when wrought up. Butter is the chiefest, wherewith we supply several Foreign Markets, and did formerly more, till by making it bad, and using Tricks to encrease its Weight, we lost much of that Trade, and are now almost beaten out of it by Ireland, which every Year makes theirs better; besides, they undersell us in the Price, as they do also in Beef, occasioned by the low Rents of their Lands.
’Twas the Act of Prohibition made formerly in England, that first ushered them into a Foreign Trade, their sole Dependance before that Time being on our Markets, and from hence they were supplied with what they wanted; but being thereby prohibited from bringing hither their Cattle and other Provisions, they endeavoured to find a Vent for them in other Markets, which they did with good Success, and to more Advantage; the Sweetness whereof gave a Spring to their Industry, and put them on the Woollen-Manufactures, which they also vended where they exported their Provisions, till in time it became so great and flourishing, as to give us Apprehensions it would endanger ours.