betwixt our soldiers and their soldiers as to pay, it is plain that the work in France is done for little more than a third part of what it is done for in England. And I am confident it is so in most of their manufactures, of which I could give many instances if it were needful; but let these two following at present suffice:—At Lyons, which, next to Paris, is the best city in France, they pay nine sols an ell for making of lustrings, which is little more than fivepence English money; and the price paid here for making lustrings is twelvepence an ell. In the paper manufacture abundance of people are employed for sorting of rags in the mills, who earn in France but two sols a day, which is less than five farthings of our money; and the price paid here for such work is fourpence a day."[1] Elsewhere it is stated that the common annual subsistence of working people in country places in England, taking old and young together, is about 4l. per head: "I have not known," says the writer, "anywhere in the country that a husband, his wife, and three or four children, have asked any relief from the parish, if the whole labour of such a family could procure 20l. per annum,"[2]
The sum of the doctrine of the writers of the work on the subject of foreign commerce is given in the following words:—"That trade which makes money flow in most plentifully upon us, enables our people to subsist themselves better by their labour, raises the value of our lands, and occasions our rent to be better paid, must always be reckoned the best trade; for these are the only rules by which it is possible to state and determine the value of any particular trade, or of the general trade of the whole nation." Upon this principle it is affirmed, that we then carried on an advantageous trade with each of the following countries: 1. Portugal, from which kingdom, although we brought home wine, oil, and some other things for our own use and consumption, yet the greatest part of our returns were gold and silver: "so much, therefore, the Portuguese pay to the employment and subsistence of our people, and for the product of our lands; so much as this balance is in gold and silver they
