grows every day poorer and poorer[1]; that formerly it abounded with Gold, but now[2] there is a great scarcity both of Gold and Silver; that there is no Trade nor Employment for the People, and yet that the Land is under-peopled; that Taxes have been many and || great; that Ireland and the Plantations in America and other Additions to the Crown, are a Burthen to England; that Scotland is of no Advantage; that Trade in general doth lamentably decay; that the Hollanders are at our heels, in the race of Naval Power; the French[3] grow too fast upon both, and appear so rich and potent, that it is but their Clemency that they do not devour their Neighbors; and finally, that the Church and State of England, are in the same danger with the Trade of England; with many other dismal Suggestions, which I had rather stifle than repeat[4].
- ↑ On rent as a criterion of prosperity see Cunningham, English Industry, II. 191; Patten, Interpretation of Ricardo in Qu. Jour. of Economics, vii. 324.
- ↑ S, 'but that now.'
- ↑ S, 'Power, That the French.'
- ↑ Petty's whole paragraph is almost a summary, as its closing sentence indicates, of A Treatise Wherein is demonstrated. That the church and state Of England, are in equal danger With the trade Of it. Treatise I. By Roger Coke. London, 1671, 4°. The book comprises two treatises, with continuous pagination and signatures, but with a second title, at p. 91, Reasons of the increase of the Dutch Trade. Wherein is demonstrated from what Causes the Dutch Govern and Manage Trade better than the English; whereby they have so far improved their Trade above the English. Treatise II. Coke declares that the peopling of the American plantations has diminished the valuable trades of England. Before the accession of the plantations England lost £480,000 yearly in woollen manufactures for want of men to do them, and above £1,372,000 in the fishing trade, and "now we have opened a wide gapp, and by all encouragement excited all the growing youth and industry of England, which might preserve the trades we had herein, to betake them to those of the Plantations"—p. 16. Ireland also is a disadvantage to England for similar reasons—pp. 19—20. The Dutch sell more commodities in trade cheaper and with much more gain than the English, so as now they are swelled to be of such a prodigious greatness by sea that it is a question whether they can be controlled by any power in the world—pp. 128—129. Coke has, curiously, little to say of the rivalry of France under Colbert. Sir Roger L'Estrange's Discourse of the Fishery (1674) says that the cod, herring and ling taken in his Majesty's seas by the Dutch and other nations are valued communibus annis at no less than ten millions of pounds sterling, "which computation has been often published and constantly received for current without contradiction." (In A small Collection of valuable Tracts relating to the Herring Fishery (1751), p. 45.) Cf. p. 257, note.
