Caufes of the wretched Condition, &c. 41 labourers, and artificers, not able to find cloaths and food for their familes. I think it may therefore be of fome ufe to lay before you the chief caufes of this wretched condition we are in, and then it will be easier to affign what remedies are in our power towards removing at least some part of these evils. For it is ever to be lamented, that we lie under many disadvantages, not by our own faults, which are peculiar to ourfelves, and which no other nation under heaven hath any reafon to complain of. I fhall, therefore, first mention fome causes of our miferies, which I doubt are not to be remedied, until God fhall put it in the hearts of those who are the stronger to allow us the common rights and privileges of brethren, fellow-subjects, and even of mankind. The first cause of our mifery is the intolerable hardships we lie under in every branch of trade, by which we are become as hewers of wood, and drawers of water, to our rigorous neighbours. The fecond caufe of our miserable ftate is the folly, the vanity, and ingrati tude of thofe vaft numbers who think themselves too good to live in the country which gave them birth, and ftill gives them bread; and rather choose to pafs their days, and confume their wealth, and draw out the very vitals of their mother kingdom, among those who heartily despise them. These I have but lightly touched on, because I fear they are not to be redreffed, and, befides, I am very fenfible how ready fome people are to take offence at the honest truth; and, for that reafon, I fhall omit feveral other grievances, under which we are long likely to groan. I fhall therefore go on to relate fome other caufes of this nation's poverty, by which, if they continue much longer, it muft infallibly fink to utter ruin. The first is, that monftrous pride and vanity in both fexes, efpecially the weaker fex, who, in the midft of poverty, are fuffered to run into all kind of expence and extravagance in drefs, and particularly priding themselves to wear nothing but what cometh from abroad, difdaining the growth or manufacture of their own country, country, in those articles where they can be better ferved at home with half the expence; and this is grown to fuch a height, that they will carry the whole yearly rent of a good eftate at once on their body. And, as there is in that sex a fpirit of envy, by which they cannot endure to fee others in a better habit than themselves, fo thofe whofe fortunes can hardly fupport their families in the neceffaries of life, will needs vye with the richest and greatest among us, to the ruin of themselves and their pofterity. Neither are the men lefs guilty of this pernicious folly, who, in imitation of a gaudinefs and foppery of dress, introduced of late years into our neighbouring kingdom (as fools are apt to imitate only the defects of their betters), cannot find materials in their own country worthy to adorn their bodies of clay, while their minds are naked of every valuable quality. Thus our tradefmen and fhopkeepers, who deal in home goods, are left in a starving condition, and only thofe en couraged couraged who ruin the kingdom by importing among us foreign vanities. Another cause of our low condition is our great luxury, the chief fupport of which is the materials of it brought to the nation in exchange for the few valuable things left us, whereby fo many thousand families want the very neceffaries of life. Thirdly, in moft parts of this kingdom the natives are from their infancy fo given up to idleness and floth, that they often chufe to beg or fteal, rather than support themselves with their own labour; they marry without the leaft view or thought of being able to make any provifion for their families; and whereas, in all induftrious nations, children are looked on as a help to their parents, with us, for want of being early trained to work, they are an intolerable burthen at home, and a grievous charge upon the publick, as appeareth from the vast number of ragged and naked children in town and country, led about by ftroling women, trained up in ignorance and all manner of vice. Lafly, Laftly, A great cause of this nation's mifery, is that Egyptian bondage of cruel, oppreffing, covetous landlords, expecting that all who live under them fhould make bricks without ftraw, who grieve and envy when they fee a tenant of their own in a whole coat, or able to afford one comfortable meal in a month, by which the spirits of the people are broken, and made fit for flavery; the farmers and cottagers, almoft through the whole kingdom, being to all intents and purposes as real beggars as any of those to whom we give our charity in the streets. And thefe cruel landlords are every day unpeopling the kingdom, by forbidding their miferable tenants to till the earth, against common reafon and juftice, and contrary to the practice and prudence of all other nations, by which numberless families have been forced either to leave the kingdom, or ftrole about, and increase the number of our thieves and beggars. Such, and much worse, is our condition at present, if I had leisure or liberty to lay it before you; and, therefore, the next thing which might be confidered is, whether |