heard some people compute, that we have always abovefifty thousand of them rambling from place to place, and that what they consume in the year is equal to a sixth part of the national taxes.

But be that as it will, these wretches are at first set a going by real want of bread, in bad seasons, during which time, idleness, rambling, and impudence become so habitual to them, and they grow so expert in the art of begging, that they never think of returning to a settled place of abode, and to industry. But tillage and granaries would prevent those famines, that always break so many poor families, and turn them out to the road. Besides as this evil will make a law necessary to correct it, I do not know that a more effectual expedient could be found out by the legislature than to empower any body, who has farming work, flax dressing, or any such labour a doing, to seize on all young and lusty beggars, whom they shall find sauntering about their houses, and compel them with the horsewhip and cudgel to work for meat, without wages. If this were the case, the farmers and others.would not fail to put a law in execution that gave them a sturdy labourer without wages, and so in a little time the strollers would fairly quit the trade, and the nation be relieved of a burden which it is not able to bear.

For want of tillage at home, that is, for want both of food and work, vast numbers of our labourers go every year to England; and as these are people who are willing to work, the loss of them is never enough to be regretted. The colonies to America, and those huge drains of useful hands to England, carry out the real wealth of the nation. Nor can I say it is at all their fault, but rather their misfortune, who are exiled from their native country, and their relations, and exposed to unheard of hardships, to make room for bullocks and sheep on those grounds, which they might, if employed, render so much more valuable to their infatuated owners.

I know it is objected to all schemes for tillage, that it would occasion a decay of the beef trade, by which we bring so much gold into the nation from Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, and America. But those who make this objection are not aware, that if our grounds were ploughed

with oxen, we should have no great decrease of beef. The coarse and mountainy grounds would feed prodigious numbers of dry cattle for the two or three first years, after which, if they were brought into the rich pastures of clover, &c. which would follow the last year of tillage, they might be made to overpay in labour, all that was given for them at first, and laid out in keeping them; so that their carcase, hide, tallow, &c. would be all clear gain to their owners. I am convinced, that by this sort of management, we might fatten as many bullocks, and export as much beef as we do at present, and that without costing us any thing. We should in short have all the bullock beef both for home consumption, and exportation for nothing. If the grass and hay, produced in the above way, would not be sufficient to feed as many bullocks and dry cows, as are fattened by our lands untilled, I am confident with the assisance of the straw, and weak corn, they would. It is thus beef is produced all over England. But supposing we should have somewhat less beef to export, would it not sell the higher? Those who get beef from us for victualling their ships, must have it, cost what it will, as they have scarcely any other market to go to; for as to the English, having a prodigious number of ships to victual, they cannot spare much to foreign nations. It appears then that as we should have the foreign beef markets in a good measure to ourselves, four tubs of beef might sell for as much as six do at present.

However, where is the great benefit of bringing in gold for our beef, if we are obliged to send it out again for bread corn, unless it be to increase the trouble and expense of perpetually carrying in and out for nothing? We every year send out of the kingdom above 100,000l. for grain of one sort or other, and flour, and more than a fourth of that sum, for malt liquors. Had we sufficient tillage of our own, all this might be saved, and five times as much gained by the exportation of our superfluous grain. Foreign countries want bread corn as well as beef, especially those that abound most with gold. Corn is the chief necessary of life, and can never fail of a market somewhere or other, can never fail to bring money into a country that can afford to export it. We see by the English trade in corn, what ours

might be. They always find a market and ready money for all they can spare. We might do the same, and should gain more by that trade than they; because our lands are set at lower rents than theirs, and in the southern parts incomparably more fertile. Our taxes too are nothing to theirs. The security of gaining greatly by a corn trade appears still more evident, from the trade which the Dutch drive in corn. All the world knows their country produces but little fit for foreign sale. What they send abroad they import from other countries, and store it up for times of scarcity in the neighbouring countries. Now they can gain considerably by dealing in this commodity, though they are at the expense of importing, storing, and exporting. What then should hinder us from gaining still more considerably, who are to be at no other expense, but that of exportation to countries, from whence our merchants may return with profitable cargoes of foreign goods? In a report made by the commissioners for putting in execution an act for stating the public accounts, Charles Davenant, LL. D. having first shewn what quantities of corn had been entered for exportation to Holland, proceeds, 'What part of this commodity is for their own consumption, and what part they re-export to other countries, does not appear to me; but so far is certain, when corn bears a high price in foreign markets, they send large cargoes of it to the places where it finds good vent; and it has been known, that in years of scarcity, they bring us back our own wheat, because of the premium we give upon exportation, and which they are enabled to do, by having large granaries almost in every town, wherein they store large quantities in cheap years to answer the demands of other countries.- -As the case now stands, the Dutch have too great a share in a plentiful year of corn here. Whereas, if like them, we had public granaries, the superfluity of some years would sell better in foreign markets, and support our own poor in times of want. And to me it seems, that nothing would more contribute to put the general balance of trade always on the side of England, than by good economy in the public, to keep corn constantly at such a rate, as that the price of labour and manufacture may at no time be over high.'

Thus it appears, sir, that the English out of a worse soil,

and under much heavier taxes and rents than ours, gain prodigiously by tillage. It appears also, that the English, for want of granaries, have not the full profit of their own corn; and that the Dutch after buying it up at the English price, and defraying all the expenses of importing, storing, and exporting, come in for a great profit besides. What is it now that makes us blind to so glaring an interest? Surely there is not under the sun so unthinking a people as we are!

I cannot dismiss this point concerning the public interest in tillage, without putting you in mind, that all the expense in labour, which was deducted out of the private interest of the farmer in my calculation, is here to be added to the public gain of the nation in exporting grain. You know, sir, that it is the consumer who pays for all expenses on any commodity. Consequently the Spanish, Portuguese, or French, who shall buy our grain, must pay the hire of all our labourers, horses, and oxen employed in tillage. Now were all our arable grounds brought under the plough, the nation would gain by labour only, 321. 11s. 4d. in every five years tillage of twelve acres Irish measure. This over the whole kingdom would amount to a prodigious sum, and as it would arise from men and oxen that are now almost wholly idle, would be so much clear gain to the public.

I think it may be laid down as a maxim, that whatsoever commodity brings in the greatest sum of money to the nation from whence it is exported, must be the most gainful to the public, let the private gains to particular dealers be ever so small, provided the hands are not taken off from a more profitable employment. Agreeably to this, if the lands in Munster and Connaught at present yield and export as much beef, tallow, butter, hides, wool, &c. as bring in 500,000l. per annum, and if one fifth part is to be deducted for the private expenses in buying, selling, herding, slaughtering, sheep-shearing, buttermaking, salting of beef and hides, the remaining private profit will be 400,0007. Yet if a quantity of grain to the value of 900,000l. were annually exported, or which amounts to the same thing, if 200,000l. worth of it were used at home, and the other 700,000l. worth exported, and if likewise the private ex

pense and labour laid out in the production of this grain amounted to 600,0007. in this case though the private farmers or dealers would gain but 300,000l. which is a fourth less than the private gain in pasturage, yet the public would gain by tillage near twice as much as by pasturage, the public profits of tillage would be to those of pasturage as nine to five. But when the private as well as the public gain are both so greatly on the side of tillage, what can make both the public, and private persons so blind to their own interest?

Again, if tillage were properly encouraged, it would fill the kingdom with inhabitants, in which consists the true wealth and strength of a nation. It is a downright absurdity to consult a map for the greatness of a kingdom, which is to be numbered and not measured. The natives would, in time, fall into agriculture, and would acquire possessions in houses, lands, goods, and grain, which being permanent things, would be a security for their loyalty and good beha viour. But as the tillage would run chiefly through the hands of Protestants, the whole kingdom would, in a few years, be planted with such a sturdy yeomanry, as would effectually secure the estates of you landed gentlemen to your families. Men of that kind make the best soldiers in the world. What is the sword in a hand accustomed to wield the spade and the plough. Such men are hardy and patient of labour. A campaign would be only a relaxation to them. Besides, though of all men they are the fittest for war, yet as old Cato observes, they are at the same time the quiet. est, and farthest from a disposition to tumults and insurrections.* How quickly for want of such, were the Protestant gentlemen in Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, forced from their estates in the beginning of the late war? But in the north the brave husbandmen ran from the spade and plough, and valiantly defended their liberties and religion against a powerful invader, supported both by a foreign and domestic force. How would you wish, sir, to be surrounded with such neighbours at the beginning of an

* Ex agricolis, et viri fortissimi, et milites strenuissimi gignuntur, maximeque pias quæstus, stabilissimusque consequitur, minimeque invidiosus; minimeque male cogitantes sunt, qui in eo studio occupati sunt.-M. Catonis Prisci, ad lib. de re rustica introductio.