Sir William Petty

“ As it is charity, and what we indeed owe to human kind, to make provision for the aged, the lame, the sick, blind, and impotent, so it is a justice we owe to the commonwealth not to suffer such as have health, and who might maintain themselves, to be drones and live upon the labour of others.
The bulk of such as are a burden to the public consists in the cottagers and paupers, beggars in great cities and towns, and vagrants. ”

“ But unless some such cogent reason of state, as is here instanced, intervene, in all appearance the best way for a nation that apprehends the growing power of any neighbour is to fortify itself within; we do not mean by land armies, which rather debilitate than strengthen a country, but by potent navies, by thrift in the public treasure, care of the people’s trade, and all the other honest and useful arts of peace. ”

“ It is difficult to say what may be the event of a new thing; but if we are to take measures from past wisdom, which exempted prolific families from public duties, we should not lay impositions upon those who find it hard enough to maintain themselves. If this tax be such a weight upon the poor as to discourage marriage and hinder propagation, which seems the truth, no doubt it ought to be abolished; and at a convenient time we ought to change it for some other duty, if there were only this single reason, that it is so directly opposite to the polity of all ages and all countries. ”

“ Our sea-forces, and next with horse harassed at sea, to resist all the fresh horse that England could make, and then conquer above a million of men, well united, disciplined, and guarded within such a wall, distant everywhere three-quarters of a mile from the housing, to elude the granadoes and great shot of the enemy? ”

“ Indeed, all armies whatsoever, if they are over-large, tend to the dispeopling of a country, of which our neighbour nation is a sufficient proof, where in one of the best climates in Europe men are wanting to till the ground. For children do not proceed from the intemperate pleasures taken loosely and at random, but from a regular way of living, where the father of the family desires to rear up and provide for the offspring he shall beget.
Securing the liberties of a nation may be laid down as a fundamental for increasing the numbers of its people ”

“ Among the methods that we have here proposed of employing the poor, and making the whole body of the people useful to the public, we think it our duty to mind those who consider the common welfare of looking with a compassionate eye into the prisons of this kingdom, where many thousands consume their time in vice and idleness, wasting the remainder of their fortunes, or lavishing the substance of their creditors, eating bread and doing no work, which is contrary to good order, and pernicious to the commonwealth. ”

“ Having said something of the number of our inhabitants, we shall proceed to discourse of their different degrees and ranks, and to examine who are a burden and who are a profit to the public, for by how much every part and member of the commonwealth can be made useful to the whole, by so much a nation will be more and more a gainer in this balance of trade which we are to treat of. ”

“ The bodies of men are, without doubt, the most valuable treasure of a country, and in their sphere the ordinary people are as serviceable to the commonwealth as the rich if they are employed in honest labour and useful arts, and such being more in number do more contribute to increase the nation’s wealth than the higher rank. ”

“ We are fenced by nature against foreign enemies, our ports are safe, we fear no irruptions of the sea, our land territory at home is at least 39,000,000 acres. We have in all likelihood not less than 5,500,000 people. What a nation might we then become, if all these advantages were thoroughly improved, and if a right application were made of all this strength and of these numbers?
They who apprehend the immoderate growth of any prince or State may, perhaps, succeed by beginning first, and by attempting to pull down such a dangerous neighbour, but very often their good designs are disappointed. ”

“ But we in England have taken another course, laying a fine upon the marriage bed, which seems small to those who only contemplate the pomp and wealth round about them, and in their view; but they who look into all the different ranks of men are well satisfied that this duty on marriages and births is a very grievous burden upon the poorer sort, whose numbers compose the strength and wealth of any nation. ”

“ We therefore conclude, that London hath more people, housing, shipping, and wealth, than Paris and Rouen put together; and for aught yet appears, is more considerable than any other city in the universe, which was propounded to be proved. ”

“ Nothing, therefore, can more contribute to the rendering England populous and strong than to have liberty upon a right footing, and our legal constitution firmly preserved. A nation may be as well called free under a limited kingship as in a commonwealth, and it is to this good form of our government that we partly owe that doubling of the people which has probably happened here in the 435 years last past. ”

“ If so great a commonwealth as Carthage, though assisted at that time by Hiero, King of Syracuse, and by the Romans, ran the hazard of losing their empire, city, and liberties, by the insurrection of a handful of mercenaries, whose first strength was but 20,000 men; it should be a warning to all free nations how they suffer armies so composed to be among them, and it should frighten a wise State from desiring such an increase of people as may be had by the bringing over foreign soldiers. ”

“ In countries depraved nothing proceeds well wherein particular men do not one way or other find their account; and rather than a public good should not go on at all, without doubt, it is better to give private men some interest to set it forward.
For which reason it may be worth the consideration of such as study the prosperity and welfare of England, whether this great engine of maintaining the poor, and finding them work and employment, may not be put in motion by giving some body of undertakers a reasonable gain to put the machine upon its wheels. ”

“ By such an improvement of our native strength, agreeable to the laws and to the temper of a free nation, England without doubt may be brought to so good a posture and condition of defending itself, as not to apprehend any neighbour jealous of its strength or envious of its greatness. ”

“ And it is also to be remembered that the plagues of London do commonly kill one-fifth part of the inhabitants. Now if the whole people of England do double but in 360 years, then the annual increase of the same is but 20,000, and in twenty years 400,000. But if in the city of London there should be 2,000,000 of people (as there will be about sixty years hence) , then the plague (killing one-fifth of them, namely, 400,000 once in twenty years) will destroy as many in one year as the whole nation can re-furnish in twenty; and consequently the people of the nation shall never increase. ”

“ If materials of foreign growth were at an easy rate, a high price might be the better borne in things of our own product, but to have both dear at once (and by reason of the duties laid upon them) is ruinous to the inferior rank of men, and this ought to weigh more with us, when we consider that even of the common people a subdivision is to be made, of which one part subsist from their own havings, arts, labour, and industry; and the other part subsist a little from their own labour, but chiefly from the help and charity of the rank that is above them. ”

“ That though each marriage in London produces fewer people than in the country, yet London in general having a greater proportion of breeders, is more prolific than the other great towns, and the great towns are more prolific than the country. ”

“ And though war, and national debts and engagements, might heretofore very rationally plead for excises upon our home consumption, yet now there is a peace, it is the concern of every man that loves his country to proceed warily in laying new ones, and to get off those which are already laid as fast as ever he can. High customs and high excises both together are incompatible, either of them alone are to be endured, but to have them co-exist is suffered in no well-governed nation. ”

“ If the high courage of Hannibal had not driven the commonwealth into a new war while it was yet faint and weak, and if they had been suffered to pursue their victories in Spain, and to get firm footing in that rich, warlike, and then populous country, very probably in a few years they might have been a more equal match for the Roman people. ”

“ To make as many as possible of these 1,330,000 persons (whereof not above 330,000 are children too young to work) who now live chiefly upon others get themselves a large share of their maintenance would be the opening a new vein of treasure of some millions sterling per annum; it would be a present ease to every particular man of substance, and a lasting benefit to the whole body of the kingdom, for it would not only nourish but increase the numbers of the people, of which many thousands perish every year by those diseases contracted under a slothful poverty. ”

“ And those who cannot find work (though able and willing to perform it) , by reason of the unequal application of hands to lands, ought to be provided for by the magistrate and landlord till that can be done; for there need be no beggars in countries where there are many acres of unimproved improvable land to every head, as there are in England. As for thieves, they are for the most part begotten from the same cause; for it is against Nature that any man should venture his life, limb, or liberty, for a wretched livelihood, whereas moderate labour will produce a better. ”

“ The gain which England makes by lead, coals, the freight of shipping, &c., may be the same, for aught I see, in both cases. But the gain which is made by manufactures will be greater as the manufacture itself is greater and better. For in so vast a city manufactures will beget one another, and each manufacture will be divided into as many parts as possible, whereby the work of each artisan will be simple and easy. ”

“ This is a very great proportion of the people to be a burden upon the other part, and is a weight upon the land interest, of which the landed gentlemen must certainly be very sensible.
If this vast body of men, instead of being expensive, could be rendered beneficial to the commonwealth, it were a work, no doubt, highly to be promoted by all who love their country. ”

“ Almost all countries in the world have been more or less populous, as liberty and property have been there well or ill secured. The first constitution of Rome was no ill-founded government, a kingly power limited by laws; and the people increased so fast, that, from a small beginning, in the reign of their sixth king were they able to send out an army of 80,000 men. And in the time of the commonwealth, in that invasion which the Gauls made upon Italy, not long before Hannibal came thither, they were grown so numerous, as that their troops consisted of 700,000 foot and 70,000 horse ”

“ On the contrary, we still think them the most easy and equal way of taxing a nation, and perhaps it is demonstrable that if we had fallen into this method at the beginning of the war of raising the year’s expense within the year by excises, England had not been now indebted so many millions, but what was advisable under such a necessity and danger is not to be pursued in times of peace, especially in a country depending so much upon trade and manufactures. ”

“ As to the cottagers, who are about a fifth part of the whole people, some duties reach even them, as those upon malt, leather, and salt, but not much because of their slender consumption, but if the gentry, upon whose woods and gleanings they live, and who employ them in day labour, and if the manufacturers, for whom they card and spin, are overburdened with duties, they cannot afford to give them so much for their labour and handiwork, nor to yield them those other reliefs which are their principal subsistence, for want of which these miserable wretches must perish with cold and hunger. ”

“ The corruptions of mankind are grown so great that, now-a-days, laws are not much observed which do not in a manner execute themselves; of this nature are those laws which relate to bringing in the Prince’s revenue, which never fail to be put in execution, because the people must pay, and the Prince will be paid ”

“ Furthermore, I say that upon former searches into the peopling of the world, I never found that in any country—not in China itself—there was more than one man to every English acre of land: many territories passing for well-peopled where there is but one man for ten such acres. I found by measuring Holland and West Frisia (alias North Holland) upon the best maps, that it contained but as many such acres as London doth of people, viz., about 696,000 acres. ”

“ This may be generally said, that all duties whatsoever upon the consumption of a large produce, fall with the greatest weight upon the common sort, so that such as think in new duties that they chiefly tax the rich will find themselves quite mistaken; for either their fund must yield little, or it must arise from the whole body of the people, of which the richer sort are but a small proportion. ”

“ For which reason, in any undertaking where it can be made apparent that a great benefit will accrue to the commonwealth in general, we ought not to have an evil eye upon what fair advantages particular men may thereby expect to reap, still taking care to keep their appetite of getting within moderate bounds, laying all just and reasonable restraints upon it, and making due provision that they may not wrong or oppress their fellow subjects. ”

“ The London observations reckon eight heads in each family, according to which estimation, there are 32,000 souls in the 4,000 families of Dublin, which is but half of what most men imagine, of which but about one sixth part are able to bear arms, besides the royal regiment.
6. Without the knowledge of the true number of people, as a principle, the whole scope and use of the keeping bills of births and burials is impaired; wherefore by laborious conjectures and calculations to deduce the number of people from the births and burials, may be ingenious, but very preposterous. ”

“ Monsieur Moreri, the great French author of the late geographical dictionaries, who makes Paris the greatest city in the world, doth reckon but 50,000 houses in the same, and other authors and knowing men much less; nor are there full 7,000 houses in the city of Dublin, so as if the 50,000 houses of Paris, and the 7,000 houses in the city of Dublin were added together, the total is but 57,000 houses, whereas those of London are 87,000 as aforesaid, or as 6 to 9. ”

“ A country that makes provision to increase in inhabitants, whose situation is good, and whose people have a genius adapted to trade, will never fail to be gainers in the balance, provided the labour and industry of their people be well managed and carefully directed. ”