The PRETENDED PERSPECTIVE-GLASS; Or some REASONS OF Many more which might be Offered, Against the pretended REGISTERING REFORMATION.  
LONDON, Printed in the Year MDCLXIX   

Some Reasons of many more which might be offered against the pretended Registering Reformation.  
IT cannot be denied by any who have conversed with the right Reason of Laws, and Rules of Government, That Innovations are more than a little dangerous, because there cannot possibly or probably be at once a certain and clear prospect made of all the evils, contingencies, and unevitable consequences which either will or may happen by it: And therefore have adjudged it to be more conducing to the Weal-public, rather to suffer some few or seldom mischiefs not fatal, than many Inconveniences. Which will not be escaped in such a Renverse or Ploughing up of all or the greatest part of the Estates and Credit of the Kingdom, and the product of so many sad effects as will attend it; And may not be thought to be either a Problem or Paradox in a Nation harrowed and torn by War and Confusions: If it shall be considered,  
That at the end thereof all the Coin which wore the Harp and Cross, being a moiety if not more than the legitimate money of King Philip, Queen Marry, Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles' the Martyr amounted unto, did not with much of it which was counterfeited, when it was called into the Mint by his now Majesty, exceed Two Millions Sterling and an half; and that too much of that money, and other afterwards Coined, hath been transported, melted down into Plate, or fooled away by the Consumption of our Gold and Silver, to adorn those that should not wear it; and that the people of England for above 18. years Civil Wars, Plunderings, Sequestrations, and Freequarter of Armies and Soldiers, and above 20. years very great and various Taxes, are so universally indebted, as it may rationally be believed that the most part of them live more upon Credit, than any certain or real Estate or Subsistence of their own; that much of the Lands of England if it should be sold, will scarcely pay the Debts which might be charged upon the Owners thereof; and that a great part of the City of London now so stately Rebuilt, hath been brought to that perfection by Credit and Money borrowed, which would not otherwise have been effected.  
That our Nobility and Gentry, the most of which made their Loyalty to their King, and their love to the Religion, Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom, to be their ruin and impoverishment, will now by such a Registration be turned out of that Credit which was left to support their feeble and languishing Estates.  
That our Merchants, whose Trades have brought Riches and Plenty into their Habitations, and to be Inmates and dwell with them, are for the most part three parts in four in Credit, and an opinion of a greater Estate than they can justly call their own.  
And the Retailers, and now more than formerly lofty Shopkeepers, who have owed their low beginnings to a small Stock, and a great deal of Credit, and gain so well by it as to afford to give 15 per Cent. to any that will adventure a joint Trade with them, will when they shall be exposed to the jealous eyes of the nice, over-timerous and suspicious Usurers or Money-lenders', be turned out of all their expectations, and made to submit to the devouring and unmerciful Fangs of a Statute of Bankrupt, or give over their Trade and be better acquainted with humility.  
The Country Farmers when Corn or cattle shall in their rates or prices fall short of their hopes to pay their Landlords Rents, shall not now be able to borrow money to pay them, if their small Stock or Estates shall not be sufficient to endure the severity of a Tell-tale Registration.  
All Trust and Credit, and the Faith, Charity and Love of Mankind one to another, whereby so many Families have had their rise and foundation, and more have gained good employments, will be so enervated and weakened, as men shall be afraid of that which they needed not to have troubled themselves withal, and make them to be like crafty Banyans, and hard hearted Jews each to other.  
The Merchants whose care of keeping their Credits, returning Moneys, and answeriug Bills of Exchange, makes them dread a protest of Nonpayment like some Plague or mortal sickness, and whose punctual performances makes every day but Sundays in every year many a score if not hundreds of Bargains, for great sums of money and concernments, without any Writing, Escript or Scroll, as the vulgar call it, will now have such an Anatomy-Lecture read upon their growing more than certain Estates, as all men will not easily or without much search have any thing to do with them.  
All Foreign Merchants will be by such a Registration affrighted and deterred from trafficking with our Merchants without ready money, the want whereof hath already by the cunning of the Banks beyond the Sea, who are made to rise and fall according to the scarcity or plenty of money, put them under great disadvantages in the buying or selling of their Commodities.  
The Dutch and other Nations whose low Interest heretofore brought into England some Millions of Sterling money, to put to a more gainful Usury, will by such a Registration not adventure to bring over any more.  
Foreign Princes which are or may be in Hostility with us, may by such a means or direction discover the weakness of the Nation, in their want of money either to offend others or defend themselves.  
Such a Contrivance will lay open and discover the beggary and wents of the People, be inconsistent with the humanity and mercy of the God of mercy and Justice, who commanded us not to afflict, by't or devour one another, nor to go into any man's house to fetch a Pledge (whereby to disgrace him) and will as little agree with our Magna Charta, and the Salvo Contenemento of the Gentleman, Waynagio of the Countryman, or Mercandisa of the Merchant, or the mercy and pity of our Laws in extending but a moiety of Lands upon a Judgement, and sparing as long as possible the Oxen and Horses of the plow.  
That the Romans when their people mutined, and refused to go to War in regard of the oppression of Usury, did not offer them such an ill compounded remedy as the intended Registration, to publish and lay open their poverty and thereby add to their misery, but did order that no Creditor should take any Interest for certain years then to come.  
Nor did the Scotch after their wars mingled with their own and our factions had greatly impoverished them, deem it to be any good for their people to have the fury of their Registrate Bonds, and Horning, and Caption let loose upon them, but locked up those severities and disgraces, by ordaining that no Annual Rent or Interest, as they there call it, should for certain Years after be demanded or taken.  
That such a device as the Registration will not only undermine and overthrow a great part of our Laws, and the excellent form and beauty of the fabric and structure thereof, in which the Liberties and safety of the people's Estates do reside, and lead into Captivity their Laws and Liberties, but hinder and take away from the King his post Fines, and profit of Alienations, Green Wax, Fines upon Original Writs, and Seals in his Courts of Justice and Chancery, amounting to about Forty or Fifty Thousand pounds per Annum.  
Lay open and expose every man's Estate to Taxes and Assessments, when as the Registering of all Mortgages and Alienations of Lands, can make no perfect discovery of Encumbrances, without the Registering of Judgements, Statutes and Recognizances, as well for the time past as to come.  
Destroy or weaken the Trade of the City of London, and divert the profit of above 15. or 16. adjacent Counties, who have exceedingly improved their Rents and Estates by it.  
That the Registrate movable Bonds in Scotland, had their original from the Caursini the Pope's Brokers in England, and from the miscalled Camera Apostolica, in the Reign of our King Henry the third, banished from hence by the cries of the oppressed people; and that to take as they do Registrate Bonds for Debts, and keep them dormant for 6. or 12. months, or a greater time after, and afterwards Register them, may so conceal Debts and Engagements, and weaknesses of Estate, as may rather increase the hazard and damage of the lender's of money, than prevent it.  
That the Office of General Remembrancer of all Encumbrances, hath several Parliaments in the Reign of King James troubled and attended them for a confirmation, and could never obtain it, was refused and certified by Sr. Edward Coke, and the Judges to whom it was referred, to be against the Weal-public, miss of its purpose in the Parliaments of King Charles the Martyr, was entertained by Oliver, and his ignorant and mechanic party as a ready means to Level and overturn our Laws, and make his Saints some seats or business of Judicature in the several Counties, but went do further than its Embryo, because his so called Parliament could not agree in 6 Month's time, what should be called Encumbrances, and hath been rejected in a late Session of this Parliament.  
And besides its ushering in of these and many other mischiefs and inconveniencies, will be needless when every man which doth but know any thing in our Laws, or hath ever bought or sold Land, or sought to recover any which hath been aliened from him, or had Intails which his careful Ancestors thought to have been an unalienable provision for him and his posterity, docqued and cut off, cannot but confess that our Laws have from time to time been exceeding careful, and made it to have been a great part of their business to secure and protect Purchasers Bona Fide, who are already as well (if not more) provided for in their Conveyances and Assurances, as any Nation under Heaven; and as far also as the care or wit of man could hitherto conceive it to be necessary, by Feoffments with livery and seisin, Fines and Recoveries, Leases and Releases, Demise and Redemise, Warranties, Bars and Non-claims, Prescriptions, Estoppels, Entries tolled, Judgements, Statutes and Recognizances, with Collateral security to perform Covenants, discovery of Encumbrances upon Oath; the Statute of the 27th. of King Henry the 8. for transferring of uses into possession; the Act of Parliament for Inrolling of Deeds of Bargain and Sale; an Act to preserve the Estate of Tenants for years, in a Recovery suffered by one in Reversion; An Act of Parliament in the 2. and 3. year of King Edward the 6. for saving and allowing of Leases and other kind of Estates, not found in any Inquisition, or Office, to entitle the King; three or four Statutes or Acts of Parliament against Fraudulent Assurances, or such as go about to deceive men of their Debts: and another in the 27th. year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, ordaining a forfeiture of a years value of the Land by such as are parties or privies in or unto such deceits; the Statute made in the 23th. year of her Reign for inrolling of Fines and Recoveries, to avoid Errors in them; three or four Statutes or Acts of Parliament concerning Bankrupts.  
The Statute against forging of Deeds, the Statute made in the one and twentieth year of the Reign of King James, for Limitations of Writs of Formedon, unto twenty years after the Title accrued; and another to quiet the Titles of all men against the King, certain Cases only excepted, which had been in sixty years quiet possession; another that the Lands and Estates of men dying in Execution should be chargeable with their Debts; and another to make it Felony against such as should levy Fines, suffer Recoveries, or acknowledge Judgements, Statutes or Recognizances in other men's names, with the Rule of expounding Grants, strictly against the Grantors; Debts to be paid before Legacies, and Trusts to be void as against Creditors, and many other aids and assistances not here enumerated, which the Laws have been at all times ready to contribute to such as shall timely or seasonably require or make use of them.  
And the pretences of making Lands to sell at greater Rates, for that as is alleged the Titles are so fraudulent, and Lands so doubly and trebly Mortgaged, as men are supposed to be afraid to purchase or lend any money upon them, and that Trade is greatly hindered by it, when all the Securities which men can take for their debts are so deficient, and that thereby many suits and contentions have arisen which otherwise would not have been, may vanish and no more disturb their Fancies.  
When the Fines and Recoveries of 20. 30. or 40. years' last passed, will Demonstrate plenty of purchases and a great deal of Land sold, or aliened in every of those Counties.  
And the Records and Decrees of Chancery, being the Pool of Bethesda, whither all men deceived by Mortgages or fraudulent Conveyances do come for relief, can if compared with the number of Fines and Recoveries, and Bargains and Sales that do pass in every year, testify that there is not much above one in every thousand that falleth into such a misfortune; that in these late times the rich and gaining party, by the sufferings and miseries of the loyal party, have not been afraid to have Jointures settled upon their daughters given in marriage with great Portions, to take Rend charges and annuities for moneys lent by Chevisance, and for more than the legal interest, or have bought indebted gentlemen's estates, and gained well by moneys left in their hands to clear encumbrances, and many times according to the latitude of their consciences, compounded them to their own no small advantage; and there is commonly as much difference between Trade and lending of money, as betwixt a Trade's man borrowing of money, and one that is no trades man lending it.  
When so many Commissions of Bankrupt issuing out every year, and the crafty Trades men soddering up themselves again by a composition, or three or four shillings in the pound, can tell on which side the loss and hazards do lie.  
And the grand increase of Trade appearing by the Custom house books, and the overstocking of Trade, by so great numbers applying themselves unto it, may declare that there is no defect in our Laws which may deserve such a scandal or needless reformation, which will bring upon the people greater mischiefs or inconveniencies than it pretends to prevent or avoid; when the loss of money, by reason of the failings of securities, or the insufficiency of Debtors, by the pride and luxury of the times, so greatly gone beyond that of former years or ages, will appear to be more the cause of it then any the defects in our Laws, and that the cry and clamour not unlikely to be designedly raised concerning the loss of debts and increase of suits and actions at Law is more than needs; when if it shall as it may be evidenced upon search & enquiry, that of some thousands of writs and actions made out by our Courts of Justice amongst such a multitude of people, and their variety of affairs, that there are more than one half of them ended in one Term or two, and a very few of the remainder, unless for difficulty, or by reason of the peevishness of some of the parties, do seldom last to the years end; and that if all the Commissions of Bankrupts taken out for seven years' last passed, and the number of prisoners for debt which have laid a year undischarged in the Prisons of the King's Bench, and the Fleet, Marshalsea, the two Compiers in London, and all the County and other prisons in England, were taken, it may give all unbiased men cause and reason enough to believe that there is no such danger or loss in lending of money or getting it in again, or that it is the cause of many suits or actions, when if there could be any such fear of frauds, they may without such mischiefs and inconveniencies better be secured by a short Act of Parliament, to ordain all intails, deeds of uses and Mortgages to be enrolled in His Majesty's high Court of Chancery; and that whosoever shall fraudulently▪ Mortgage any land, or wittingly conceal any former Mortgage thereof, shall incur the pains and penalties ordained in case of Praemunire, or a forfeiture of the double value to the party grieved.  
That Extremities will drive and necessitate men▪ to seek relief and difficulties of Justice, or obtaining it make a temptation of giving or taking bribes, now put into a new disguise or Periwigg and called gratifications.  
That the bringing down of money to 6 per Cent. hath as frequent Experiences may inform those whose Estates have been sucked into a Consumption by it, made too many refuse to lend money without as much brocage as hath amounted unto 8 or 10 per Cent. and taught them to prey and work upon men's necessities, by denying to lend money without Rend charges or Annuities, which may bring them 12 or 14 per Cent. and hath brought into a kind of trade and improvement of money that horrid usury and brocage now practised by taking of pawns and loan of money at 60, 40, 30, or 25 per Cent. which like Locusts and Caterpillars devouring every green thing, have almost covered this impoverished Nation. And that the hardening of men's hearts by such an inspection into all men's Estates, and creating them by that means as many advantages as they please, will when people cannot borrow moneys as formerly upon reasonable securities cause an increase of the Trade of Tally men, who do now gain a great deal more than Cent. per Cent. by furnishing the Market-women and Heglers, and the Criers in the Streets and other necessitous people, with Clothes, Householdstuff, or other necessaries, and lending them money at 12 d. a week for every 20 s.  
That the nature of the Scots, much differing from that of the English, and the general poverty of that Nation, causing the stricter ties in their Bonds and Obligations, and the grand severities used in them, may be more agreeable to the Laws and Constitution of that people, than the more rich and tender hearted English.  
That the Laws and Customs of Holland, and the United Provinces, where they have few Gentry, little Land, many Burghers, Towns and Corporations, and where the Husband, Wife, Children and Servants do continually busy themselves in Trade and Merchandise, may better endure the Notarial Acts (not much used amongst them) conveyed unto them by the Civil Law, and the Registring which the 200th. penny paid to their States upon the sale of Houses doth in a manner necessitate, but cannot amongst a people whose Trade and Stocks are ever busily employed in their Herringbusses, or are ever sending out or taking in their personal Estates in Money or Goods, to or from all the parts of the habitable World, admit or give them so clear a Perspective as our men of the Registering Reformation dream of; and yet when they are best of all pleased with it, they as well as the Spaniards and other transmarine Nations, are to confess that they have more Appeals and Stairs of Contention to climb in many of their Suits and Actions, than we have in England, and are not without as many Actions and Suits proportionably to the small extent of their Dominions, and their many little Judicatories.  
That those who allege that our Laws are undervalved and slighted in the parts beyond the Seas, and believed to be defective, may well allow us to think well of our own, and blame such opinions of Foreigners, who censure our Laws when they do not understand the Language they are written in; and when our learned Fortescue, 
Fortescue de landibus legum Angliae.  whose Exile in France in the latter end of the Reign of our King Henry the 6th. gave him the opportunity of comparing the excellency of our Laws, very much since adorned with an addition of many good Statutes and Acts of Parliament, and the defects of the French, did write his Book in the praise of ours, and the dispraise of theirs.  
That the Decrets of France, and ringing out of a Bell in some parts of the United Provinces, for a confirmation of Titles and quieting of future Claims, do not operate so much or strongly as our Recoveries and Fines, with Bars upon Non-claims, do with less noise and disparagement.  
And that if it were fit or could be reasonable for the people of England to experiment all those mischiefs and inconveniences which may as certainly as sadly happen to us, as it did to the well-wishing Daughters of the aged Pelias, who destroyed him against their will, by letting out his old blood in their hopes of new; yet the Registering Reformers can never arrive to any other end of their Proposals, than that of getting Offices and Employments to ruin or perplex the people.  
When as that which they would undertake will prove to be impossible and unpracticable, unless they can foretell and ascertain the Lender's, that men who are now indebted & behind hand, will never be before hand or rich, or that those that are rich will never be poor, or have any misfortunes; or can assure any Money-lender that such a Lord of a Manor will have no Estates or Lands fall unto him; or such or any other person, Merchant, Trader, or Borrower, will have no Legacy given him, no Executorship or Heirship happen unto him, or what losses or gains may happen by Trade or Adventure by Sea or Land, what will be the profit or loss of the next ensuing Harvest, how much or how little a man that appears to be a Lender of Money in their Registry; hath in trust for Orphans or others, how much a Foreigner hath of his own Bank or Money in England, when he puts out Money to Interest for his Countrymen, what Leases of Lands have been made upon great Fines taken and little Rent reserved, what Leases or Estates have or will be forfeited by Treason, Rebellion, or otherwise; what Dower those women may resort unto, whose Jointures were made during Marriage or Coverture; or what Elopements they are guilty of; what Moneys are Insured by Policies of Exchange, or what Bills of Exchange have been accepted; what disherison of Heirs apparent, Illegitimacies, intrusions and wrongful Entries, what Actions of Battery and Scandal, and other Actions or Suits in Law or Equity, which may lessen or prejudice any man's Estate, may happen; what Assumpsits, Promises or Engagements have been made by word of mouth, (which may make as many Obligations, Troubles and Ties upon men's Estates, as Bonds or Bills can do or did before such kind of Writings were invented:) what Embargoes, or what ruins by highflying, gaming or gadding Wives, prodigal Children, losses by Fire, War, Factors, or bad Servants, Suretyship, or too much trusting, incurring of Penal Laws and Praemunires, death of those for whose lives they held Lands or Estate, or had any dependence upon, sickness, decay of Trade, deceits or wrongs done by others, vain and unnecessary expenses, or follies, may happen; when as many men's Actions past or to come in facto, or fieri esse, or posse, which are not visible before hand, or to be found in any Registry, may prove to be no small Encumbrances to Money-lenders', with many other dangers, contingencies and particulars, of which the Registering Reformers will not be able to find such a certainty as a Table of Tides will give us of the Tides or High-water at London-bridge, but leave those that will trust to their discoveries to as great a hazard to be deceived, as those that trust to Mr. Wing Almanac for Wether & Eclipses, sold in this year and some years before by the Stationers as this years or a present Calculation, when he hath been dead long before; or meet with as good a Directory as Mr. William Lilies hit or miss guessing Almanacs, made out of wild and random conjectures, which in a Multiplying-glass of fears and jealousies, bestowed upon the people by the proposed Registry, making a Mouse to seem as big as an Elephant, or a Pigmy as formidable as a Goliath, will be sure to unhinge, dislocate and disturb most of the affairs of the Nation.  
And that therefore in a business of so many dangers, and concernements of so many men's Estates, there being more need to erect Mont Pietes in every County, now successfully practised in many parts beyond the Seas, to relieve the people in their debts and oppression, increased by an Unchristianlike Usury and Brocage, then to encourage such a design of Registering; it may rationally be hoped that the Parliament of England will do as the Nobility and Peers of England did in a Parliament in the 20th. year of the Reign of King Henry the third, when it was but proposed that Children born out of Wedlock might be declared to be Legitimate by the after marriage of the parents, stoutly to resolve, Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae.  
FINIS.