PROPOSALS Humbly offered To the Consideration of this Present PARLIAMENT. Being a Soft and easy Way For the Raising of MONEY, IN ORDER ●o the Perpetual Maintaining and Defending of this KINGDOM. licenced, and Entered according to Order, 1689.  
●T is never to be imagined but there will be some Contriving Heads still on work, for Innovation in all Kingdoms; And the certain way to undermine the commonwealths-man, and secure Royal-Govern●●●● in This, is, To consider what those public ngs, which the People do hope for, or ever ex ed by a Common-wealth; and to have the g and his Parliament to be the Proposers and ors themselves of all that Good to the ●ect.  
●ne Grand Thing worthy the Design of every ●●●lick Spirit in its Season, were a Register of tes: Such a Register, driven up to the Head, ●●uld bring all Possessions of Houses and Lands 〈◇〉 one tenor; that is Holding all of that Regi●●●r, Enfranchised from whatsoever is Servile be●●●es. The doing of this at one Dash, would put 〈◇〉 end to all Contentions and Suits about the Ti s of Mens Possessions, to the Worlds end; ●hich were a thing of more rare Advantage, out 〈◇〉 doubt, to the Community, than all whatso●●er the whole Series of other Kings and Parlia●ents have done for the Land, since Edward the ●●nfessor. Again, into this Register, as all Posses●●ons, so all the Moneys of the Nation should be ●rought; no Debt else being to be allowed by ●aw: By which means the Common-wealth shall 〈◇〉 immediately made as Rich again as it is; re●●iving its Emolument of all the Money, as well 〈◇〉 the Estates, that every Man hath.  
Unto this Registry, therefore, let us suppose, ●at so much per Annum( conceive what a House 〈◇〉 Commons shall please) in the Pound( of both) to be paid as Quit-Rent, for the Standing Revenues of the Common-wealth, distinct from the KING's own Revenues left proper to Himself. Out of this Rent and Treasure, yearly growing, and still extant, should any Parliament that is called, give their Supply for Emergent Occasions: Here would be no Trouble, then, about raising of future Taxes, but Consultation only to be had, what was fit to be done, and spared from the Common-Bank: For this Rent being the Publick-Stock,( that is, the Nations Money, not the KING's) should be ordered to the setting the Poor at Work, and accommodating the Trader; while the Increase and Gain were the Communities, and Disposable only by a Parliament, as the Purse of the Kingdom is.  
These are the small politics I have to offer, and would drive on; That every Bee be contributory to the Hive, and what is not profitable to the Hive, be not allowed good for the Bee.  
Against this Register of Estates, there will be Combined a threefold Interest: Of some Lawyers, Of the Usurer, and Of the Broken-Merchant. The Selfish Lawyers will give twenty Reasons against it; but the Bottom of them all will be this only, Then Men are not like to go to Law, as they now do. The Usurer will cry out; By this means every Bodies Estate shall be known; and what a world of Hurt will ensue thereupon? But the Substance only must come to this, That when he hath Five or Ten thousand Pounds perhaps at Use, he should not now go scotfree any longer, as he hath done, never to pay a Penny to the PUBLICK; when the Poor Man, who hath a Living but of Ten or Twenty Pounds a Year in all the World, must be Taxed to the full; and at so much the greater Rate, for the bearing his Burden for him. The Broken-Tradesman likewise will exclaim; This will hinder Trade; Many now live on their Credit; but when the Register shall tell all, they shall not be Trusted. The Sum of which indeed is, That then no one Person, by his being a Knave, shall be longer in a Capacity to undo so many Honest Men when he Breaks, as now they are used to do. By all which, His Majesty, and a Parliament may here, at one view, be pleased to see, how these Reasons and Interests, which will be urged against this Excellent Thing, shall be sound the very Ground and Reason its self irrefragable, upon which it is to be raised and upholden.  
Besides, There is One Advantage above All, which perhaps, never yet came into any Men's Thoughts; and that is, That by this way, there shall a new Stock be brought up in the Nation to Trade upon, when the Moneys running are drained Low; to wit, the Stock of Honesty: for when all Mens Conditions shall lye open, the Trust that a Man hath for the Future, shall be on his Honesty, and not on a Deceitful Reputation of more than he is Worth: Which will not only make every one strive to preserve That,( which is of unexpressible Concern to the whole) but shall put it in the power of every Man to have at first wherewithal to Live upon; until, by his own Fault or falsehood, he hath himself forfeited the same. And for this purpose, are there some Rules to be further thought upon, as to a before intimated public Encouragement to the Industrious Beginner, and hopeful Man; who will never dare to run Lavish, while such a Bridle is held upon him, as the View of all that will.  
There may be happily several Things objected, in reference to Propriety, and particular Concern; which shall not yet depress this Motion, but Advance and Improve it. There is therefore an Eminent Dominion( let us know) in the Supreme Authority of every State,) which in this Realm doth lye in the KING, and his Parliamen, not Severally, but as One Corporation jointly) over the Possessions, Goods, and Commodities of all Persons; as the Chief Writers of politics do tell us. So that, if there be any thing Grievous to the Generality, or Inconvenient to the Whole, it is no Wrong unto private Men, for the Parliament to remove it, though it cannot be done without their Loss. For, that Propriety which we call Meum and Tuum, is always to be understood between One Man and Another, and not between any Man and the public; whose greater Concern must over-rule All, according to that Fundamental Justice, upon which all Policy is built and maintained.  
As one of the Chiefest Things, then, which are desirable amongst what is wanting in this kingdom, I have said, is a Register mentioned: So, among some few Grievances there is on the Subject, One of the Chief, fit to be Redressed, is that Piece of the Norman-Yoke, which lies upon those Lands they call Copy-holds of Inheritance, that are Heriotable, and the Fine uncertain, at the Will of the Lord.  
The most Radical Advantage the Commons of England have above the People in other States▪ does consist in their Liberty( by the Constitution of the Land,) to choose their Representatives in Parliament; All the Commons in the Realm are Represented in Parliament, by the Knights and Burgesses,( says Sir Enward Cook) and are called Tout le commonalty de la Terra illonque sums, In the Preface of Westminster the First: And what an unhappy thing is it, that, for want of such a Register, a Man of One Hundred Pounds a Year, of his own Inheritance, whose Land is Copy, shall not have a Vote in choosing a Knight of the Shire into the House; when he that hath but Forty Shillings a Year in all the World ( Free) hath, and ought to have, according to the Usage of the Land? Neither is it indeed, tolerable, that there should be such Oaths taken, as there are customarily, to the Lords of manors, which no Conscientious or Ingenuous Spirit can choose but Regret unto any, but their sovereign Lord the KING only. There is no Reason a Man of Estate should Die, and his Lands be free from Debts, only from the Servile tenor of them. Neither is it fit a Man of greater Abilities and Me●●● should be exempt for Service at the Assiz●s, or other Courts, and the Poorer and less Able, b● made to Serve, only because the One's Land i● Free, and the Other's copyhold,  
If it were reasonable in the Lords of such manors, who had Land in Capite, to desire of the KING a Relief, in the Case of Wardships; would it not be just in the KING to Expect and Resolve They should do to Others, as they thi●k fit He should do to Them: Suppose then a Stat●te, Primo Guilielmi & Mariae, Be it Enacted, That all Lands which are Inheritance, and yet Copyhold, Fine uncertain, be for ever hereby Enfranchized, all Heriots henceforth Abolished, and that every Tenant be made Debtor in lieu hereof to the Lords of such manors, in the Value of Two Years Purchase the Full-Rent, or Forty Years Purchase the Quit-Rent,( at the Choice of the Tenant) to be paid in Two Years, and to be Recovered by the same Statute. Who can say, that any such Grateful Act of this Nature, hath passed since William the Conqueror? And who can judge it not fit, that when the Jews had their Jubilees once in Fifty Years, the English-People and Community should have one in Six Hundred and upwards since his Conquest.  
Believe it, Those Things which are a Leaven in the Hearts of Men to wish for a Change,( as there was nothing in the Associate Counties more prevalent, when Time served, than this) do require the States-man's Prevention, and kindly Reformation. The sum whereof, in this Register of Estates, might be comprised; but that a Brief Essay, and a First draft only is intended in this Paper, and not that full Pourtracture, which cannot at one Sitting, but by Second and Third Thoughts, and the Admonitions also of divers Advisers,( who may hereby be excited to Communicate them) receive its Perfection.   

LONDON, Printed for W. Pardoe, in Westminster, 1689.