TO THE King's Most Excellent Majesty; Together with the Honourable Lords and Commons Assembled in Parliament: The Husbandman's Advocate.  
Most Excellent CAESAR, AND Most Honourable and Renowned Senators of England,  
UNder God, you have saved Yourselves and Your Country; and as many of us as have learned to distinguish between the True and the Living God, and those false Deities which grow in our Woods and our Quarries, we return you our due and eternal Thanks. Under God, you have secured us from Popery and Slavery; Secure us but once more from Poverty, and your Work is done. Present His Majesty as Long and as Much as your Wisdom shall think sit, our Purses are open, and our Hearts are so too: Only permit the Honest Husbandman's Advocate (like a Public Mercury) to point out the way how to obviate the Inconveniencies of too much Plenty. This Paper humbly presents,  
That the Price of Land, and the Product of it, is now so very low, is the common Grievance and Complaint; the Speculation whereof is very nice, and strange, whenas Plenty shall be accounted a misfortune, and full Barns an inconvenience. They that look into the Causes, some lay it upon the Interest of Money, some upon the paucity of our Inhabitants, occasioned by War and Plague, and so many Foreign Plantations and Colonies; others upon the extraordinary Improvement of Husbandry, and breaking up so many Parks and Chases, and draining of Fens; and they that say we spend too much Wine and exotic Liquors, besides the dry Drunkenness of Tobacco, do think they are not altogether mistaken; not to mention the too good Opinion of the Manufactures of Strangers, and too little Kindness for our own. Whether these, or any, or all of these, do contribute to this Epidemic Evil, is not now the Subject of this present Paper: but that such a mischief there is gradually crept in upon us, and, like a sly Hectic Fever, hath seized upon the very Vitals, and grown almost past recovery before discerned.  
That the Soil we tread upon, is not shrunk in its Dimensions, but in its substantial Value and Reputation, is too well known, especially to the unfortunate Seller, and made use of by the indigent and crafty Tenant, who either demands deep Abatements, or else threatens to throw up your Lands. The Country man tells us, and we see it with our Eyes, How he neither spares his Pains nor Sweat, endures the Cold and Heat of both Seasons; contents himself with his Country-fare and Russet: The Dews of Heaven fall upon him, and his Fields do laugh and sing with Plenty; and yet for all this, when he casts up his Account at the years end, it betides him alike with the Prodigal and the Slothful; he looks into his hand, and there is nothing; and the cause of all is, That the Fruits of his Ground and Labours afford no Price, no Profit proportionable to his Rent and Charges, and to what he might justly expect as a Reward of his Industry: From whence how long and how sad a Chain of Miseries must inevitably ensue, we need neither Prophet nor Diviner to inform us.  
Many honest Essays indeed, and ingenious Ideas, how to obviate this General Poverty, have come out of late; but, alas! with so little success, because they are either too short, or too narrow, or else attended with other Inconveniencies as obnoxious almost as those they pretend to remove: Now then, to make haste to the Mark we aim at, This New Evil is curable by the Royal Hand.  
If it would please the August Government of England to deal with the Fruits of the Earth, as the King doth with Men and Metals; both which, tho' of mean Extraction, he advances many times to Honour and Reputation, merely upon the Account of his Sovereignty: The One he advanceth to Dignities, and Places of the greatest Trust; and the Other he ennobles with his own Royal Effigies; and as an Instrument of all Commerce and Traffic, he makes it countervail whatever the World produces. If the Government would be pleased to advance the Price of our own Native Corn, the business would be done in a moment, and all things reduced to the most flourishing Condition that either We or our Forefathers were wont to glory of. If Wheat might not be sold under Two and thirty Shillings a Quarter, nor Barley under eighteen, immediately our Lands, Farms, Farmers, Landlords, Noblemen, and so to the upmost Rounds of all Orders, the King himself, would be by one Fourth-part at least Richer than now they are.  
And to prevent all Objection, let the Nation be cast into Three Ranks of Men; that is to say, The Noble, the Middle, and the Lowest sort: No man can suppose, that those of the highest Order can dislike the Design, but rather infinitely desire and abet it, as being all Landlords; As for the Middle sort, most of them are Farmers themselves, or such as have a great dependence upon them: so that when that day comes, they will doubtless keep it as a Jubilee to all Generations: And for the Lowest, they are such by Age and Infirmity, or some other unseen Misfortune; and for these, the Laws and Christian Charity hath provided: But for the Lazy and the Spendthrift, their Objections will best be answered at the House of Correction.  
Now, if any morose man shall hastily cry out, That this Design is not practicable, because without a Precedent, and so with one froward Negative be their Own and their countries' Enemy so far; let them know they are mistaken, as not understanding the True Nature and Power of Sovereignty. What will they say, when they hear or read, That the Roman Senate, to ease the public Necessity, by a Decree, made the Half-pound of Copper as much worth as the Pound; and a while after, the Quarter, and at last the Ounce, was valued as high as the Pound was at the first; and this applauded and consented to by the Tribunes? What shall we say of the Persian Sophy, who by virtue of his Sovereignty, annually sets the Price upon his Pearl, being the product, not of a Whale, or of a Leviathan; but bred and born in the Belly and Cottage of an Oyster? Can the Chinese so mightily magnify his thou, or the Japonian his Cha, of shrubby offspring; the latter of which, if Tulpius was not misinformed, hath been sold for a Hundred pounds the pound? Who knows not how great an estimate the French King puts upon his Salt-pits, and how much his Lilies did once flourish upon it, even to a fault? Do we not see Stones and Shells made daily the Ornament and Companion of Princes, not for any intrinsic value of their own; but only by the Indulgence of our Fancies, Natura Lapides fecit, Opinio Gemmas? Shall such things as these, made more for Delight than Necessity, and which the World could spare, Salt only excepted; Shall such little gay things weigh down our Gold and Silver, and sit so high in our opinions; And shall Bread, which is the staff of our lives, and the happy product of our Fields, be so generally undervalved? Shall Bread, which is obtained every year by the indefatigable Industry and Sweat (it may be) of Millions of our people? Shall Bread, which indeed this year lies under the Clods, but the next runs through all our Veins, and is turned into our very selves? Shall Bread, which we daily pray for twice, and sometimes thrice in an Hour, before we have it, and when enjoyed, shall we put so mean a price upon it, only because Heaven is pleased to give it us with both hands? Certainly, besides the impolicy of it, there seems to be ingratitude and irreligion in the Case. These few things therefore are humbly propounded to our Wise and Renowned Superiors.  
1. Let it be considered what was truly said of old, Res quaelibet tantum valet quantum vendi potest, though the use and goodness of many things are known by a Mark or Signature impressed upon them by Nature; yet nothing is born or produced with its price engraven upon it, but is left to the determination of Mankind, to whose delight and necessity they are all subservient. Were all England set to Sale (which God forbidden) what measures would the Purchaser take, before he would strike the Bargain? Doubtless he would inquire into the fertility of the Soil, the nature of the Product; but most of all, what profit he could make of it. Tho' the Globe were never so rich, and the growth of it never so good, yet profit still is the Polestar he steers by, when he knows that a good Market is that which blesses all the Territory round about it. If all the Corn of England be cheap, the Land that bore it will be so too; and then what shall we think of those Landlords, but as Men contemptible and crestfallen, when we know that two lean Premises can never make a fat Conclusion?  
2. Let England be considered as one great Farm, whose main concernment lies in Tillage, which will manifestly appear; 1st, Because all the Pasture and Marsh lands, all the Heath, and Wood lands, bear no proportion to the Arable Land of England. And 2dly, because Husbandry employs more Hands than any Calling whatsoever, and it may be as many as all the Callings in England put together. Now it is but reasonable that that which is the greater part of the Country, and which keeps the greater part of the Nation employed, should be kept up in its full value and reputation. From hence it will easily appear, how great an esteem we ought to have of the Husbandmen of England; the rather, when we call to mind, how that among the Egyptians of old, it was accounted a capital Crime to kill a Ploughing Ox; and the reason is given, because he is Socius Coloni, the Husbandman's Companion in the Culture of the Earth. According to the testimony of the Ancients, England was always esteemed a rich Storehouse and Treasury of Corn: Zozimus calls it, Occidentalis Imperii quasi horreum & Cellam penuariam, The Granary of the Western-Empire, and whence Eight hundred Ship loads of Corn were annually transported to Germany, to nourish the Frontier-Soldiers; and long before that, in the Judgement of Orpheus, it was esteemed for its fertility of all sorts of Grain, the proper Seat and Mansion of Ceres herself. And if so many Hundred years ago, this Island was so famous for its plenty and fruitfulness, What may we now think of it, when the Art of Husbandry is so much emproved, and so many Woods and places of pleasure and divertisement removed to give place to the Blow? Now after all this, that so much Art, and so many Experiments have successfully been made, it will be an infinite discouragement to the most industrious, and far more numerous part of the Nation, if some proportionable reward and price might not be allowed in so great a concernment, in which so much Art, Cost, Labour and Necessity, do all jointly conspire.  
3. Might this Proposal be accepted, and effectually prosecuted, it would undoubtedly prevent one great Mischief, which if common report be true, is practised, especially in the City of London, which is, that Brewers, Bakers, and others, do combine together, concerning what Price they please; so that when the honest Countryman hath brought up his Corn to the City, the Market immediately falls upon him, who partly through Necessity, and partly for the great Charge and Trouble of carrying it back again, he is forced to sell it at what Price so ever they please to give him; nay, many times, at a lower Rate than he might have had at home among his Neighbours. Whence it is, That a few men in Cities and Towns, are daily seen to grow abundantly Rich; and in the mean time, by such illegal Combinations, multitudes of men in all the Counties of England, grow most miserably poor. Certainly great pity it is, to see a few men, that live in soft ease and delicacy, by a few crafty Tricks, to acquire vast Estates in a few years, whilst Thousands of honest and working men, who perhaps after 40 or 50 years hard Labour and Care, do many times wish for a Grave, because they are in danger of a Prison.  
4. If it were possible that the Opinion of every individual Man of the Nation, could be taken, it is very probable, that a hundred would be in favour of this design, for one that should appear against it; because all that have Land, and use Land, would be for it; most of the Traders and Shop keepers would be no less, as having Commerce with both those, as easily foreseeing how their Trade would quicken upon it; so that of necessity the Dissenters must doubtless be infinitely far less in Number and Quality, than the former. Now then, Whether it be better Policy, and more of Justice, to gratify the most and best part of the Nation, than the fewest and meanest, will easily be determined.  
5. The Courage and Fortitude of a Nation, usually bears proportion with the Wealth of it; the Poor and the Slave are not sensible of the shame of Cowardice; and our wise Raleigh tells us, The Body of our Victorious Armies was made up of the free Yeomen of England, and their Sons: We are a Nation that have been, and still are happy, even to envy, so long as Plenty and Wealth, like Castor and Pollux, shall be undivided: We are not like the Nomads of old, who were contented with Skins and Mares-milk; but a Nation ranged into several Orders and Scales of men. Honour must be supported by large Fortunes: And our Annals tell us what great things our Ancestors have done in the World, to whose Memory we are indebted to do the same, when occasions are offered; and all this presupposes a proportion of Wealth, which is impossible, unless the Credit of Land be maintained, which is our common Nurse, as well as Mother, and by which the King Himself is supplied.  
Last of all, Such an Expedient as this, will retrieve the old and famous Hospitality of England; the Nobles, Gentry, Farmers, and Tradesmen, with the ingenious Artificers, by a most happy and concatenated Interest, like the great Intelligences, will keep this our English Orb in a most Natural and Thriving Motion, when Money, like the healthful Blood in our Veins, shall still circulate by a just and happy Distribution. The Landlord shall be hospitable, because his Tenant is solvent; and the Tenant will be so, because his Landlord is Noble, and Bountiful to his Neighbours; City and Country shall friendilly conspire by mutual Commerce, and the whole Nation with one joint Acclamation, shall Cry out, God and the King: God, that gives the Crop, and the King the Price.  
God save the King and Parliament of England.  
So Prays, The Husbandman's Advocate.   

LICENCED April 5. 1690. J. F.   

LONDON: Printed for Ric. Chiswell, at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard. MDCXC.