at Athlone, and of earthenware at Arklow, and what became of those manufactures?
252. Qu. Why we do not make tiles of our own, for flooring and roofing, rather than bring them from Holland?
253. Qu. What manufactures are there in France and Venice of gilt-leather, how cheap and how splendid a furniture?
254. Qu. Whether we may not, for the same use, manufacture divers things at home of more beauty and variety than wainscot, which is imported at such expense from Norway?
255. Qu. Whether the use and the fashion will not soon make a manufacture?
256. Qu. Whether, if our gentry used to drink mead and cider, we should not soon have those liquors in the utmost perfection and plenty?
257. Qu. Whether it be not wonderful that with such pastures, and so many black cattle, we do not find ourselves in cheese?
258. Qu. Whether great profits may not be made by fisheries; but whether those of our Irish who live by that business do not contrive to be drunk and unemployed one half of the year?
259. Qu. Whether it be not folly to think an inward commerce cannot enrich a State, because it doth not increase its quantity of gold and silver? And whether it is possible a country should? not thrive, while wants are supplied, and business goes on?
260. Qu. Whether plenty of all the necessaries and comforts of life be not real wealth?
261. Qu. Whether Lyons, by the advantage of her midland situation and the rivers Rhone and Saone, be not a great magazine or mart for inward commerce? And whether she doth not maintain a constant trade with most parts of France; with Provence for oils and dried fruits, for wines and cloth with Languedoc, for stuffs with Champagne, for linen with Picardy, Normandy, and Brittany, for corn with Burgundy?
262. Qu. Whether she doth not receive and utter all those commodities, and raise a profit from the distribution thereof, as well as of her own manufactures, throughout the kingdom of France?
263. Qu. Whether the charge of making good roads and navigable rivers across the country would not be really repaid by an inward commerce?
264. Qu. Whether, as our trade and manufactures increased, magazines should not be established in proper places, fitted by their situation, near great roads and navigable rivers, lakes, or canals, for the ready reception and distribution of all sorts of commodities from and to the several parts of the kingdom; and whether the town of Athlone, for instance, may not be fitly situated for such a magazine, or centre of domestic commerce?
265. Qu. Whether an inward trade would not cause industry to flourish, and multiply the circulation of our coin, and whether this may not do as well as multiplying the coin itself?
266. Qu. Whether the benefits of a domestic commerce are sufficiently understood and attended to; and whether the cause thereof be not the prejudiced and narrow way of thinking about gold and silver?
267. Qu. Whether there be any other more easy and unenvied method of increasing the wealth of a people?
268. Qu. Whether we of this island are not from our peculiar circumstances determined to this very commerce above any other, from the number of necessaries and good things that we possess within ourselves, from the extent and variety of our soil, from the navigable rivers and good roads which we have or may have, at a less expense than any people in Europe, from our great plenty of materials for manufactures, and particularly from the restraints we lie under with regard to our foreign trade?
269. Qu. Whether commissioners of trade or other proper persons should not be appointed to draw up plans of our commerce both foreign and domestic, and lay them at the beginning of every session before the Parliament?
270. Qu. Whether registers of industry should not be kept, and the pubic from time to time acquainted what new manufactures are introduced, what increase or decrease of old ones?
271. Qu. Whether annual inventories should not be published of the fairs throughout the kingdom, in order to judge of the growth of its commerce?
272. Qu. Whether there be not every year more cash circulated at the card tables of Dublin than at all the fairs of Ireland?
273. Qu. Whether the wealth of a country will not bear proportion to the skill and industry of its inhabitants?
274. Qu. Whether foreign imports that tend to promote industry should not be encouraged, and such as have a tendency to promote luxury should not be discouraged?
275. Qu. Whether the annual balance of trade between Italy and Lyons be not about four millions in favour of the former, and yet, whether Lyons be not a gainer by this trade?
276. Qu. Whether the general rule, of determining the profit of a commerce by its balance, doth not, like other general rules, admit of exceptions?
277. Qu. Whether it would not be a monstrous folly to import nothing but gold and silver, supposing we might do it, from every foreign part to which we trade? And yet, whether some men may not think this foolish circumstance a very happy one?
278. Qu. But whether we do not all see the ridicule of the Mogul's subjects, who take from us nothing but our silver, and bury it under ground, in order to make sure thereof against the resurrection?
279. Qu. Whether he must not be a wrongheaded patriot or politician, whose ultimate view was drawing money into a country, and keeping it there?
280. Qu. Whether it be not evident that not gold but industry causeth a country to flourish?
281. Qu. Whether it would not be a silly project in any nation to hope to grow rich by prohibiting the exportation of gold and silver?
282. Qu. Whether there can be a greater mistake in politics than to measure the wealth of the nation by its gold and silver?
283. Qu. Whether gold and silver be not a drug, where they do not promote industry? Whether they be not even the bane and undoing of an idle people?
284. Qu. Whether gold will not cause either industry or vice to flourish? And whether a country, where it flowed in without labour, must not be wretched and dissolute like an island inhabited by buccaneers?
285. Qu. Whether arts and vertue are not likely to thrive, where money is made a means to industry? But whether money without this would be a blessing to any people?
286. Qu. Whether therefore Mississippi, South Sea, and such like schemes were not calculated for pubic ruin?
287. Qu. Whether keeping cash at home, or sending it abroad, just as it most serves to promote industry, be not the real interest of every nation?
288. Qu. Whether commodities of all kinds do not naturally flow where there is the greatest demand? Whether the greatest demand for a thing be not where it is of most use? Whether money, like other things, hath not its proper use? Whether this use be not to circulate? Whether therefore there must not of course be money where there is a circulation of industry?
289. Qu. Whether all such princes and statesmen are not greatly deceived who imagine that gold and silver, any way got, will enrich a country?
290. Qu. Whether it is not a great point to know what we would be at? And whether whole States, as well as private persons, do not often fluctuate for want of this knowledge?
291. Qu. Whether gold may not be compared to Sejanus's horse, if we consider its passage through the world, and the fate of those nations which have been successively possess'd thereof?
292. Qu. Whether the effect is not to be considered more than the kind or quantity of money?
293. Qu. Whether means are not so far useful as they answer the end?
And whether, in different circumstances, the same ends are not obtained by different means?
294. Qu. If we are a poor nation, abounding with very poor people, will it not follow that a far greater proportion of our stock should be in the smallest and lowest species than would suit with England?
295. Qu. Whether, therefore, it would not be highly expedient if our money were coined of peculiar values, best fitted to the circumstances and uses of our own country; and whether any other people could take umbrage at our consulting our own convenience, in an affair entirely domestic, and that lies within ourselves?
296. Qu. Whether every man doth not know, and hath not long known, that the want of a mint causeth many other wants in this kingdom?
297. Qu. What harm did England sustain about three centuries ago, when silver was coined in this kingdom?
298. Qu. What harm was it to Spain that her provinces of Naples and Sicily had all along mints of their own?
299. Qu. Whether those who have the interests of this kingdom at heart, and are concerned in the councils thereof, ought not to make the most humble and earnest representations to his Majesty, that he may vouchsafe to grant us that favour, the want of which is ruinous to our domestic industry, and the having of which would interfere with no interest of our fellow-subjects?
300. Qu. Whether it may not be presumed that our not having a privilege which every other kingdom in the world enjoys, be not owing to our want of diligence and unanimity in soliciting for it?
301. Qu. Whether his most gracious Majesty hath ever been addressed on this head in a proper manner, and had the case fairly stated for his royal consideration, and if not, whether we may not blame ourselves?
302. Qu. If his Majesty would be pleased to grant us a mint, whether the consequences thereof may not prove a valuable consideration to the crown?
303. Qu. Whether it be not the interest of England that we should cultivate a domestic commerce among ourselves? And whether it could give them any possible jealousy, if our small sum of cash was contrived to go a little further, if there was a little more life in our markets, a little more buying and selling in our shops, a little better provision for the backs and bellies of so many forlorn wretches throughout the towns and villages of this island?
304. Qu. Whether Great Britain ought not to promote the prosperity of her Colonies, by all methods consistent with her own? And whether the Colonies themselves ought to wish or aim at it by others?
305. Qu. Whether the remotest parts from the metropolis, and the lowest of the people, are not to be regarded as the extremities and capillaries of the political body?
306. Qu. Whether, although the capillary vessels are small, yet obstructions in them do not produce great chronical diseases?
307. Qu. Whether faculties are not enlarged and improved by exercise?
308. Qu. Whether the sum of the faculties put into act, or, in other words, the united action of a whole people, doth not constitute the momentum of a State?
309. Qu. Whether such momentum be not the real stock or wealth of a State; and whether its credit be not proportional thereunto?
310. Qu. Whether in every wise State the faculties of the mind are not most considered?
311. Qu. Whether every kind of employment or business, as it implies more skill and exercise of the higher powers, be not more valued?
312. Qu. Whether the momentum of a State doth not imply the whole exertion of its faculties, intellectual and corporeal; and whether the latter without the former could act in concert?
313. Qu. Whether the divided force of men, acting singly, would not be a rope of sand?
314. Qu. Whether the particular motions of the members of a State, in opposite directions, will not destroy each other, and lessen the momentum of the whole; but whether they must not conspire to produce a great effect?
315. Qu. Whether the ready means to put spirit into this State, to fortify and increase its momentum, would not be a national bank, and plenty of small cash?
316. Qu. Whether private endeavours without assistance from the public are likely to advance our manufactures and commerce to any great degree? But whether, as bills uttered from a national bank upon private mortgages would facilitate the purchases and projects of private men, even so the same bills uttered on the public security alone may not answer pubic ends in promoting new works and manufactures throughout the kingdom?
317. Qu. Whether that which employs and exerts the force of a community deserves not to be well considered and well understood?
318. Qu. Whether the immediate mover, the blood and spirits, be not money, paper, or metal; and whether the soul or will of the community, which is the prime mover that governs and directs the whole, be not the legislature?
319. Qu. Supposing the inhabitants of a country quite sunk in sloth, or even fast asleep, whether, upon the gradual awakening and exertion, first of the sensitive and locomotive faculties, next of reason and reflexion, then of justice and piety, the momentum of such country or State would not, in proportion thereunto, become still more and more considerable?
320. Qu. Whether that which in the growth is last attained, and is the finishing perfection of a people, be not the first thing lost in their declension?
321. Qu. Whether force be not of consequence, as it is exerted; and whether great force without great wisdom may not be a nuisance?
322. Qu. Whether the force of a child, applied with art, may not produce greater effects than that of a giant? And whether a small stock in the hands of a wise State may not go further, and produce more considerable effects, than immense sums in the hands of a foolish one?
323. Qu. Whether as many as wish well to their country ought not to aim at increasing its momentum?
324. Qu. Whose fault is it if poor Ireland still continues poor?
FINIS ERRATA.