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Many voyages have been undertaken with views of profit or of plunder, or to gratify resentment; to procure some advantage to ourselves, or do some mischief to others: but a voyage is now proposed to visit a distant people on the other side the globe; not to cheat them, not to rob them, not to seize their lands, or enslave their persons; but merely to do them good, and make them, as far as in our power lies, to live as comfortably as ourselves.

"It seems a laudable wish that all the nations of the earth were connected by a knowledge of each other, and a mutual exchange of benefits: but a commercial nation particularly should wish for a general civilization of mankind, since trade is always carried on to much greater extent with people who have the arts and conveniencies of life, than it can be with naked savages. We may therefore hope in this undertaking to be of some service to our country, as well as to those poor people who, however distant from us, are in truth related to us, and whose interests do, in some degree, concern every one who can say Homo sum," &c.

Scheme of a voyage by subscription, to convey the conveniencies of life, as fowls, hogs, goats, cattle, corn, iron, &c. to those remote regions which are destitute of them, and to bring from thence such productions as can be cultivated in this kingdom to the advantage of society, in a ship under the command of Alexander Dalrymple.

Catt or bark, from the coal trade, of 350 tons, estimated at about
Extra expenses, stores, boats, &c.

To be manned with 60 men at

£2000 3000

5000

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The expenses of this expedition are calculated for three years; but the greatest part of the amount of wages will not be wanted till the ship returns, and a great part of the expense of provisions will be saved by what is obtained in the course of the voyage by barter or otherwise, though it is proper to make provision for contingencies.

ON THE INSTITUTION IN HOLLAND TO PREVENT POVERTY. "Craven Street, June 17th, 1772.

"To Mr. Maséres,

"SIR,

"I thank you for the pamphlet proposing to establish Life Annuities in parishes, &c.: I think it an excellent one. In compliance with your wish page 25, 26, I send it back with a few marginal notes (perhaps of no great importance) made in reading it, requesting it may be returned to me.

"In page 118 of Dr. Price's Book on Annuities, second edition, you will find mention made of an institution in Holland. He had that information from me. Those houses are handsome neat buildings with very comfortable apartments; some form the sides of a square, with grass plats and gravel walks, flowers, &c., and some have little separate gardens behind each apartment. Those for men are called Oude Mannen Hayzen, for women Oude Vrouwen Hayzen. I think the different kinds sometimes make different sides of the same square. There is a chapel for prayers, a common kitchen, and a common hall, in which they dine together. Two persons such as best like one another, and choose so to associate, are generally lodged in one apartment, though in separate beds, that they may be at hand to assist each other in case of sudden illness in the night, and otherwise be mutually helpful. The directors have also a room to meet in, who form rules for the government of the house, hear complaints, and rectify what is amiss. Gentlemen are directors of the Oude Mannen Haus, ladies of the Qude Vrouwen Haus. A committee of two are chosen every year, who visit often, see the rules observed, and take care of the management. At the end of the year, these are thanked off, and as an honorable memorial of their service, their names, with the year they served, are added to the gold-letter list on the walls of the room. All the furniture is neat and convenient, the beds and rooms kept clean and sweet by the servants of the house, and the people appear to live happily,

"These institutions seem calculated to prevent poverty, which is rather a better thing than relieving it for it keeps always in the public eye a state of comfort and repose, with freedom from care in old age, held forth as an encouragement to so much industry and frugality in youth as may at least serve to raise the required sum (suppose 501.) that is to intitle a man or woman at 50 to a retreat in these houses. And in acquiring this sum, habits may be acquired that produce such affluence before this age arrives as to make the retreat unnecessary, and so never claimed. Hence if 50l. would (as by your table) intitle a man at 50 years of age to an annuity of 197. 3s. 6d., I suppose that in such a house, entertainment and accommodation to a much greater value might be afforded him, because the right to live there is not transferable, and therefore every unclaimed right is an advantage to the house, while annuities would probably be all claimed. Then it seems to me that the prospect of a distant annuity will not be so influencing on the minds of young people as the constant view of the comfort enjoyed in those houses, in comparison of which, even the payment and receipt of the annuities are private transactions.

"I write this in hopes you will, after consideration, favor me with your opinion whether (in addition to your plan, which will still have all its advantages for smaller sums) one or more such houses in every county would not probably be of great use in still further promoting industry and frugality among the lower people, and of course lessening the enormous weight of the poor tax?

"I enclose a little piece I wrote in America to encourage and strengthen those important virtues, of which I beg your acceptance, and am, with great esteem, "Sir, your most obedient humble servant,

"B. FRANKLIN."

POSITIONS TO BE EXAMINED.

1. All food or subsistence for mankind arise from the earth or waters. 2. Necessaries of life that are not foods, and all other conveniencies, have their values estimated by the proportion of food consumed while we are employed in procuring them.

3. A small people with a large territory may subsist on the productions of nature, with no other labor than that of gathering the vegetables and catching the animals.

4. A large people with a small territory finds these insufficient, and to subsist,

must labor the earth, to make it produce greater quantities of vegetable food, suitable for the nourishment of men, and of the animals they intend to eat.

5. From this labor arises a great increase of vegetable and animal food, and of materials for clothing, as flax, wool, silk, &c. The superfluity of these is wealth. With this wealth we pay for the labor employed in building our houses, cities, &c. which are therefore only subsistence thus metamorphosed.

6. Manufactures are only another shape into which so much provisions and subsistence are turned, as were equal in value to the manufactures produced. This appears from hence, that the manufacturer does not, in fact, obtain from the employer for his labor, more than a mere subsistence, including raiment, fuel, and shelter; all which derive their value from the provisions consumed in procuring them.

7. The produce of the earth, thus converted into manufactures, may be more easily carried to distant markets than before such conversion.

8. Fair commerce is, where equal values are exchanged for equal, the expense of transport included. Thus, if it costs A in England as much labor and charge to raise a bushel of wheat, as it costs B in France to produce four gallons of wine, then are four gallons of wine the fair exchange for a bushel of wheat, A and B meeting at half distance with their commodities to make the exchange. The advantage of this fair commerce is, that each party increases the number of his enjoyments, having, instead of wheat alone, or wine alone, the use of both wheat and wine.

9. Where the labor and expense of producing both commodities are known to both parties, bargains will generally be fair and equal. Where they are known to one party only, bargains will often be unequal, knowledge taking its advantage of ignorance.

10. Thus he that carries 1000 bushels of wheat abroad to sell, may not probably obtain so great a profit thereon as if he had first turned the wheat into manufactures, by subsisting therewith the workmen while producing those manufactures: since there are many expediting and facilitating methods of working, not generally known; and strangers to the manufactures, though they know pretty well the expense of raising wheat, are unacquainted with those short methods of working, and thence being apt to suppose more labor employed in the manufactures than there really is, are more easily imposed on in their value, and induced to allow more for them than they are honestly worth.

11. Thus the advantage of having manufactures in a country does not con

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sist, as is commonly supposed, in their highly advancing the value of rough materials, of which they are formed; since, though six-pennyworth of flax may be worth 20s. when worked into lace, yet the very cause of its being worth 20s. is, that besides the flax, it has cost 19s. 6d. in subsistence to the manufacturer. But the advantage of manufactures is, that under their shape provisions may be more easily carried to a foreign market; and by their means our traders may more easily cheat strangers. Few, where it is not made, are judges of the value of lace. The importer may demand forty, and perhaps get thirty shillings for that which cost him but twenty.

12. Finally, there seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery.-The second by commerce, which is, generally cheating. -The third by agriculture, the only honest way; wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life, and and his virtuous industry.

April 4, 1769.

B. F.

PROVISION MADE IN CHINA AGAINST FAMINE.

Extract of a Letter to Dr. Percival.

I have somewhere read that in China an account is yearly taken of the number of people, and the quantities of provision produced. This account is transmitted to the Emperor, whose ministers can thence foresee a scarcity likely to happen in any province, and from what province it can best be supplied in good time. To facilitate the collecting of this account, and prevent the necessity of entering houses and spending time in asking and answering questions, each house is furnished with a little board to be hung without the door, during a certain time each year; on which board are marked certain words, against which the inhabitant is to mark number or quantity, somewhat in this

manner:

Men,
Women,

Children,

Rice or Wheat,

Flesh, &c.

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