es of towns, to force
men to go for soldiers, and enter into the service, or allure them by
giving bounty-money, as an encouragement to men to list
themselves?--whereas the people of other nations, and even the Scots and
Irish, travel abroad, and run into all the neighbour nations, to seek
service, and to be admitted into their pay.

What is it but trade?--the increase of business at home, and the
employment of the poor in the business and manufactures of this kingdom,
by which the poor get so good wages, and live so well, that they will
not list for soldiers; and have so good pay in the merchants' service,
that they will not serve on board the ships of war, unless they are
forced to do it?

What is the reason, that, in order to supply our colonies and
plantations with people, besides the encouragement given in those
colonies to all people that will come there to plant and to settle, we
are obliged to send away thither all our petty offenders, and all the
criminals that we think fit to spare from the gallows, besides what we
formerly called the kidnapping trade?--that is to say, the arts made use
of to wheedle and draw away young vagrant and indigent people, and
people of desperate fortunes, to sell themselves--that is, bind
themselves for servants, the numbers of which are very great.

It is poverty fills armies, mans navies, and peoples colonies. In vain
the drums beat for soldiers, and the king's captains invite seamen to
serve in the armies for fivepence a-day, and in the royal navy for
twenty-three shillings per month, in a country where the ordinary
labourer can have nine shillings a-week for his labour, and the
manufacturers earn from twelve to sixteen shillings a-week for their
work, and while trade gives thirty shillings per month wages to the
seamen on board merchant ships. Men will always stay or go, as the pay
gives them encouragement; and this is the reason why it has been so much
more difficult to raise and recruit armies in England, than it has been
in Scotland and Ireland, France and Germany.

The same trade that keeps our people at home, is the cause of the well
living of the people here; for as frugality is not the national virtue
of England, so the people that get much spend much; and as they work
hard, so they live well, eat and drink well, clothe warm, and lodge
soft--in a word, the working manufacturing people of England eat the
fat, and drink the sweet, live better, and fare better, than the w