marshes, advancement of trade and manufactures, increase of inhabitants, encouragement of agriculture, and the like.

But there is another reason for the rise of land, more gradual, constant, and certain; which will have its effects in countries that are very far from flourishing in any of the advantages I have just mentioned: I mean the perpetual decrease in the value of gold and silver. I shall discourse upon these two different kinds with a view toward the bill now attempted.

As to the first: I cannot see how this kingdom is at any height of improvement, while four parts in five of the plantations for thirty years past have been real disimprovements; nine in ten of the quickset hedges being ruined for want of care or skill. And as to forest trees, they being often taken out of woods and planted in single rows on the tops of ditches, it is impossible they should grow to be of use, beauty, or shelter. Neither can it be said that the soil of Ireland is improved to its full height while so much lies all winter under water, and the bogs made almost desperate by the ill cutting of the turf. There has indeed been some little improvement in the manufactures of linen and woollen, although very short of perfection; but our trade was never in so low a condition : and as to agriculture, of which all wise nations have been so tender, the desolation made in the country by engrossing graziers, and the great yearly importation of corn from England, are lamentable instances under what discouragement it lies.

But notwithstanding all these mortifications, I suppose there is no well-wisher to his country without a little hope that in time the kingdom may be on a better foot in some of the articles above mentioned. But it would be hard if ecclesiastical bodies should be the only persons excluded from any share in public advantages, which yet can never happen without a greater share of profit to their tenants: if God sends rain equally upon the just and the unjust, why should those who wait at his altars, and are instructors of the people, be cut off from partaking in the general benefits of law or of nature?

But as this way of reasoning may seem to bear a more favorable eye to the clergy than perhaps will suit with the present disposition or fashion of the age, I shall therefore dwell more largely upon the second reason for the rise of land, which is the perpetual decrease of the value of gold and silver.

This may be observed from the course of the Roman history above 2000 years before those inexhaustible silver-mines of Potosi were

known. The value of an obolus, and of every other coin, between the time of Romulus and that of Augustus, gradually sunk above five parts in six, as appears by several passages out of the best authors. And yet the prodigious wealth of that state did not arise from the increase of bullion in the world by the discovery of new mines, but from a much more accidental cause, which was the spreading of their conquest, and thereby importing into Rome and Italy the riches of the east and west.

When the seat of empire was removed to Constantinople, the tide of money flowed that way without ever returning, and was scattered in Asia. But when that mighty empire was overthrown by the northern people, such a stop was put to all trade and commerce that vast sums of money were buried to escape the plundering of the conquerors, and what remained was carried off by those ravagers.

It were no difficult matter to compute the value of money in England during the Saxon reigns; but the monkish and other writers since the Conquest have put the matter in a clearer light by the several accounts they have given us of the value of corn and cattle in years of dearth and plenty. Every one knows that king John's whole portion before he came to the crown was but 50007., without a foot of land.

I have likewise seen the steward's account of an ancient noble family in England, written in Latin between 300 and 400 years ago, with the several prices of wine and victuals, to confirm my observations.

I have been at the trouble of computing (as others have done) the different values of money for about 400 years past. Henry duke of Lancaster, who lived about that period, founded an hospital at Leicester for a certain number of old men, charging his lands with a groat a-week to each for their maintenance, which is to this day duly paid them. In those times a penny was equal to ten-pence halfpenny and somewhat more than half a farthing in ours; which makes about eight-ninths difference.

This is plain also from the old custom upon many estates in England to let for leases of lives (renewable at pleasure), where the reserved rent is usually about 12d. in 17., which then was near the half real value: and although the fines be not fixed, yet the landlord gets altogether not above 3s. in 17., of the worth of his land; and the tenants are so wedded to this custom, that if the owner suffer three lives to expire, none of them will take a lease on other conditions; or, if he brings in a foreigner who will agree to pay a

reasonable rent, the other tenants, by all manner of injuries, will make that foreigner so uneasy that he must be forced to quit the farm; as the late earl of Bath felt by the experience of above 10,000l. loss.

The gradual decrease for about two hundred years after was not considerable, and therefore I do not rely on the account given by some historians, that Harry VII. left behind him 1,800,0007.; for although the West Indies were discovered before his death, and although he had the best talents and instruments for exacting money ever possessed by any prince since the time of Vespasian, (whom he resembled in many particulars,) yet I conceive that in his days the whole coin of England could hardly amount to such a sum. For, in the reign of Philip and Mary, Sir Thomas Cokayne, of Derbyshire, the best housekeeper of his quality in the county, allowed his lady 507. a-year for maintaining the family, 17. a year wages to each servant, and 27. to steward; as I was told by a person of quality who had seen the original account of his economy. Now this sum of 507., added to the advantages of a large domain, might be equal to about 5007. a-year at present, or somewhat more than four-fifths.

The great plenty of silver in England began in Queen Elizabeth's reign, when Drake and others took vast quantities of coin and bullion from the Spaniards, either upon their own American coasts or in their return to Spain. However, so much has been imported annually from that time to this, that the value of money in England and most parts of Europe is sunk above one half within the space of a hundred years, notwithstanding the great export of silver for about eighty years past to the East Indies, from whence it never returns. But gold, not being liable to the same accident, and by new discoveries growing every day more plentiful, seems in danger of becoming a drug.

This has been the progress of the value of money in former ages, and must of necessity continue so for the future, without some new invasion of Goths and Vandals, to destroy law, property, and religion, alter the very face of nature, and turn the world upside-down.

I must repeat that what I am to say upon the subject is intended only for the conviction of those among our own party who are true lovers of the church, and would be glad it should continue in a tolerable degree of prosperity to the end of the world.

The church is supposed to last for ever, both in its discipline and doctrine; which is a privilege common to every petty corporation, who must likewise observe the laws of their foundation. If a gen

tleman's estate, which now yields him 1000l. a-year, had been set for ever at the highest value, even in the flourishing days of king Charles II., would it now amount to above 4007. or 5007. at most? What if this had happened two or three hundred years ago; would the reserved rent at this day be any more than a small chiefry? Suppose the revenues of a bishop to have been under the same circumstances; could he now be able to perform works of hospitality and charity? Thus, if the revenues of a bishop be limited to 10007. a-year, how will his successor be in a condition to support his station with decency, when the same denomination of money shall not answer a half, a quarter, or an eighth part of the sum? which must unavoidably be the consequence of any bill to elude the limiting act whereby the church was preserved from utter ruin.

The same reason holds good in all corporations whatsoever, who cannot follow a more pernicious practice than that of granting perpetuities, for which many of them smart to this day; although the leaders among them are often so stupid as not to perceive it, or sometimes so knavish as to find their private account in cheating the community.

Several colleges in Oxford were aware of this growing evil about a hundred years ago; and instead of limiting their rents to a certain sum of money, prevailed with their tenants to pay the price of so many barrels of corn, to be valued as the market went at two seasons (as I remember) in the year. For a barrel of corn is of a real intrinsic value, which gold and silver are not: and by this invention these colleges have preserved a tolerable subsistence for their fellows and students to this day.

The present bishops will, indeed, be no sufferers by such a bill; because, their ages considered, they cannot expect to see any great decrease in the value of money; or at worst they can make it up in the fines, which will probably be greater than usual upon the change of leases into fee-farms or lives, or without the power of obliging their tenants to a real half value. And, as I cannot well blame them for taking such advantages, (considering the nature of human kind,) when the question is only whether the money shall be put into their own or another man's pocket, so they will never be excusable before God or man if they do not to their death oppose, declare and protest against, any such bill as must in its consequences complete the ruin of the church and of their own order in this kingdom.

If the fortune of a private person be diminished by the weakness or inadvertency of his ancestors in letting leases for ever at low

rents, the world lies open to his industry for purchasing more: but the church is barred by a dead hand; or, if it were otherwise, yet the custom of making bequests to it has been out of practice for almost two hundred years, and a great deal directly contrary has been its fortune.

I have been assured by a person of some consequence, to whom I am likewise obliged for the account of some other facts already related, that the late bishop of Salisbury [Dr. Burnet] (the greatest Whig of that bench in his days) confessed to him that the liberty which bishops in England have of letting leases for lives would in his opinion be one day the ruin of episcopacy there; and thought the church in this kingdom happy by the limitation act.

And have we not already found the effect of this different proceeding in both kingdoms? have not two English prelates quitted their peerage and seats in parliament, in a nation of freedom, for the sake of a more ample revenue even in this unhappy kingdom, rather than lie under the mortification of living below their dignity at home? for which, however, they cannot be justly censured. I know, indeed, some persons who offer as an argument for repealing the limiting bill, that it may in future ages prevent the practice of providing this kingdom with bishops from England, when the only temptation will be removed. And they allege that, as things have gone for some years past, gentlemen will grow discouraged from sending their sons to the university, and from suffering them tc enter into holy orders, when they are likely to languish under a curacy or small vicarage to the end of their lives: but this is all a vain imagination; for the decrease in the value of money will equally affect both kingdoms; and, besides, when bishoprics here grow too small to invite over men of credit and consequence, they will be left more fully to the disposal of a chief governor, who can never fail of some worthless illiterate chaplain, fond of a title and precedence. Thus will that whole bench, in an age or two, be composed of mean, ignorant, fawning gownmen, humble suppliants and dependants upon the court for a morsel of bread, and ready to serve every turn that shall be demanded from them, in hopes of getting some commendum tacked to their sees; which must then be the trade, as it is now too much in England, to the great discouragement of the inferior clergy. Neither is that practice without example among us.

It is now about eighty-five years since the passing of that limiting act, and there is but one instance in the memory of man of a bishop's lease broken upon the plea of not being statutable; which, in every.