increase ever so much, their price is not like to fall; since though
they cannot be called a monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one
person, yet they are in so few hands, and these are so rich, that as
they are not pressed to sell them sooner than they have a mind to it, so
they never do it till they have raised the price as high as possible.
And on the same account it is, that the other kinds of cattle are so
dear, because many villages being pulled down, and all country labour
being much neglected, there are none who make it their business to breed
them. The rich do not breed cattle as they do sheep, but buy them lean,
and at low prices; and after they have fattened them on their grounds,
sell them again at high rates. And I do not think that all the
inconveniences this will produce are yet observed; for as they sell the
cattle dear, so if they are consumed faster than the breeding countries
from which they are brought can afford them, then the stock must
decrease, and this must needs end in great scarcity; and by these means
this your island, which seemed as to this particular the happiest in the
world, will suffer much by the cursed avarice of a few persons; besides
this, the rising of corn makes all people lessen their families as much
as they can; and what can those who are dismissed by them do, but
either beg or rob? And to this last, a man of a great mind is much
sooner drawn than to the former. Luxury likewise breaks in apace upon
you, to set forward your poverty and misery; there is an excessive
vanity in apparel, and great cost in diet; and that not only in
noblemen's families, but even among tradesmen, among the farmers
themselves, and among all ranks of persons. You have also many infamous
houses, and besides those that are known, the taverns and alehouses are
no better; add to these, dice, cards, tables, foot-ball, tennis, and
quoits, in which money runs fast away; and those that are initiated into
them, must in the conclusion betake themselves to robbing for a supply.
Banish these plagues, and give orders that those who have dispeopled so