price is not likely 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 ale-houses are
no better; add to these dice, cards, tables, football, 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
much soil may either rebuild the villages they have pulled down or let