These general Observations, and that Men eat, and drink, and laugh as they use to do, have encouraged me to try if I could also comfort others, being satisfied my self, that the Interest and Affairs of England are in no deplorable Condition.
The Method I take to do this, is not yet very usual; for instead of using only comparative and superlative Words, and intellectual Arguments, I have taken the course (as a Specimen of the Political Arithmetick I have long aimed at) to express my self in Terms of Number, Weight, or Measure; to use only Arguments of Sense, and to consider only such Causes, as have visible Foundations in Nature; leaving those that depend upon the mutable Minds, Opinions, Appetites, and Passions of particular Men, to the Consider- ation of others: Really professing my self as unable to speak satisfactorily upon those Grounds (if they may be call'd Grounds), as to foretel the cast of a Dye; to play well at Tennis, Billiards, or Bowles, (without long pradice,) by virtue of the most elaborate Conceptions that ever have been written De Projectilibus & Missilibus , or of the Angles of Incidence and Reflection.
Now the Observations or Positions expressed by Number, Weight, and Measure, upon which I bottom the ensuing Discourses, are either true, or not apparently false, and which if they are not already true, certain, and evident, yet may be made so by the Sovereign Power, Nam id certum est quod certum reddi potest , and if they are false, not so false as to destroy the Argument they are brought for; but at worst are sufficient as Suppositions to shew the way to that Know- ledge I aim at. And I have withal for the present confined my self to the Ten principal Conclusions hereafter particularly handled, which if they shall be judged material, and worthy of a better Discussion, I hope all ingenious and candid Persons will rectifie the Errors, Defects, and Imperfections, which probably may be found in any of the Positions, upon which these Ratiocinations were grounded. Nor would it misbecome Authority it self, to clear the Truth of those Matters which private Endeavours cannot reach to.
THE Principal Conclusions OF THIS TREATISE ARE, CHAP. I . That a small Country, and few People, may by their Situation, Trade, and Policy, be equivalent in Wealth and Strength, to afar greater People, and Territory. And particularly, How conveniences for Shipping, and Water Carriage, do most Eminently, and Fundamentally, conduce thereunto.
Chap. II . That some kind of Taxes, and Publick Levies, may rather increase than diminish the Common-Wealth.
Chap. III. That France cannot by reason of Natural and Perpetual Impediments, be more powerful at Sea, than the English, or Hol- landers.
Chap. IV. That the People, and Territories of the King of England, are Naturally near as considerable, for Wealth, and Strength, as those of France.
Chap. V. That the Impediments of Englands Greatness, are but contingent and removeable.
Chap. VI. That the Power and Wealth of England, hath increased above this forty years.
Chap. VII. That one tenth part, of the whole Expence, of the King of England's Subjects; is sufficient to maintain one hundred thousand Foot, thirty thousand Horse, and forty thousand Men at Sea, and to defray all other Charges, of the Government: both Ordinary and Extraordinary, if the same were regularly Taxed and Raised.
Chap. VIII. That there are spare Hands enough among the King of England's Subjects, to earn two Millions per annum, more than they now do, and there are Employments, ready, proper, and sufficient, for that purpose.
Chap. IX . That there is Mony sufficient to drive the Trade of the Nation.
Chap. X. That the King of England's Subjects, have Stock, competent, and convenient to drive the Trade of the whole Commercial World.
