I SHALL only add, that there is ground to believe fome men will endeavour to persuade the parliament to take this affair into confideration before all others; because it was the first thing done in the last feffion of the English parliament; and the bill having paft there almost without debate, they will make use of that as an argument why it should do so here. What the confiderations were which moved that parliament to do so, I will not presume to determine, neither is it my bufinefs; circumstances of affairs may be different in different nations: fure I am, that in this particular they are different, that a greater number of men, in proportion to the people in each nation, will fall under uneafy circumftances by fuch an act in Scotland, than has been found to have done in England.

THE

THE SECOND

DISCOURSE

Concerning the

AFFAIRS of SCOTLAND;

T

Written in the Year 1698.

HE affairs of which I have spoken in the preceding discourse, are fuch as the present conjuncture makes a proper fubject for the approaching feffion of parliament: but there are many other things which require no less their care, if the urgent and preffing diftreffes of the nation be confidered. I fhall therefore with all due refpect to the parliament offer my opinion concerning two, which I presume to be of that nature.

THE

THE first thing which I humbly and earnestly propose to that honourable court is, that they would take into their confideration the condition of fo many thousands of our people who are at this day dying for want of bread. And to perfuade them seriously to apply themselves to fo indispenfible a duty, they have all the inducements which those most powerful emotions of the foul, terror and compaffion, can produce. Because from unwholfome food diseases are

fo multiplied among the poor people, that

if fome courfe be not taken, this famine may very probably be followed by a plague; and then what man is there even of those who fit in parliament that can be fure he shall escape? And what man is there in this nation, if he have any compaffion, who must not grudge himself every nice bit in his and every delicate morfel he puts mouth, when he confiders that fo many are already dead, and so many at that minute ftruggling with death, not for want of bread but of grains, which I am credibly informed have been eaten by fome families, even

during the preceding years of fcarcity. And must not every unneceffary branch of our expence, or the leaft finery in our houses, clothes or equipage, reproach us with our barbarity, so long as people born with natural endowments, perhaps not inferior to our own, and fellow citizens, perish for want of things abfolutely neceffary to life?

BUT not to infift any more upon the representation of fo great a calamity, which if drawn in proper colours, and only according to the precife truth of things, must caft the minds of all honeft men into those convulfions which ought neceffarily to be compofed before they can calmly confider of a remedy; and because the particulars of this great distress are fufficiently known to all, I fhall proceed to fay, that though perhaps upon the great want of bread, occafioned by the continued bad feafons of this and the three preceding years, the evil greater and more preffing than at any time in our days, yet there have always been in Scotland fuch numbers of poor, as by no regulations could ever be orderly provided for;

be

for; and this country has always fwarmed with fuch numbers of idle vagabonds, as no laws could ever restrain. And indeed when I confidered the many excellent laws enacted by former parliaments for setting the poor to work, particularly those in the time of King James the fixth, with the claufes for putting them in execution,which to me feemed fuch as could not mifs of the end, and yet that nothing was obtained by them, I was amazed, and began to think upon the cafe of other nations in this particular, perfuaded that there was fome ftrange hidden root of this evil which could not be well discovered, unless by obferving the conduct of other governments. But upon reflection I found them all subject to the fame inconveniencies, and that in all the countries of Europe there were great numbers of poor, except in Holland, which I knew to proceed from their having the greatest share in the trade of the world. But this not being a remedy for every country, fince all cannot pretend to fo part in trade, and that two or three nations

great a

are