I

Written in 1729.

AM very well pleased with the good opinion you express of me, and wish it were any way in my power to answer your expectations, for the service of my country. I have carefully read your several schemes and propofals, which you think should be offered to the parliament. 1 anfwer, I will affure you, that, in another place, I have known very good proposals rejected with contempt by public affemblies, merely because they were offered from without doors and your's perhaps might have the fame fate, ef pecially if handed into the public by me, who am not acquainted with three members, nor have the leaft intereft with one. My printers have been twice profecuted, to my great expence, on account of difcourfes I writ for the public fervice,

fervice, without the leaft reflection on parties or perfons; and the fuccefs I had in thofe of the Drapier, was not owing to my abilities, but to a lucky juncture, when the fuel was ready for the first hand that would be at the pains of kindling it. It is true, both thofe envenomed perfecutions were the workmanship of a judge, who is now gone to his own place *. But, let that be as it will, I am determined henceforth never to be the inftrument of leaving an innocent man at the mercy of that bench.

It is certain, there are feveral particulars relating to this kingdom, (I have mentioned a few of them in one of my Drapier's letters) which it were heartily to be wifhed that the Parliament would take under their confideration, fuch as will noways interfere with England, otherwise than to its advantage.

I

The firft I fhall mention, is touched at in a letter which I received from one of you, Gentle men, about the highways; which, indeed, are almost every-where. fcandalously neglected. know a very rich man in this city, a true lover and faver of his money, who being poffeffed of fome adjacent lands, hath been at great charge in repairing effectually the roads that lead to: them and hath affured me, that his lands are thereby advanced four or five fhillings an acre,. by which he gets treble intereft. But, generally fpeaking, all over the kingdom, the roads are deplorable

Lord Chief Justice Whitshed..

deplorable; and, what is more particularly bar barous, there is no fort of provifion made for travellers on foot; no, not near this city, except in a very few places, and in a moft wretched. manner: Whereas the English are fo particularly careful in this point, that you may travel there an hundred miles, with lefs inconvenience than one mile here. But, fince this may be thought too great a reformation, I shall only fpeak of roads for horses, carriages, and cattle.

Ireland is, I think, computed to be one third fmaller than England; yet by some natural difadvantages, it would not bear quite the fame proportion in value, with the fame encouragement. However, it hath so happened for many years paft, that it never arrived to above oneeleventh part in point of riches; and, of late, by the continual decrease of trade, and increase of abfentees, with other circumftances not here to be mentioned, hardly to a fifteenth part; at leaft, if my calculations be right, which I doubt are a little too favourable on our fide.

Now, fuppofing day-labour to be cheaper by one-half here than in England, and our roads, by the nature of our carriages, and the defolation of our country, to be not worn and beaten above one-eighth part fo much as thofe of England, which is a very moderate computation; I do not fee why the mending of them would be a greater burthen to this kingdom than to that.

There have been, I believe, twenty acts of parliament, in fix or seven years of the late

King*, for mending long tracts of impaffable ways in feveral counties of England, by erecting turnpikes, and receiving paffage-money in a manner that every body knows. If what I have advanced be true, it would be hard to give a reafon against the fame practice here, fince the neceffity is as great, the advantage in proportion perhaps much greater, the materials of ftone and gravel as eafy to be found, and the workmanship at least twice as cheap. Befides, the work may be done gradually, with allowances for the poverty of the nation, by so many perch a-year; but with a special care to encourage skill and diligence, and to prevent fraud in the undertakers, to which we are too liable, and which are not always confined to those of the meaner fort: But against these, no doubt, the wisdom of the nation may and will provide.

Another evil, which, in my opinion, deserves the public care, is the ill management of the bogs, the neglect whereof is a much greater mifchief to this kingdom than most people feem to be aware of.

It is allowed, indeed, by those who are esteemed most skilful in fuch matters, that the red fwelling moffy bog, whereof we have fo many large tracts in this island, is not by any means to be fully reduced; but the skirts, which are cowered with a green coat, eafily may, being not an accretion, or annual growth of mofs, like the other.

* King George the First.

Now

Now the landlords are generally fo careless, that they fuffer their tenants to cut their turf in these skirts, as well as the bog adjoined, whereby there is yearly loft a confiderable quantity of land throughout the kingdom, never to be recovered.

But this is not the greatest part of the mischief: For the main bog, although perhaps not reducible to natural foil, yet, by continuing large, deep, ftraight canals through the middle, cleanfed at proper times, as low as the channel or gravel, would become a secure fummer pasture; the margins might, with great profit and ornament, be filled with quickens, birch, and other trees proper for fuch a foil, and the canals be convenient for water-carriage, of the turf, which is now drawn upon fled-cars, with great expence, difficulty, and lofs of time, by reafon of the many turf-pits scattered irregularly through the bog, wherein great numbers of cattle are yearly drowned. And it hath been, I confefs, to me a matter of the greatest vexation as well as wonder, to think how any landlord could be fo abfurd as to fuffer fuch havock to be made.

All the acts for encouraging plantations of foreft-trees, are, I am told, extremely defective; which, with great fubmiffion, must have been owing to a defect of skill in the contrivers of them. In this climate, by the continual blowing of the Weft-fouth-weft wind, hardly any tree of value will come to perfection that is not

planted