well as tenants are turned out of possessión by tricks or main force; or wearied by ill usage they sell at last. Thus men and women, married and single, old and young, with their poor and numerous families (for farming requireth many hands) are compelled to change their residence and know not whither to go. Their effects, little worth at best, they must sell for almost nothing. This little money is soon spent, and then what is left them but to steal and be hanged (God knoweth how justly) or to beg? If they do this, they are imprisoned as idle vagabonds, when they would gladly work, but can obtain no hire; for when no tillage remaineth, there is no need for the labour they have been bred to. One shepherd can tend a flock, which will graze acres that would employ many hands, were they in tillage.

• This likewise, in many places, raiseth the price of corn. And the price of wool is so risen, that the poor, who used to make cloth, are no longer able to buy it, which also leaveth many of them idle. For, since the increase of pasture, the Almighty hath punished the avarice of the land occupiers, by a rot among the sheep, which hath destroyed vast numbers of them. To us it might have appeared more just, had it fallen on the occupiers themselves.

But should the sheep increase ever so much in number, their price will not fall. They are in so few and such powerful hands, that they will never be sold till the price is raised as high as possible. On the same account other VOL. II. E

cattle are so dear. Many villages being destroyed and farming neglected, none make it their business to breed them. The rich breed them not as they do sheep, but buy them lean at low prices, fatten them on their own grounds, and sell them at high rates. I do not believe that all the inconveniencies of this mode are yet observed. For they sell the cattle dear, and if they be consumed faster than the countries where they are bred can supply them, the stock must decrease and great scarcity ensue; and thus your island, which seemed in this particular the happiest place in the world, may suffer much by the cursed avarice of a few.

Moreover, the increased price of corn maketh all lessen their families as much as they can, and what can the dismissed do but beg or rob? to which latter a great mind is sooner driven than to the former. Luxury likewise breaketh in apace upon you, to promote your poverty and misery. Excessive vanity in apparel prevaileth, and extravagance in diet. And this not only in noble families, but even among tradesmen; among the farmers themselves, and among all ranks. You have also many infamous houses; and, exclusively of those which are known to be such, your taverns and ale-houses are no better. To these add cards, dice, &c. in which money quickly disappeareth, and the initiated must in the end betake themselves to robbery for a supply.

• Banish these evils. Command those who have dis

peopled so many acres, to rebuild the villages they have destroyed, or to let their lands to those who will do so. Restrain those engrossings of the rich, nearly as bad as monopolies. Leave fewer occasions to idleness, restore agriculture, and regulate the manufacture of wool; that employment may be found for those whom want compelleth to be thieves, or who being now idle vagabonds or useless servants will become thieves at last. If you find not a remedy for these evils, it is vain to boast of your severity in punishing theft; which, though it may wear the appearance of justice, is neither just nor salutary. For if you educate your people ill, and corrupt their manners from their infancy, then punish them for crimes to which they are disposed by education, what is it but to make thieves, and then punish them for being such?"

• While I was speaking, the counsellor was preparing an answer, and intended to recapitulate my discourse with all the formality of debate; on which occasion remarks are generally repeated with more fidelity than they are answered, as if strength of memory were the chief trial.

You have talked prettily for a stranger (said he), who hath heard of many things among us which he hath not been able duly to consider. But I will explain the whole matter to you, first repeating in due order all you have said. I will then shew you how much your ignorance of our polity hath misled you, and will, lastly, answer all yourTM

arguments. That I may begin where I promised: there were four things—'

Hold your peace (cried the cardinal) this will take up too much time. We will therefore, for the present, save you the trouble of answering, and will reserve this for our next meeting, which shall be to-morrow, if Raphael's and your business will allow of it.

But, Raphael, (said the cardinal to me) I would know on what ground you think that theft ought not to be punished with death. Would you give way to it, or propose any other punishment more useful to the public? Since death doth not restrain theft, what terror or force could restrain the wicked if they thought their lives safe? Would they not feel the mitigation as an invitation to more crimes?'

It seemeth very unjust to me (I replied) to take away life for a little money, for nothing can be of equal value with life. And if it be said, that the suffering is not for the money, but for the breach of the law, I answer, extreme justice is an extreme injury. For we ought not to approve of those terrible laws, which make the smallest offences capital, nor of that opinion of the stoics which maketh all crimes equal: as if no difference were to be made between killing a man and taking his purse, between which, in reality, there is the greatest disproportion.

God hath commanded us not to kill; shall we then kill for a little money? And if it be said, the command extendeth not to cases where the laws of the land allow of killing, on the same ground laws may be made in some cases to allow of perjury and adultery. God having taken from us the right of disposing either of our own lives or those of others, if it be pretended that the mutual consent of mankind in framing laws, can authorize death in cases where God hath given us no example, that it supersedeth the obligation of the divine law, and maketh murder lawful, what is this but to prefer human to divine laws? Admit this, and men may in all cases lay what restrictions they please on God's laws.

If by the Mosaical law, though severe, being made for a stubborn people, fine, and not death, was the punishment for theft, we cannot imagine that in our new and merciful law, in which God treateth us with the tenderness of a father, he hath allowed of greater cruelty than to the Jews.

On these grounds it is, that I think putting thieves to death, not lawful. And it is obviously absurd, and prejudicial to the commonwealth, that theft and murder should be punished alike. For, if a robber find that his danger is the same, if he be convicted of theft as if he had been guilty of murder, he will be incited to kill the person whom otherwise he would only have robbed; since, the punishment being the same, there is less danger of discovery,