An Essay Upon Projects Read online

Dr. Annesley, and by his advice sent to the Academy at Newington

  Green, where Charles Morton, a good Oxford scholar, trained young

  men for the pulpits of the Nonconformists. In later days, when

  driven to America by the persecution of opinion, Morton became Vice-

  President of Harvard College. Charles Morton sought to include in

  his teaching at Newington Green a training in such knowledge of

  current history as would show his boys the origin and meaning of the

  controversies of the day in which, as men, they might hereafter take

  their part. He took pains, also, to train them in the use of

  English. "We were not," Defoe said afterwards, "destitute of

  language, but we were made masters of English; and more of us

  excelled in that particular than of any school at that time."

  Daniel Foe did not pass on into the ministry for which he had been

  trained. He said afterwards, in his "Review," "It was my disaster

  first to be set apart for, and then to be set apart from, the honour

  of that sacred employ." At the age of about nineteen he went into

  business as a hose factor in Freeman's Court, Cornhill. He may have

  bought succession to a business, or sought to make one in a way of

  life that required no capital. He acted simply as broker between

  the manufacturer and the retailer. He remained at the business in

  Freeman's Court for seven years, subject to political distractions.

  In 1683, still in the reign of Charles the Second, Daniel Foe, aged

  twenty-two, published a pamphlet called "Presbytery Roughdrawn."

  Charles died on the 6th of February, 1685. On the 14th of the next

  June the Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme with eighty-three

  followers, hoping that Englishmen enough would flock about his

  standard to overthrow the Government of James the Second, for whose

  exclusion, as a Roman Catholic, from the succession to the throne

  there had been so long a struggle in his brother's reign. Daniel

  Foe took leave of absence from his business in Freeman's Court,

  joined Monmouth, and shared the defeat at Sedgmoor on the 6th of

  July. Judge Jeffreys then made progress through the West, and

  Daniel Foe escaped from his clutches. On the 15th of July Monmouth

  was executed. Daniel Foe found it convenient at that time to pay

  personal attention to some business affairs in Spain. His name

  suggests an English reading of a Spanish name, Foa, and more than

  once in his life there are indications of friends in Spain about

  whom we know nothing. Daniel Foe went to Spain in the time of

  danger to his life, for taking part in the rebellion of the Duke of

  Monmouth, and when he came back he wrote himself De Foe. He may

  have heard pedigree discussed among his Spanish friends; he may have

  wished to avoid drawing attention to a name entered under the letter

  F in a list of rebels. He may have played on the distinction

  between himself and his father, still living, that one was Mr. Foe,

  the other Mr. D. Foe. He may have meant to write much, and wishing

  to be a friend to his country, meant also to deprive punsters of the

  opportunity of calling him a Foe. Whatever his chief reason for the

  change, we may be sure that it was practical.

  In April, 1687, James the Second issued a Declaration for Liberty of

  Conscience in England, by which he suspended penal laws against all

  Roman Catholics and Nonconformists, and dispensed with oaths and

  tests established by the law. This was a stretch of the king's

  prerogative that produced results immediately welcome to the

  Nonconformists, who sent up addresses of thanks. Defoe saw clearly

  that a king who is thanked for overruling an unwelcome law has the

  whole point conceded to him of right to overrule the law. In that

  sense he wrote, "A Letter containing some Reflections on His

  Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience," to warn the

  Nonconformists of the great mistake into which some were falling.

  "Was ever anything," he asked afterwards, "more absurd than this

  conduct of King James and his party, in wheedling the Dissenters;

  giving them liberty of conscience by his own arbitrary dispensing

  authority, and his expecting they should be content with their

  religious liberty at the price of the Constitution?" In the letter

  itself he pointed out that "the king's suspending of laws strikes at

  the root of this whole Government, and subverts it quite. The Lords

  and Commons have such a share in it, that no law can be either made,

  repealed, or, which is all one, suspended, but by their consent."

  In January, 1688, Defoe having inherited the freedom of the City of

  London, took it up, and signed his name in the Chamberlain's book,

  on the 26th of that month, without the "de," "Daniel Foe." On the

  5th of November, 1688, there was another landing, that of William of

  Orange, in Torbay, which threatened the government of James the

  Second. Defoe again rode out, met the army of William at Henley-on-

  Thames, and joined its second line as a volunteer. He was present

  when it was resolved, on the 13th of February, 1689, that the flight

  of James had been an abdication; and he was one of the mounted

  citizens who formed a guard of honour when William and Mary paid

  their first visit to Guildhall.

  Defoe was at this time twenty-eight years old, married, and living

  in a house at Tooting, where he had also been active in foundation

  of a chapel. From hose factor he had become merchant adventurer in

  trade with Spain, and is said by one writer of his time to have been

  a "civet-cat merchant." Failing then in some venture in 1692, he

  became bankrupt, and had one vindictive creditor who, according to

  the law of those days, had power to shut him in prison, and destroy

  all power of recovering his loss and putting himself straight with

  the world. Until his other creditors had conquered that one enemy,

  and could give him freedom to earn money again and pay his debts--

  when that time came he proved his sense of honesty to much larger

  than the letter of the law--Defoe left London for Bristol, and there

  kept out of the way of arrest. He was visible only on Sunday, and

  known, therefore, as "the Sunday Gentleman." His lodging was at the

  Red Lion Inn, in Castle Street. The house, no longer an inn, still

  stands, as numbers 80 and 81 in that street. There Defoe wrote this

  Essay on Projects." He was there until 1694, when he received

  offers that would have settled him prosperously in business at

  Cadiz, but he held by his country. The cheek on free action was

  removed, and the Government received with favour a project of his,

  which is not included in the Essay, "for raising money to supply the

  occasions of the war then newly begun." He had also a project for

  the raising of money to supply his own occasions by the

  establishment of pantile works, which proved successful. Defoe

  could not be idle. In a desert island he would, like his Robinson

  Crusoe, have spent time, not in lamentation, but in steady work to

  get away.

  H. M.

  AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

  TO DALBY THOMAS,
ESQ., One of the Commission's for Managing His

  majesty's Duties on Glass, &c

  SIR,

  This Preface comes directed to you, not as commissioner, &c., under

  whom I have the honour to serve his Majesty, nor as a friend, though

  I have great obligations of that sort also, but as the most proper

  judge of the subjects treated of, and more capable than the greatest

  part of mankind to distinguish and understand them.

  Books are useful only to such whose genius are suitable to the

  subject of them; and to dedicate a book of projects to a person who

  had never concerned himself to think that way would be like music to

  one that has no ear.

  And yet your having a capacity to judge of these things no way

  brings you under the despicable title of a projector, any more than

  knowing the practices and subtleties of wicked men makes a man

  guilty of their crimes.

  The several chapters of this book are the results of particular

  thoughts occasioned by conversing with the public affairs during the

  present war with France. The losses and casualties which attend all

  trading nations in the world, when involved in so cruel a war as

  this, have reached us all, and I am none of the least sufferers; if

  this has put me, as well as others, on inventions and projects, so

  much the subject of this book, it is no more than a proof of the

  reason I give for the general projecting humour of the nation.

  One unhappiness I lie under in the following book, viz.: That

  having kept the greatest part of it by me for near five years,

  several of the thoughts seem to be hit by other hands, and some by

  the public, which turns the tables upon me, as if I had borrowed

  from them.

  As particularly that of the seamen, which you know well I had

  contrived long before the Act for registering seamen was proposed.

  And that of educating women, which I think myself bound to declare,

  was formed long before the book called "Advice to the Ladies" was

  made public; and yet I do not write this to magnify my own

  invention, but to acquit myself from grafting on other people's

  thoughts. If I have trespassed upon any person in the world, it is

  upon yourself, from whom I had some of the notions about county

  banks, and factories for goods, in the chapter of banks; and yet I

  do not think that my proposal for the women or the seamen clashes at

  all, either with that book, or the public method of registering

  seamen.

  I have been told since this was done that my proposal for a

  commission of inquiries into bankrupt estates is borrowed from the

  Dutch; if there is anything like it among the Dutch, it is more than

  ever I knew, or know yet; but if so, I hope it is no objection

  against our having the same here, especially if it be true that it

  would be so publicly beneficial as is expressed.

  What is said of friendly societies, I think no man will dispute with

  me, since one has met with so much success already in the practice

  of it. I mean the Friendly Society for Widows, of which you have

  been pleased to be a governor.

  Friendly societies are very extensive, and, as I have hinted, might

  be carried on to many particulars. I have omitted one which was

  mentioned in discourse with yourself, where a hundred tradesmen, all

  of several trades, agree together to buy whatever they want of one

  another, and nowhere else, prices and payments to be settled among

  themselves; whereby every man is sure to have ninety-nine customers,

  and can never want a trade; and I could have filled up the book with

  instances of like nature, but I never designed to fire the reader

  with particulars.

  The proposal of the pension office you will soon see offered to the

  public as an attempt for the relief of the poor; which, if it meets

  with encouragement, will every way answer all the great things I

  have said of it.

  I had wrote a great many sheets about the coin, about bringing in

  plate to the Mint, and about our standard; but so many great heads

  being upon it, with some of whom my opinion does not agree, I would

  not adventure to appear in print upon that subject.

  Ways and means also I have laid by on the same score: only adhering

  to this one point, that be it by taxing the wares they sell, be it

  by taxing them in stock, be it by composition--which, by the way, I

  believe is the best--be it by what way soever the Parliament please,

  the retailers are the men who seem to call upon us to be taxed; if

  not by their own extraordinary good circumstances, though that might

  bear it, yet by the contrary in all other degrees of the kingdom.

  Besides, the retailers are the only men who could pay it with least

  damage, because it is in their power to levy it again upon their

  customers in the prices of their goods, and is no more than paying a

  higher rent for their shops.

  The retailers of manufactures, especially so far as relates to the

  inland trade, have never been taxed yet, and their wealth or number

  is not easily calculated. Trade and land has been handled roughly

  enough, and these are the men who now lie as a reserve to carry on

  the burden of the war.

  These are the men who, were the land tax collected as it should be,

  ought to pay the king more than that whole Bill ever produced; and

  yet these are the men who, I think I may venture to say, do not pay

  a twentieth part in that Bill.

  Should the king appoint a survey over the assessors, and indict all

  those who were found faulty, allowing a reward to any discoverer of

  an assessment made lower than the literal sense of the Act implies,

  what a register of frauds and connivances would be found out!

  In a general tax, if any should be excused, it should be the poor,

  who are not able to pay, or at least are pinched in the necessary

  parts of life by paying. And yet here a poor labourer, who works

  for twelve pence or eighteen pence a day, does not drink a pot of

  beer but pays the king a tenth part for excise; and really pays more

  to the king's taxes in a year than a country shopkeeper, who is

  alderman of the town, worth perhaps two or three thousand pounds,

  brews his own beer, pays no excise, and in the land-tax is rated it

  may be at 100 pounds, and pays 1 pound 4s. per annum, but ought, if

  the Act were put in due execution, to pay 36 pounds per annum to the

  king.

  If I were to be asked how I would remedy this, I would answer, it

  should be by some method in which every man may be taxed in the due

  proportion to his estate, and the Act put in execution, according to

  the true intent and meaning of it, in order to which a commission of

  assessment should be granted to twelve men, such as his Majesty

  should be well satisfied of, who should go through the whole

  kingdom, three in a body, and should make a new assessment of

  personal estates, not to meddle with land.

  To these assessors should all the old rates, parish books, poor

  rates, and highway rates, also be delivered; and upon due inquiry to

  be made into the manner of living, an
d reputed wealth of the people,

  the stock or personal estate of every man should be assessed,

  without connivance; and he who is reputed to be worth a thousand

  pounds should be taxed at a thousand pounds, and so on; and he who

  was an overgrown rich tradesman of twenty or thirty thousand pounds

  estate should be taxed so, and plain English and plain dealing be

  practised indifferently throughout the kingdom; tradesmen and landed

  men should have neighbours' fare, as we call it, and a rich man

  should not be passed by when a poor man pays.

  We read of the inhabitants of Constantinople, that they suffered

  their city to be lost for want of contributing in time for its

  defence, and pleaded poverty to their generous emperor when he went

  from house to house to persuade them; and yet when the Turks took

  it, the prodigious immense wealth they found in it, made them wonder

  at the sordid temper of the citizens.

  England (with due exceptions to the Parliament, and the freedom

  wherewith they have given to the public charge) is much like

  Constantinople; we are involved in a dangerous, a chargeable, but

  withal a most just and necessary war, and the richest and moneyed

  men in the kingdom plead poverty; and the French, or King James, or

  the devil may come for them, if they can but conceal their estates

  from the public notice, and get the assessors to tax them at an

  under rate.

  These are the men this commission would discover; and here they

  should find men taxed at 500 pounds stock who are worth 20,000

  pounds. Here they should find a certain rich man near Hackney rated

  to-day in the tax-book at 1,000 pounds stock, and to-morrow offering

  27,000 pounds for an estate.

  Here they should find Sir J- C- perhaps taxed to the king at 5,000

  pounds stock, perhaps not so much, whose cash no man can guess at;

  and multitudes of instances I could give by name without wrong to

  the gentlemen.

  And, not to run on in particulars, I affirm that in the land-tax ten

  certain gentlemen in London put together did not pay for half so

  much personal estate, called stock, as the poorest of them is

  reputed really to possess.

  I do not inquire at whose door this fraud must lie; it is none of my

  business.

  I wish they would search into it whose power can punish it. But

  this, with submission, I presume to say: The king is thereby

  defrauded and horribly abused, the true intent and meaning of Acts

  of Parliament evaded, the nation involved in debt by fatal

  deficiencies and interests, fellow-subjects abused, and new

  inventions for taxes occasioned.

  The last chapter in this book is a proposal about entering all the

  seamen in England into the king's pay--a subject which deserves to

  be enlarged into a book itself; and I have a little volume of

  calculations and particulars by me on that head, but I thought them

  too long to publish. In short, I am persuaded, was that method

  proposed to those gentlemen to whom such things belong, the greatest

  sum of money might be raised by it, with the least injury to those

  who pay it, that ever was or will be during the war.

  Projectors, they say, are generally to be taken with allowance of

  one-half at least; they always have their mouths full of millions,

  and talk big of their own proposals. And therefore I have not

  exposed the vast sums my calculations amount to; but I venture to

  say I could procure a farm on such a proposal as this at three

  millions per annum, and give very good security for payment--such an

  opinion I have of the value of such a method; and when that is done,

  the nation would get three more by paying it, which is very strange,

  but might easily be made out.

  In the chapter of academies I have ventured to reprove the vicious

  custom of swearing. I shall make no apology for the fact, for no

  man ought to be ashamed of exposing what all men ought to be ashamed

  of practising. But methinks I stand corrected by my own laws a