FALLING OF RENTS.
[AUBREY addressed to his friend Mr. Francis Lodwyck, merchant of
London, a project on the wool trade; proposing, amongst other things, a
duty on the importation of Spanish wool, with a view to raise the price
of English wool, and consequently the rent of land. (See the Note on
this subject in the preceding page.) Mr. Lodwyck’s letter in reply,
fully discussing the question, may be consulted in Aubrey’s manuscript
by any one interested in the subject It is inserted in the chapter now
under consideration; which contains also a printed pamphlet with the
following title:—“A Treatise on Wool, and the Manufacture of it; in a
letter to a friend: occasioned upon a discourse concerning the great
abatements and low value of lands. Wherein it is shewed how their worth
and value may be advanced by the improvement of the manufacture and
price of our English wooll. Together with the Presentment of the Grand
Jury of the County of Somerset at the General Quarter Sessions begun at
Brewton the 13th day of January 1684. London. Printed for William
Crooke, at the Green Dragon without Temple Bar. 1685.” (Sm. 4to. pp.
32.)—J. B.]
THE falling of rents is a consequence of the decay of the Turky-trade;
which is the principall cause of the falling of the price of wooll.
Another reason that conduces to the falling of the prices of wooll is
our women’s wearing so much silk and Indian ware as they doe. By these
meanes my farme at Chalke is worse by sixty pounds per annum than it
was before the civill warres.
The gentry living in London, and the dayly concourse of servants out of
the country to London, makes servants’ wages deare in the countrey, and
makes scarcity of labourers.
Sir William Petty told me, that when he was a boy a seeds-man had five
pounds per annum wages, and a countrey servant-maid between 30 and 40s.
wages. [40s. per ann. to a servant-maid is now, 1743, good wages in
Worcestershire.—MS. NOTE, ANONYMOUS.]
Memorandum. Great increase of sanfoine now, in most places fitt for
itt; improvements of meadowes by watering; ploughing up of the King’s
forrests and parkes, &c. But as to all these, as ten thousand pounds is
gained in the hill barren countrey, so the vale does lose as much,
which brings it to an equation.
The Indians doe worke for a penny a day; so their silkes are exceeding
cheap; and rice is sold in India for four pence per bushell.