In consideration of this, every seaman subscribing to the society shall agree to pay to the receipt of the said office his quota of the sum to be paid whenever, and as often as, such claims are made, the claims to be entered into the office and upon sufficient proof made, the governors to regulate the division and publish it in print.
For example, suppose 4,000 seamen subscribe to this society, and after six months—for no man should claim sooner than six months—a merchant’s ship having engaged a privateer, there comes several claims together, as thus—
A was wounded and lost one leg
£50
B blown up with powder, and has lost an eye
25
C had a great shot took off his arm
100
D with a splinter had an eye struck out
25
E was killed with a great shot; to be paid to his wife
50
£250
The governors hereupon settle the claims of these persons, and make publication “that whereas such and such seamen, members of the society, have in an engagement with a French privateer been so and so hurt, their claims upon the office, by the rules and agreement of the said office, being adjusted by the governors, amounts to £250, which, being equally divided among the subscribers, comes to 1s. 3d. each, which all persons that are subscribers to the said office are desired to pay in for their respective subscriptions, that the said wounded persons may be relieved accordingly, as they expect to be relieved if the same or the like casualty should befall them.â€
It is but a small matter for a man to contribute, if he gave 1s. 3d. out of his wages to relieve five wounded men of his own fraternity; but at the same time to be assured that if he is hurt or maimed he shall have the same relief, is a thing so rational that hardly anything but a hare-brained follow, that thinks of nothing, would omit entering himself into such an office.
I shall not enter further into this affair, because perhaps I may give the proposal to some persons who may set it on foot, and then the world may see the benefit of it by the execution.
The same method of friendly society, I conceive, would be a very proper proposal for widows.
We have abundance of women, who have been bred well and lived well, ruined in a few years, and perhaps left young with a houseful of children and nothing to support them, which falls generally upon the wives of the inferior clergy, or of shopkeepers and artificers.
They marry wives with perhaps £300 to £1,000 portion, and can settle no jointure upon them. Either they are extravagant and idle, and waste it; or trade decays; or losses or a thousand contingencies happen to bring a tradesman to poverty, and he breaks. The poor young woman, it may be, has three or four children, and is driven to a thousand shifts, while he lies in the Mint or Friars under the dilemma of a statute of bankruptcy; but if he dies, then she is absolutely undone, unless she has friends to go to.
Suppose an office to be erected, to be called an office of insurance for widows, upon the following conditions:
Two thousand women, or their husbands for them, enter their names into a register to be kept for that purpose, with the names, age, and trade of their husbands, with the place of their abode, paying at the time of their entering 5s. down with 1s. 4d. per quarter, which is to the setting up and support of an office with clerks and all proper officers for the same; for there is no maintaining such without charge. They receive every one of them a certificate sealed by the secretary of the office, and signed by the governors, for the articles hereafter mentioned:
If any one of the women become a widow at any time after six months from the date of her subscription, upon due notice given, and claim made at the office in form as shall be directed, she shall receive within six mouths after such claim made the sum of £500 in money without any deductions, saving some small fees to the officers, which the trustees must settle, that they may be known.
In consideration of this, every woman so subscribing obliges herself to pay, as often as any member of the society becomes a widow, the due proportion or share, allotted to her to pay towards the £500 for the said widow, provided her share does not exceed the sum of 5s.
No seamen’s or soldiers’ wives to be accepted into such a proposal as this, on the account before mentioned, because the contingencies of their lives are not equal to others—unless they will admit this general exception, supposing they do not die out of the kingdom.
It might also be an exception that if the widow that claimed had really,bonâ fide, left her by her husband to her own use, clear of all debts and legacies, £2,000, she should have no claim, the intent being to aid the poor, not add to the rich. But there lie a great many objections against such an article, as—
1. It may tempt some to forswear themselves.
2. People will order their wills so as to defraud the exception.
One exception must be made, and that is, either very unequal matches (as when a woman of nineteen marries an old man of seventy), or women who have infirm husbands—I mean, known and publicly so; to remedy which two things are to be done:
1. The office must have moving officers without doors, who shall inform themselves of such matters, and if any such circumstances appear, the office should have fourteen days’ time to return their money and declare their subscriptions void.
2. No woman whose husband had any visible distemper should claim under a year after her subscription.
One grand objection against this proposal is, how you will oblige people to pay either their subscription or their quarterage.
To this I answer, by no compulsion (though that might be performed too), but altogether voluntary; only with this argument to move it, that if they do not continue their payments, they lose the benefit of their past contributions.
I know it lies as a fair objection against such a project as this, that the number of claims are so uncertain that nobody knows what they engage in when they subscribe, for so many may die annually out of two thousand as may make my payment £20 or £25 per annum; and if a woman happen to pay that for twenty years, though she receives the £500 at last, she is a great loser; but if she dies before her husband, she has lessened his estate considerably, and brought a great loss upon him.
First, I say to this that I would have such a proposal as this be so fair and so easy, that if any person who had subscribed found the payments too high and the claims fall too often, it should be at their liberty at any time, upon notice given, to be released, and stand obliged no longer; and, if so,volenti non fit injuria. Every one knows best what their own circumstances will bear.
In the next place, because death is a contingency no man can directly calculate, and all that subscribe must take the hazard; yet that a prejudice against this notion may not be built on wrong grounds, let us examine a little the probable hazard, and see how many shall die annually out of 2,000 subscribers, accounting by the common proportion of burials to the number of the living.
Sir William Petty, in his political arithmetic, by a very ingenious calculation, brings the account of burials in London to be one in forty annually, and proves it by all the proper rules of proportioned computation; and I will take my scheme from thence.
If, then, one in forty of all the people in England die, that supposes fifty to die every year out of our two thousand subscribers; and for a woman to contribute 5s. to every one, would certainly be to agree to pay £12 10s. per annum. upon her husband’s life, to receive £500 when he died, and lose it if she died first; and yet this would not be a hazard beyond reason too great for the gain.
But I shall offer some reasons to prove this to be impossible in our case: first, Sir William Petty allows the city of London to contain about a million of people, and our yearly bill of mortality never yet amounted to 25,000 in the most sickly years we have had (plague years excepted); sometimes but to 20,000, which is but one in fifty. Now it is to be considered here that children and ancient people make up, one time with another, at least one-third of our bills of mortality, and our assurances lie upon none but the middling age of the people, which is the only age wherein life is anything steady; and if that be allowed, there cannot die by his computation above one in eighty of such people every year; but because I would be sure to leave room for casualty, I will allow one in fifty shall die out of our number subscribed.
Secondly, it must be allowed that our payments falling due only on the death of husbands, this one in fifty must not be reckoned upon the two thousand, for it is to be supposed at least as many women shall die as men, and then there is nothing to pay; so that one in fifty upon one thousand is the most that I can suppose shall claim the contribution in a year, which is twenty claims a year at 5s. each, and is £5 per annum. And if a woman pays this for twenty years, and claims at last, she is gainer enough, and no extraordinary loser if she never claims at all. And I verily believe any office might undertake to demand at all adventures not above £6 per annum, and secure the subscriber £500 in case she come to claim as a widow.
I forbear being more particular on this thought, having occasion to be larger in other prints, the experiment being resolved upon by some friends who are pleased to think this too useful a project not to be put in execution, and therefore I refer the reader to the public practice of it.
I have named these two cases as special experiments of what might be done by assurances in way of friendly society; and I believe I might, without arrogance, affirm that the same thought might be improved into methods that should prevent the general misery and poverty of mankind, and at once secure us against beggars, parish poor, almshouses, and hospitals; and by which not a creature so miserable or so poor but should claim subsistence as their due, and not ask it of charity.
I cannot believe any creature so wretchedly base as to beg of mere choice, but either it must proceed from want or sordid prodigious covetousness; and thence I affirm there can be no beggar but he ought to be either relieved or punished, or both. If a man begs for more covetousness without want, it is a baseness of soul so extremely sordid as ought to be used with the utmost contempt, and punished with the correction due to a dog. If he begs for want, that want is procured by slothfulness and idleness, or by accident; if the latter, he ought to be relieved; if the former, he ought to be punished for the cause, but at the same time relieved also, for no man ought to starve, let his crime be what it will.
I shall proceed, therefore, to a scheme by which all mankind, be he never so mean, so poor, so unable, shall gain for himself a just claim to a comfortable subsistence whosoever age or casualty shall reduce him to a necessity of making use of it. There is a poverty so far from being despicable that it is honourable, when a man by direct casualty, sudden Providence, and without any procuring of his own, is reduced to want relief from others, as by fire, shipwreck, loss of limbs, and the like.
These are sometimes so apparent that they command the charity of others; but there are also many families reduced to decay whose conditions are not so public, and yet their necessities as great. Innumerable circumstances reduce men to want; and pressing poverty obliges some people to make their cases public, or starve; and from thence came the custom of begging, which sloth and idleness has improved into a trade. But the method I propose, thoroughly put in practice, would remove the cause, and the effect would cease of course.
Want of consideration is the great reason why people do not provide in their youth and strength for old age and sickness; and the ensuing proposal is, in short, only this—that all persons in the time of their health and youth, while they are able to work and spare it, should lay up some small inconsiderable part of their gettings as a deposit in safe hands, to lie as a store in bank to relieve them, if by age or accident they come to be disabled, or incapable to provide for themselves; and that if God so bless them that they nor theirs never come to need it, the overplus may be employed to relieve such as shall.
If an office in the same nature with this were appointed in every county in England, I doubt not but poverty might easily be prevented, and begging wholly suppressed.
Thatan office be erected in some convenient place, where shall be a secretary, a clerk, and a searcher, always attending.
That all sorts of people who are labouring people and of honest repute, of what calling or condition soever, men or women (beggars and soldiers excepted), who, being sound of their limbs and under fifty years of age, shall come to the said office and enter their names, trades, and places of abode into a register to be kept for that purpose, and shall pay down at the time of the said entering the sum of sixpence, and from thence one shilling per quarter, shall every one have an assurance under the seal of the said office for these following conditions:
1. Every such subscriber, if by any casualty (drunkenness and quarrels excepted) they break their limbs, dislocate joints, or are dangerously maimed or bruised, able surgeons appointed for that purpose shall take them into their care, and endeavour their cure gratis.
2. If they are at any time dangerously sick, on notice given to the said office able physicians shall be appointed to visit them, and give their prescriptions gratis.
3. If by sickness or accident, as aforesaid, they lose their limbs or eyes, so as to be visibly disabled to work, and are otherwise poor and unable to provide for themselves, they shall either be cured at the charge of the office, or be allowed a pension for subsistence during life.
4. If they become lame, aged, bedrid, or by real infirmity of body are unable to work, and otherwise incapable to provide for themselves, on proof made that it is really and honestly so they shall be taken into a college or hospital provided for that purpose, and be decently maintained during life.
5. If they are seamen, and die abroad on board the merchants’ ships they were employed in, or are cast away and drowned, or taken and die in slavery, their widows shall receive a pension during their widowhood.
6. If they were tradesmen and paid the parish rates, if by decay and failure of trade they break and are put in prison for debt, they shall receive a pension for subsistence during close imprisonment.
7. If by sickness or accidents they are reduced to extremities of poverty for a season, on a true representation to the office they shall be relieved as the governors shall see cause.
It is to be noted that in the fourth article such as by sickness and age are disabled from work, and poor, shall be taken into the house and provided for; whereas in the third article they who are blind or have lost limbs, &c., shall have pensions allowed them.
The reason of this difference is this:
A poor man or woman that has lost his hand, or leg, or sight, is visibly disabled, and we cannot be deceived; whereas other infirmities are not so easily judged of, and everybody would be claiming a pension, when but few will demand being taken into a hospital but such as are really in want.
And that this might be managed with such care and candour as a design which carries so good a face ought to be, I propose the following method for putting it into practice:
I suppose every undertaking of such a magnitude must have some principal agent to push it forward, who must manage and direct everything, always with direction of the governors.
And first I will suppose one general office erected for the great parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel; and as I shall lay down afterwards some methods to oblige all people to come in and subscribe, so I may be allowed to suppose here that all the inhabitants of those two large parishes (the meaner labouring sort, I mean) should enter their names, and that the number of them should be 100,000, as I believe they would be at least.
First, there should be named fifty of the principal inhabitants of the said parishes (of which the church-wardens for the time being, and all the justices of the peace dwelling in the bounds of the said parish, and the ministers resident for the time being, to be part) to be governors of the said office.
The said fifty to be first nominated by the Lord Mayor of London for the time being, and every vacancy to be supplied in ten days at farthest by the majority of voices of the rest.
The fifty to choose a committee of eleven, to sit twice a week, of whom three to be a quorum; with a chief governor, a deputy-governor, and a treasurer.
In the office, a secretary with clerks of his own, a registrar and two clerks, four searchers, a messenger (one in daily attendance under salary), a physician, a surgeon, and four visitors.
In the hospital, more or less (according to the number of people entertained), a housekeeper, a steward, nurses, a porter, and a chaplain.
For the support of this office, and that the deposit money might go to none but the persons and uses for whom it is paid, and that it might not be said officers and salaries was the chief end of the undertaking (as in many a project it has been), I propose that the manager or undertaker, whom I mentioned before, be the secretary, who shall have a clerk allowed him, whose business it shall be to keep the register, take the entries, and give out the tickets (sealed by the governors and signed by himself), and to enter always the payment of quarterage of every subscriber. And that there may be no fraud or connivance, and too great trust be not reposed in the said secretary, every subscriber who brings his quarterage is to put it into a great chest, locked up with eleven locks, every member of the committee to keep a key, so that it cannot be opened but in the presence of them all; and every time a subscriber pays his quarterage, the secretary shall give him a sealed ticket thus [Christmas 96] which shall be allowed as the receipt of quarterage for that quarter.
Note.—The reason why every subscriber shall take a receipt or ticket for his quarterage is because this must be the standing law of the office—that if any subscribers fail to pay their quarterage, they shall never claim after it until double so much be paid, nor not at all that quarter, whatever befalls them.
The secretary should be allowed to have 2d. for every ticket of entry he gives out, and ld. for every receipt he gives for quarterage, to be accounted for as follows:
One-third to himself in lieu of salary, he being to pay three clerks out of it.
One-third to the clerks and other officers among them.
And one-third to defray the incident charge of the office.
Thus calculated.
Per annum.
£
s.
d.
100,000 subscribers paying 1d. each every quarter is
1,666
3
4
One-third
To the secretary per annum and three clerks
555
7
9
One-third
£ per annum.
To a registrar
100
To a clerk
50
To four searchers
100
To a physician
100
To a surgeon
100
To four visitors
100
550
0
0
One-third to incident charges, such as
To ten committee-men, 5s. each sitting, twice per week is
260
To a clerk of committees
50
To a messenger
40
A house for the office
40
A house for the hospital
100
Contingencies
70
15s.7d.
560
15
7
£1,666
3
4
All the charge being thus paid out of such a trifle as ld. per quarter, the next consideration is to examine what the incomes of this subscription may be, and in time what may be the demands upon it.
£
s.
d.
If 100,000 persons subscribe, they pay down at their entering each 6d., which is
2,500
0
0
And the first year’s payment is in stock at 1s. per quarter
20,000
0
0
It must be allowed that under three months the subscriptions will not be well complete; so the payment of quarterage shall not begin but from the day after the books are full, or shut up; and from thence one year is to pass before any claim can be made; and the money coming in at separate times, I suppose no improvement upon it for the first year, except of the £2,500, which, lent to the king on some good fund at £7 per cent. interest, advances the first year
175
0
0
The quarterage of the second year, abating for 1,000 claims
19,800
0
0
And the interest of the first year’s money at the end of the second year, lent to the king, as aforesaid, at 7 per cent. interest, is
1,774
10
0
The quarterage of the third year, abating for claims
19,400
0
0
The interest of former cash to the end of the third year
3,284
8
0
Income of three years
£66,933
18
0
Note.—Any persons may pay 2s. up to 5s. quarterly, if they please, and upon a claim will be allowed in proportion.
To assign what shall be the charge upon this, where contingency has so great a share, is not to be done; but by way of political arithmetic a probable guess may be made.
It is to be noted that the pensions I propose to be paid to persons claiming by the third, fifth, and sixth articles are thus: every person who paid 1s. quarterly shall receive 12d. weekly, and so in proportion every 12d. paid quarterly by any one person to receive so many shillings weekly, if they come to claim a pension.
The first year no claim is allowed; so the bank has in stock completely £22,500. From thence we are to consider the number of claims.
Sir William Petty, in his “Political Arithmetic,†supposes not above one in forty to die per annum out of the whole number of people; and I can by no means allow that the circumstances of our claims will be as frequent as death, for these reasons:
1. Our subscriptions respect all persons grown and in the prime of their age; past the first, and providing against the last, part of danger (Sir William’s account including children and old people, which always make up one-third of the bills of mortality).
2. Our claims will fall thin at first for several years; and let but the money increase for ten years, as it does in the account for three years, it would be almost sufficient to maintain the whole number.
3. Allow that casualty and poverty are our debtor side; health, prosperity, and death are the creditor side of the account; and in all probable accounts those three articles will carry off three fourth-parts of the number, as follows: If one in forty shall die annually (as no doubt they shall, and more), that is 2,500 a year, which in twenty years is 50,000 of the number; I hope I may be allowed one-third to be out of condition to claim, apparently living without the help of charity, and one third in health and body, and able to work; which, put together, make 83,332; so it leaves 16,668 to make claims of charity and pensions in the first twenty years, and one-half of them must, according to Sir William Petty, die on our hands in twenty years; so there remains but 8,334.
But to put it out of doubt, beyond the proportion to be guessed at, I will allow they shall fall thus:
The first year, we are to note, none can claim; and the second year the number must be very few, but increasing: wherefore I suppose
£
One in every 500 shall claim the second year, which is 200; the charge whereof is
500
One in every 100 the third year is 1,000; the charge
2,500
Together with the former 200
500
£3,500
To carry on the calculation.
£
s.
d.
We find the stock at the end of the third year
66,933
18
0
The quarterage of the fourth year, abating as before
19,000
0
0
Interest of the stock
4,882
17
6
The quarterage of the fifth year
18,600
0
0
Interest of the stock
6,473
0
0
£115,889
15
6
The charge
3,000
0
0
2,000 to fall the fourth year
5,000
0
0
And the old continued
3,500
0
0
2,000 the fifth year
5,000
0
0
The old continued
11,000
0
0
£27,500
0
0
By this computation the stock is increased above the charge in five years £89,379 15s. 6d.; and yet here are sundry articles to be considered on both sides of the account that will necessarily increase the stock and diminish the charge:
First, in the five years’ time 6,200 having claimed charity, the number being abated for in the reckoning above for stock, it may be allowed new subscriptions will be taken in to keep the number full, which in five years amounts to
3,400
0
0
Their sixpences is
115
0
0
£3,555
0
0
Which added to £115,889 15s. 6d. augments be stock to
119,444
15
6
Six thousand two hundred persons claiming help, which falls, to be sure, on the aged and infirm, I think, at a modest computation, in five years’ time 500 of them may be dead, which, without allowing annually, we take at an abatement of £4,000 out of the charge
4,000
0
0
Which reduces the charge to
23,500
0
0
Besides this, the interest of the quarterage, which is supposed in the former account to lie dead till the year is out, which cast up from quarter to quarter, allowing it to be put out quarterly, as it may well be, amounts to, by computation for five years, £5,250.
From the fifth year, as near as can be computed, the number of pensioners being so great, I make no doubt but they shall die off the hands of the undertaker as fast as they shall fall in, excepting, so much difference as the payment of every year, which the interest of the stock shall supply.
For example:
£
s.
d.
At the end of the fifth year the stock in hand
94,629
15
6
The payment of the sixth year
20,000
0
0
Interest of the stock
5,408
4
0
£120,037
19
6
Allow an overplus charge for keeping in the house, which will be dearer than pensions, £10,000 per annum
10,000
0
0
Charge of the sixth year
22,500
0
0
Balance in cash
87,537
19
6
£120,037
19
6
This also is to be allowed—that all those persons who are kept by the office in the house shall have employment provided for them, whereby no persons shall be kept idle, the works to be suited to every one’s capacity without rigour, only some distinction to those who are most willing to work; the profits of the said work to the stock of the house.
Besides this, there may great and very profitable methods be found out to improve the stock beyond the settled interest of 7 per cent., which perhaps may not always be to be had, for the Exchequer is not always borrowing money; but a bank of £80,000, employed by faithful hands, need not want opportunities of great, and very considerable improvement.
Also it would be a very good object for persons who die rich to leave legacies to, which in time might be very well supposed to raise a standing revenue to it.
I will not say but various contingencies may alter the charge of this undertaking, and swell the claims beyond proportion further than I extend it; but all that, and much more, is sufficiently answered in the calculations by above £80,000 in stock to provide for it.
As to the calculation being made on a vast number of subscribers, and more than, perhaps, will be allowed likely to subscribe, I think the proportion may hold good in a few as well as in a great many; and perhaps if 20,000 subscribed, it might be as effectual. I am indeed willing to think all men should have sense enough to see the usefulness of such a design, and be persuaded by their interest to engage in it; but some men have less prudence than brutes, and will make no provision against age till it comes; and to deal with such, two ways might be used by authority to compel them.
1. The churchwardens and justices of peace should send the beadle of the parish, with an officer belonging to this office, about to the poorer parishioners to tell them that, since such honourable provision is made for them to secure themselves in old age from poverty and distress, they should expect no relief from the parish if they refused to enter themselves, and by sparing so small a part of their earnings to prevent future misery.
2. The churchwardens of every parish might refuse the removal of persons and families into their parish but upon their having entered into this office.
3. All persons should be publicly desired to forbear giving anything to beggars, and all common beggars suppressed after a certain time; for this would effectually suppress beggary at last.
And, to oblige the parishes to do this on behalf of such a project, the governor of the house should secure the parish against all charges coming upon them from any person who did subscribe and pay the quarterage, and that would most certainly oblige any parish to endeavour that all the labouring meaner people in the parish should enter their names; for in time it would most certainly take all the poor in the parish off of their hands.
I know that by law no parish can refuse to relieve any person or family fallen into distress; and therefore to send them word they must expect no relief, would seem a vain threatening. But thus far the parish may do: they shall be esteemed as persons who deserve no relief, and shall be used accordingly; for who indeed would ever pity that man in his distress who at the expense of two pots of beer a month might have prevented it, and would not spare it?
As to my calculations, on which I do not depend either, I say this: if they are probable, and that in five years’ time a subscription of a hundred thousand persons would have £87,537 19s. 6d. in cash, all charges paid, I desire any one but to reflect what will not such a sum do. For instance, were it laid out in the Million Lottery tickets, which are now sold at £6 each, and bring in £1 per annum for fifteen years, every £1,000 so laid out pays back in time £2,500, and that time would be as fast as it would be wanted, and therefore be as good as money; or if laid out in improving rents, as ground-rents with buildings to devolve in time, there is no question but a revenue would be raised in time to maintain one-third part of the number of subscribers, if they should come to claim charity.
And I desire any man to consider the present state of this kingdom, and tell me, if all the people of England, old and young, rich and poor, were to pay into one common bank 4s. per annum a head, and that 4s. duly and honestly managed, whether the overplus paid by those who die off, and by those who never come to want, would not in all probability maintain all that should be poor, and for ever banish beggary and poverty out of the kingdom.
Wagering, as now practised by politics and contracts, is become a branch of assurances; it was before more properly a part of gaming, and as it deserved, had but a very low esteem; but shifting sides, and the war providing proper subjects, as the contingencies of sieges, battles, treaties, and campaigns, it increased to an extraordinary reputation, and offices were erected on purpose which managed it to a strange degree and with great advantage, especially to the office-keepers; so that, as has been computed, there was not less gaged on one side and other, upon the second siege of Limerick, than two hundred thousand pounds.
How it is managed, and by what trick and artifice it became a trade, and how insensibly men were drawn into it, an easy account may be given.
I believe novelty was the first wheel that set it on work, and I need make no reflection upon the power of that charm: it was wholly a new thing, at least upon the Exchange of London; and the first occasion that gave it a room among public discourse, was some persons forming wagers on the return and success of King James, for which the Government took occasion to use them as they deserved.
I have heard a bookseller in King James’s time say, “That if he would have a book sell, he would have it burnt by the hand of the common hangman;†the man, no doubt, valued his profit above his reputation; but people are so addicted to prosecute a thing that seems forbid, that this very practice seemed to be encouraged by its being contraband.
The trade increased, and first on the Exchange and then in coffee-houses it got life, till the brokers, those vermin of trade, got hold of it, and then particular offices were set apart for it, and an incredible resort thither was to be seen every day.
These offices had not been long in being, but they were thronged with sharpers and setters as much as the groom-porters, or any gaming-ordinary in town, where a man had nothing to do but to make a good figure and prepare the keeper of the office to give him a credit as a good man, and though he had not a groat to pay, he should take guineas and sign polities, till he had received, perhaps, £300 or £400 in money, on condition to pay great odds, and then success tries the man; if he wins his fortune is made; if not, he’s a better man than he was before by just so much money, for as to the debt, he is your humble servant in the Temple or Whitehall.
But besides those who are but the thieves of the trade, there is a method as effectual to get money as possible, managed with more appearing honesty, but no less art, by which the wagerer, in confederacy with the office-keeper, shall lay vast sums, great odds, and yet be always sure to win.
For example: A town in Flanders, or elsewhere, during the war is besieged; perhaps at the beginning of the siege the defence is vigorous, and relief probable, and it is the opinion of most people the town will hold out so long, or perhaps not be taken at all: the wagerer has two or three more of his sort in conjunction, of which always the office-keeper is one; and they run down all discourse of the taking the town, and offer great odds it shall not be taken by such a day. Perhaps this goes on a week, and then the scale turns; and though they seem to hold the same opinion still, yet underhand the office-keeper has orders to take all the odds which by their example was before given against the taking the town; and so all their first-given odds are easily secured, and yet the people brought into a vein of betting against the siege of the town too. Then they order all the odds to be taken as long as they will run, while they themselves openly give odds, and sign polities, and oftentimes take their own money, till they have received perhaps double what they at first laid. Then they turn the scale at once, and cry down the town, and lay that it shall be taken, till the length of the first odds is fully run; and by this manage, if the town be taken they win perhaps two or three thousand pounds, and if it be not taken, they are no losers neither.
It is visible by experience, not one town in ten is besieged but it is taken. The art of war is so improved, and our generals are so wary, that an army seldom attempts a siege, but when they are almost sure to go on with it; and no town can hold out if a relief cannot be had from abroad.
Now, if I can by first laying £500 to £200 with A, that the town shall not be taken, wheedle in B to lay me £5,000 to £2,000 of the same; and after that, by bringing down the vogue of the siege, reduce the wagers to even-hand, and lay £2,000 with C that the town shall not be taken; by this method, it is plain—
If the town be not taken, I win £2,200 and lose £2,000.
If the town be taken, I win £5,000 and lose £2,500.
This is gaming by rule, and in such a knot it is impossible to lose; for if it is in any man’s or company of men’s power, by any artifice to alter the odds, it is in their power to command the money out of every man’s pocket, who has no more wit than to venture.
Ofall persons who are objects of our charity, none move my compassion like those whom it has pleased God to leave in a full state health and strength, but deprived of reason to act for themselves. And it is, in my opinion, one of the greatest scandals upon the understanding of others to mock at those who want it. Upon this account I think the hospital we call Bedlam to be a noble foundation, a visible instance of the sense our ancestors had of the greatest unhappiness which can befall humankind; since as the soul in man distinguishes him from a brute, so where the soul is dead (for so it is as to acting) no brute so much a beast as a man. But since never to have it, and to have lost it, are synonymous in the effect, I wonder how it came to pass that in the settlement of that hospital they made no provision for persons born without the use of their reason, such as we call fools, or, more properly, naturals.
We use such in England with the last contempt, which I think is a strange error, since though they are useless to the commonwealth, they are only so by God’s direct providence, and no previous fault.
I think it would very well become this wise age to take care of such; and perhaps they are a particular rent-charge on the great family of mankind, left by the Maker of us all, like a younger brother, who though the estate be given from him, yet his father expected the heir should take some care of him.
If I were to be asked, Who ought in particular to be charged with this work? I would answer in general those who have a portion of understanding extraordinary. Not that I would lay a tax upon any man’s brains, or discourage wit by appointing wise men to maintain fools; but, some tribute is due to God’s goodness for bestowing extraordinary gifts; and who can it be better paid to than such as suffer for want of the same bounty?
For the providing, therefore, some subsistence for such that natural defects may not be exposed:
It is proposed that a fool-house be erected, either by public authority, or by the city, or by an Act of Parliament, into which all that are naturals or born fools, without respect or distinction, should be admitted and maintained.
For the maintenance of this, a small stated contribution, settled by the authority of an Act of Parliament, without any damage to the persons paying the same, might be very easily raised by a tax upon learning, to be paid by the authors of books:
Every book that shall be printed in folio, from 40 sheets and upwards, to pay at the licensing (for the whole impression)
£5
Under 40 sheets
40s.
Every quarto
20s.
Every octavo of 10 sheets and upward
20s.
Every octavo under 10 sheets, and every bound book in 12mo
10s.
Every stitched pamphlet
2s.
Reprinted copies the same rates.
This tax to be paid into the Chamber of London for the space of twenty years, would, without question, raise a fund sufficient to build and purchase a settlement for this house.
I suppose this little tax being to be raised at so few places as the printing-presses, or the licensers of books, and consequently the charge but very small in gathering, might bring in about £1,500 per annum for the term of twenty years, which would perform the work to the degree following:
The house should be plain and decent (for I don’t think the ostentation of buildings necessary or suitable to works of charity), and be built somewhere out of town for the sake of the air.
The building to cost about £1,000, or, if the revenue exceed, to cost £2,000 at most, and the salaries mean in proportion.
In the House.
Per annum.
A steward
£30
A purveyor
20
A cook
20
A butler
20
Six women to assist the cook and clean the house, £4 each
24
Six nurses to tend the people, £3 each
18
A chaplain
20
£152
A hundred alms-people at £8 per annum, diet, &c.
800
£952
The table for the officers, and contingencies, and clothes for the alms-people, and firing, put together
500
An auditor of the accounts, a committee of the governors, and two clerks.
Here I suppose £1,500 per annum revenue, to be settled upon the house, which, it is very probable might be raised from the tax aforesaid. But since an Act of Parliament is necessary to be had for the collecting this duty, and that taxes for keeping of fools would be difficultly obtained, while they are so much wanted for wise men, I would propose to raise the money by voluntary charity, which would be a work that would leave more honour to the undertakers than feasts and great shows, which our public bodies too much diminish their stocks with.
But to pass all suppositious ways, which are easily thought of, but hardly procured, I propose to maintain fools out of our own folly. And whereas a great deal of money has been thrown about in lotteries, the following proposal would very easily perfect our work.
That a lottery be set up by the authority of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, for a hundred thousand tickets, at twenty shillings each, to be drawn by the known way and method of drawing lotteries, as the million-lottery was drawn, in which no allowance to be made to anybody, but the fortunate to receive the full sum of one hundred thousand pounds put in, without discount, and yet this double advantage to follow:
1. That an immediate sum of one hundred thousand pounds shall be raised and paid into the Exchequer for the public use.
2. A sum of above twenty thousand pounds be gained, to be put into the hands of known trustees, to be laid out in a charity for the maintenance of the poor.
That as soon as the money shall be come in, it shall be paid into the Exchequer, either on some good fund, if any suitable, or on the credit of the Exchequer; and that when the lottery is drawn, the fortunate to receive tallies or bills from the Exchequer for their money, payable at four years.
The Exchequer receives this money, and gives out tallies according to the prizes, when it is drawn, all payable at four years; and the interest of this money for four years is struck in tallies proportioned to the maintenance; which no parish would refuse that subsisted them wholly before.
I make no question but that if such a hospital was erected within a mile or two of the city, one great circumstance would happen, viz., that the common sort of people, who are very much addicted to rambling in the fields, would make this house the customary walk, to divert themselves with the objects to be seen there, and to make what they call sport with the calamity of others, as is now shamefully allowed in Bedlam.
To prevent this, and that the condition of such, which deserves pity, not contempt, might not be the more exposed by this charity, it should be ordered: that the steward of the house be in commission of the peace within the precincts of the house only, and authorised to punish by limited fines or otherwise any person that shall offer any abuse to the poor alms-people, or shall offer to make sport at their condition.
If any person at reading of this should be so impertinent as to ask to what purpose I would appoint a chaplain in a hospital of fools, I could answer him very well by saying, for the use of the other persons, officers, and attendants in the house. But besides that, pray, why not a chaplain for fools, as well as for knaves, since both, though in a different manner, are incapable of reaping any benefit by religion, unless by some invisible influence they are made docile; and since the same secret power can restore these to their reason, as must make the other sensible, pray why not a chaplain? Idiots indeed were denied the communion in the primitive churches, but I never read they were not to be prayed for, or were not admitted to hear.
If we allow any religion, and a Divine Supreme Power, whose influence works invisibly on the hearts of men (as he must be worse than the people we talk of, who denies it), we must allow at the same time that Power can restore the reasoning faculty to an idiot, and it is our part to use the proper means of supplicating Heaven to that end, leaving the disposing part to the issue of unalterable Providence.
The wisdom of Providence has not left us without examples of some of the most stupid natural idiots in the world who have been restored to their reason, or, as one would think, had reason infused after a long life of idiotism; perhaps, among other wise ends, to confute that sordid supposition that idiots have no souls.
Thischapter has some right to stand next to that of fools, for besides the common acceptation of late, which makes every unfortunate man a fool, I think no man so much made a fool of as a bankrupt.
If I may be allowed so much liberty with our laws, which are generally good, and above all things are tempered with mercy, lenity, and freedom, this has something in it of barbarity; it gives a loose to the malice and revenge of the creditor, as well as a power to right himself, while it leaves the debtor no way to show himself honest. It contrives all the ways possible to drive the debtor to despair, and encourages no new industry, for it makes him perfectly incapable of anything but starving.
This law, especially as it is now frequently executed, tends wholly to the destruction of the debtor, and yet very little to the advantage of the creditor.
1. The severities to the debtor are unreasonable, and, if I may so say, a little inhuman, for it not only strips him of all in a moment, but renders him for ever incapable of helping himself, or relieving his family by future industry. If he escapes from prison, which is hardly done too, if he has nothing left, he must starve or live on charity; if he goes to work no man dare pay him his wages, but he shall pay it again to the creditors; if he has any private stock left for a subsistence he can put it nowhere; every man is bound to be a thief and take it from him; if he trusts it in the hands of a friend he must receive it again as a great courtesy, for that friend is liable to account for it. I have known a poor man prosecuted by a statute to that degree that all he had left was a little money which he knew not where to hide; at last, that he might not starve, he gives it to his brother who had entertained him; the brother, after he had his money quarrels with him to get him out of his house, and when he desires him to let him have the money lent him, gives him this for answer, I cannot pay you safely, for there is a statute against you; which run the poor man to such extremities that he destroyed himself. Nothing is more frequent than for men who are reduced by miscarriage in trade to compound and set up again and get good estates; but a statute, as we call it, for ever shuts up all doors to the debtor’s recovery, as if breaking were a crime so capital that he ought to be cast out of human society and exposed to extremities worse than death. And, which will further expose the fruitless severity of this law, it is easy to make it appear that all this cruelty to the debtor is so far, generally speaking, from advantaging the creditors, that it destroys the estate, consumes it in extravagant charges, and unless the debtor be consenting, seldom makes any considerable dividends. And I am bold to say there is no advantage made by the prosecuting of a statute with severity, but what might be doubly made by methods more merciful. And though I am not to prescribe to the legislators of the nation, yet by way of essay I take leave to give my opinion and my experience in the methods, consequences, and remedies of this law.
All people know, who remember anything of the times when that law was made, that the evil it was pointed at was grown very rank, and breaking to defraud creditors so much a trade, that the parliament had good reason to set up a fury to deal with it; and I am far from reflecting on the makers of that law, who, no question, saw it was necessary at that time. But as laws, though in themselves good, are more or less so, as they are more or less seasonable, squared, and adapted to the circumstances and time of the evil they are made against; so it were worth while (with submission) for the same authority to examine:
1. Whether the length of time since that act was made has not given opportunity to debtors,
(1)Â To evade the force of the act by ways and shifts to avoid the power of it, and secure their estates out of the reach of it.
(2) To turn the point of it against those whom it was made to relieve. Since we see frequently now that bankrupts desire statutes, and procure them to be taken out against themselves.
2. Whether the extremities of this law are not often carried on beyond the true intent and meaning of the act itself by persons who, besides being creditors, are also malicious, and gratify their private revenge by prosecuting the offender, to the ruin of his family.
If these two points are to be proved, then I am sure it will follow that this act is now a public grievance to the nation, and I doubt not but will be one time or other repealed by the same wise authority which made it.
1. Time and experience has furnished the debtors with ways and means to evade the force of this statute, and to secure their estate against the reach of it, which renders it often insignificant, and consequently, the knave against whom the law was particularly bent gets off, while he only who fails of mere necessity, and whose honest principle will not permit him to practise those methods, is exposed to the fury of this act. And as things are now ordered, nothing is more easy than for a man to order his estate so that a statute shall have no power over it, or at least but a little.
If the bankrupt be a merchant, no statute can reach his effects beyond the seas; so that he has nothing to secure but his books, and away he goes into the Friars. If a Shopkeeper, he has more difficulty: but that is made easy, for there are men and carts to be had whose trade it is, and who in one night shall remove the greatest warehouse of goods or cellar of wines in the town and carry them off into those nurseries of rogues, the Mint and Friars; and our constables and watch, who are the allowed magistrates of the night, and who shall stop a poor little lurking thief, that it may be has stole a bundle of old clothes, worth five shilling, shall let them all pass without any disturbance, and hundred honest men robbed of their estates before their faces, to the eternal infamy of the justice of the nation.
And were a man but to hear the discourse among the inhabitants of those dens of thieves, when they first swarm about a new-comer to comfort him, for they are not all hardened to a like degree at once. “Well,†says the first, “come, don’t be concerned, you have got a good parcel of goods away I promise you, you need not value all the world.â€Â “All! would I had done so,†says another, “I’d a laughed at all my creditors.â€Â “Ay,†says the young proficient in the hardened trade, “but my creditors!â€Â “Hang the creditors!†says a third; “why, there’s such a one, and such a one, they have creditors too, and they won’t agree with them, and here they live like gentlemen, and care not a farthing for them. Offer your creditors half a crown in the pound, and pay it them in old debts, and if they won’t take it let them alone; they’ll come after you, never fear it.â€Â “Oh! but a statute,†says he again. “Oh! but the devil,†cries the Minter. “Why, ’tis the statutes we live by,†say they; “why, if it were not for statutes, creditors would comply, and debtors would compound, and we honest fellows here of the Mint would be starved. Prithee, what need you care for a statute? A thousand statutes can’t reach you here.â€Â This is the language of the country, and the new-comer soon learns to speak it; for I think I may say, without wronging any man, I have known many a man go in among them honest, that is, without ill design, but I never knew one come away so again. Then comes a graver sort among this black crew (for here, as in hell, are fiends of degrees and different magnitude), and he falls into discourse with the new-comer, and gives him more solid advice. “Look you, sir, I am concerned to see you melancholy; I am in your circumstance too, and if you’ll accept of it, I’ll give you the best advice I can,†and so begins the grave discourse.
The man is in too much trouble not to want counsel, so he thanks him, and he goes on:—“Send a summons to your creditors, and offer them what you can propose in the pound (always reserving a good stock to begin the world again), which if they will take, you are a free man, and better than you were before; if they won’t take it, you know the worst of it, you are on the better side of the hedge with them: if they will not take it, but will proceed to a statute, you have nothing to do but to oppose force with force; for the laws of nature tell you, you must not starve; and a statute is so barbarous, so unjust, so malicious a way of proceeding against a man, that I do not think any debtor obliged to consider anything but his own preservation, when once they go on with that.â€Â “For why,†says the old studied wretch, “should the creditors spend your estate in the commission, and then demand the debt of you too? Do you owe anything to the commission of the statute?â€Â “No,†says he. “Why, then,†says he, “I warrant their charges will come to £200 out of your estate, and they must have 10s. a day for starving you and your family. I cannot see why any man should think I am bound in conscience to pay the extravagance of other men. If my creditors spend £500 in getting in my estate by a statute, which I offered to surrender without it, I’ll reckon that £500 paid them, let them take it among them, for equity is due to a bankrupt as well as to any man, and if the laws do not give it us, we must take it.â€
This is too rational discourse not to please him, and he proceeds by this advice; the creditors cannot agree, but take out a statute; and the man that offered at first it may be 10s. in the pound, is kept in that cursed place till he has spent it all and can offer nothing, and then gets away beyond sea, or after a long consumption gets off by an act of relief to poor debtors, and all the charges of the statute fall among the creditors. Thus I knew a statute taken out against a shopkeeper in the country, and a considerable parcel of goods too seized, and yet the creditors, what with charges and two or three suits at law, lost their whole debts and 8s. per pound contribution money for charges, and the poor debtor, like a man under the surgeon’s hand, died in the operation.
2. Another evil that time and experience has brought to light from this act is, when the debtor himself shall confederate with some particular creditor to take out a statute, and this is a masterpiece of plot and intrigue. For perhaps some creditor honestly received in the way of trade a large sum of money of the debtor for goods sold him when he wassui juris, and he by consent shall own himself a bankrupt before that time, and the statute shall reach back to bring in an honest man’s estate, to help pay a rogue’s debt. Or a man shall go and borrow a sum of money upon a parcel of goods, and lay them to pledge; he keeps the money, and the statute shall fetch away the goods to help forward the composition. These are tricks I can give too good an account of, having more than once suffered by the experiment. I could give a scheme, of more ways, but I think it is needless to prove the necessity of laying aside that law, which is pernicious to both debtor and creditor, and chiefly hurtful to the honest man whom it was made to preserve.
The next inquiry is, whether the extremities of this law are not often carried on beyond the true intent and meaning of the act itself, for malicious and private ends to gratify passion and revenge?
I remember the answer a person gave me, who had taken out statutes against several persons, and some his near relations, who had failed in his debt; and when I was one time dissuading him from prosecuting a man who owed me money as well as him, I used this argument with him:—“You know the man has nothing left to pay.â€Â “That’s true,†says he; “I know that well enough.â€Â “To what purpose, then,†said I, “will you prosecute him?â€Â “Why, revenge is sweet,†said he. Now a man that will prosecute a debtor, not as a debtor, but by way of revenge, such a man is, I think, not intentionally within the benefit of our law.
In order to state the case right, there are four sorts of people to be considered in this discourse; and the true case is how to distinguish them,
1. There is the honest debtor, who fails by visible necessity, losses, sickness, decay of trade, or the like.
2. The knavish, designing, or idle, extravagant debtor, who fails because either he has run out his estate in excesses, or on purpose to cheat and abuse his creditors.
3. There is the moderate creditor, who seeks but his own, but will omit no lawful means to gain it, and yet will hear reasonable and just arguments and proposals.
4. There is the rigorous severe creditor, that values not whether the debtor be honest man or knave, able or unable, but will have his debt, whether it be to be had or no, without mercy, without compassion, full of ill language, passion, and revenge.
How to make a law to suit to all these is the case. That a necessary favour might be shown to the first, in pity and compassion to the unfortunate, in commiseration of casualty and poverty, which no man is exempt from the danger of. That a due rigour and restraint be laid upon the second, that villainy and knavery might not be encouraged by a law. That a due care be taken of the third, that men’s estates may as far as can be secured to them. And due limits set to the last, that no man may have an unlimited power over his fellow-subjects, to the ruin of both life and estate.
All which I humbly conceive might be brought to pass by the following method, to which I give the title of
This court should consist of a select number of persons, to be chosen yearly out of the several wards of the City by the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, and out of the several Inns of Court by the Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper, for the time being, and to consist of,
A President,
A Secretary,
A Treasurer,
} To be chosen by the rest, and named every year also.
A judge of causes for the proof of debts.
Fifty-two citizens, out of every ward two; of which number to be twelve merchants.
Two lawyers (barristers at least) out of each of the Inns of Court.
That a Commission of Inquiry into bankrupts’ estates be given to these, confirmed and settled by Act of Parliament, with power to hear, try, and determine causes as to proof of debts, and disputes in accounts between debtor and creditor, without appeal.
The office for this court to be at Guildhall, where clerks should be always attending, and a quorum of the commissioners to sitde die in diem, from three to six o’clock in the afternoon.
To this court every man who finds himself pressed by his affairs, so that he cannot carry on his business, shall apply himself as follows:—
He shall go to the secretary’s office, and give in his name, with this short petition:—
To the Honourable the President and Commissioners of His Majesty’s Court of Inquiries. The humble petition of A. B., of the Parish of — in the —Haberdasher.ShowethThat your petitioner being unable to carry on his business, by reason of great losses and decay of trade, and being ready and willing to make a full and entire discovery of his whole estate, and to deliver up the same to your honours upon oath, as the law directs for the satisfaction of his creditors, and having to that purpose entered his name into the books of your office on the — of this instant.Your petitioner humbly prays the protection of this Honourable Court.And shall ever pray, &c.
To the Honourable the President and Commissioners of His Majesty’s Court of Inquiries. The humble petition of A. B., of the Parish of — in the —
Haberdasher.
Showeth
That your petitioner being unable to carry on his business, by reason of great losses and decay of trade, and being ready and willing to make a full and entire discovery of his whole estate, and to deliver up the same to your honours upon oath, as the law directs for the satisfaction of his creditors, and having to that purpose entered his name into the books of your office on the — of this instant.
Your petitioner humbly prays the protection of this Honourable Court.
And shall ever pray, &c.
The secretary is to lay this petition before the commissioners, who shall sign it of course; and the petitioner shall have an officer sent home with him immediately, who shall take possession of his house and goods, and an exact inventory of everything therein shall be taken at his entrance by other officers also, appointed by the court; according to which inventory the first officer and the bankrupt also shall be accountable.
This officer shall supersede even the Sheriff in possession, excepting by an extent for the king; only with this provision:—
That if the Sheriff be in possession by warrant on judgment obtained by due course of law, and without fraud or deceit, and,bonâ fide, in possession before the debtor entered his name in the office, in such case the plaintiff to have a double dividend allotted to his debt; for it was the fault of the debtor to let execution come upon his goods before he sought for protection; but this not to be allowed upon judgment confessed.
If the Sheriff be in possession byfieri faciasfor debt immediately due to the king, the officer, however, shall quit his possession to the commissioners, and they shall see the king’s debt fully satisfied before any division be made to the creditors.
The officers in this case to take no fee from the bankrupt, nor to use any indecent or uncivil behaviour to the family (which is a most notorious abuse now permitted to the sheriff’s officers), whose fees I have known, on small executions, on pretence of civility, amount to as much as the debt, and yet behave themselves with unsufferable insolence all the while.
This officer being in possession, the goods may be removed, or not removed; the shop shut up or not shut up; as the bankrupt upon his reasons given to the commissioners may desire.
The inventory being taken, the bankrupt shall have fourteen days’ time, and more if desired, upon showing good reasons to the commissioners, to settle his books and draw up his accounts; and then shall deliver up all his books, together with a full and true account of his whole estate, real and personal, to which account he shall make oath, and afterwards to any particular of it, if the commissioners require.