by keeping our Wool at home, put a stop to that Manufacture. If therefore the prohibiting our Wool to be carried out, had at that Time so good an Effect and Consequence against those People, why should not our Care to prevent its being carried out now, have the same against the _French_? We cannot indeed hinder them from _Spanish_, but we may from our own and _Irish_. As for _Sweden_, I am apt to think their Manufactures will come to little. And as for _Germany_, the Woollen Manufacture is not so natural to them as the Linnen, which they would keep close to, if we gave them Encouragement, by wearing it here, and sending it to our Plantations, which would be more advantagious to us, than by the use of Muslins and Callicoes, to put them on fencing with us at our own Weapons, which they very unwillingly undertake. The Woollen Manufactures in _Italy_ are but small, and those chiefly among the _Venetians_, something among the _Genoese_; these we cannot hinder, being supplied with Wool from those Parts of _Spain_ which are near them, except we could promote a Contract with the _Spaniard_ for all he hath; and if it should be objected that we should then have too much, ’tis better to burn the Overplus at the Charge of the Public (as the _Dutch_ do their Spices) than to have it wrought up abroad, which we can’t otherwise prevent, seeing all the Wool of _Europe_ is Manufactured somewhere; and if the Act for burying in Woollen did extend to our Plantations in _America_, ’twould be of great use towards the Consumption of our Wooll; thus, when the Nation comes to see, that the Labour of its People is its Wealth, ’twill put us on finding out Methods to make every one Work that is able; which must be done, by hindring such swarms from going off to idle and useless Employments, and by preventing such Multitudes of lazy People from being maintained by begging. [Sidenote: Difference in Employing our own Ships and those of other Nations.] And this is farther to be noted in our Trade with Foreign Nations, that where they fetch from us our Product and Manufactures, and make their Imports to us, in their own Ships, we get less by the Trade we drive with them, than if we did it in ours, because that doth also encourage our Navigation; and Freights are a great and profitable Article in Trade; therefore we get more by the _Spanish_ Trade, because we generally drive it in our own Bottoms; and we lose more by the _French_ Trade, when they bring us their Wines and Brandy, than when we fetch them ourselves; and accordingly we may take our Measures in judging of all other Trades. [Sidenote: Whether a true Judgment may be made of the Ballance of Foreign Trade.]