17. The Hollanders having gotten away our Manufacture of Cloth, by becoming able to work with more art, to labour and fare harder, to take less fraight, Duties and Ensurance, hath so madded us here in _England_, that we have been apt to think of such exorbitantly fierce wayes of prohibiting Wool and Earth to be exported, as perhaps would do us twice as much harm as the losse of our said Trade. Wherefore to return to our Wits and Trade again, before we can tell what to do in this case, we must consider; 1. That we are often forced to buy Corn from abroad, and as often complain that we are pestered with abundance of idle hands at home, and withall that we cannot vend the Woollen Manufactures even which our few working hands do produce. In this case were it not better to lessen our sheep-trade, and convert our hands to more Tillage? Because 1. Flesh becomming dearer, there would be encouragement for Fish, which will never be till then. 2. Our Money would not run so fast away for Corn. 3. We should have no such Gluts of Wool upon our hands. 4. Our idle hands would be employed in Tillage and Fishing, one man by the way of grazing, tilling as it were many thousand Acres of Land by himself and his Dog. 2. Suppose we wanted no Corn, nor had any idle hands, and yet that we abounded with more Wool then we can work up; in this case certainly Wool might be exported, because ’tis supposed, that the hands which work are already employed upon a better Trade. 3. Suppose the Hollander outdo us by more art, were it not better to draw over a number of their choice Workmen, or send our most ingenious men thither to learn; which if they succeed; it is most manifest, that this were the more natural way, then to keep that infinite clutter about resisting of Nature, stopping up the windes and seas, &c. 4. If we can make Victual much cheaper here then in _Holland_, take away burdensome, frivolous, and antiquated Impositions and Offices. I conceive even this were better then to perswade Water to rise of it self above its natural Spring. 5. We must consider in general, that as wiser Physicians tamper not excessively with their Patients, rather observing and complying with the motions of nature, then contradicting it with vehement Administrations of their own; so in Politicks and Oconomicks the same must be used; for _Naturam expellas furcâ licet usque recurrit._ 18. Nevertheless, if the Hollanders advantages in making Cloth be but small and few in comparison of ours, that is, if they have but a little the better of us, then I conceive that Prohibitions to export Wool may sufficiently turn the scales. But whether this be so or not, I leave to others, being my self neither Merchant nor Statesman.