_Goe little Book into the world and see Who thou can’st find therein to welcome thee, I’m sure thou mean’st as well to every man Of all degrees and sorts as any can: From King to meanest, thou dost with them well And therefore this thy Book doth truly tell Of wrongs and of Abuses done to all. Then let them in whose compass it may fall Soon rectify the same, and bring on Trade Afresh, this is the end this Book was made._ Incerti Authoris. [Illustration: Decoration] AN ESSAY To the Restoring of our decayed TRADE. That I may proceed in as good an Order as I can, (although I cannot pretend to Learning, or Ability to Compose a Book in a Methodical way,) but do wish that such a task as this, had been undertaken by some other, that might have been able abundantly better to have mannaged it, to satisfaction of the _Reader_; Yet by reason of my former imployment in the Trade of a Cloathier, and afterwards in the Office of Surveyor of one of the Ports of this Kingdom, at the _Custom-House_, I am experimentally enabled to speak to those things, which shall follow. And if there fall not out such an Harmonious Order, in the ensuing Discourse, by the necessary connection, or orderly introduction of one thing to another, as might be expected, (as before in my Epistle so again,) I do humbly beg the best and most favorable construction, and censure of the matter; for having in my breast, the true heart, and Spirit of an _English-Man_, for his King and Country; I cannot bear with those dayly abuses, and evil practices, so frequently and notoriously put upon the King and Kingdom, but that I do reckon my self Obliged, in all duty and good conscience to my King and Country, to make them as publiquely known and manifest as I can, and then leave the Remedies, to be provided and answerably applied, by the Ministers of State, which I hope in a short time will be effected. [Sidenote: _The Advantage by the Manufacture of Wooll._] And here I shall endeavour, First, to make it to appear, that there is no Nation nor Kingdom in the World, that hath those advantages, whereby to inrich themselves, as this our Kingdom of _England_, by the Manufacture of our Wooll, and consequently to maintain our strength, and Honor; omitting to speak of many other staple Commodities, of this our Kingdom, though many Rich and Profitable, because I am intended to Treat principally about the Subject of Wooll, and the Manufactures thereof with the dependancies thereupon. [Sidenote: _Wooll not improoved_]