From these three last Northern Kingdoms we are furnished with Pitch, Tar, Hemp, Masts, Baulks, and Deal-boards, all very useful to us, and without which we can’t carry on our Navigation, and therefore we must have them, though purchas’d with Money; but the Parliament having encouraged the Importation of some of them from our Plantations on the Continent of _America_, our Dependence on them for those things, will in all probability be lessen’d every Year: I look on any thing that saves our Timber, to be an Advantage to the Nation, which Baulks and Boards do. [Sidenote: France.] The _French_ Trade hath every Age grown less profitable to our Woollen Manufacturers, as the Inhabitants make wherewith to supply, both themselves, and other Nations, which they could not do, were they not furnished with Wool from hence and _Ireland_, their own being unfit to Work by it self: Nor doth _France_ spend much of the Growth and Product, either of this Kingdom, or of our Plantations, and furnishes us with nothing to be manufactured here, so that the Trade we drive thither turns only to their Advantage; which being generally for Things consumed among our selves, and our Imports exceeding our Exports, must needs be Loss to the Kingdom; But if the Linnen Manufacture can be settled in _Scotland_ and _Ireland_, Paper, Distilling, and Silk Manufactures, encouraged here, the Ballance will soon be altered, especially since the _Portuguese_ have made such Improvements in their Wines; only their Salt we shall still want for our Fisheries. [Sidenote: South Sea.] As to the _South-Sea_ Trade, I cannot undertake to say much to it, being but lately enter’d upon, and limitted by Act of Parliament to an exclusive Company, according to whose Management it may prove more or less advantageous to the Nation; only in this I believe we may be certain, That they will never carry away our Bullion, as the _East-India_ Company does, but in all Probability will bring us more. [Sidenote: What Foreign Trades are profitable to our Manufactures, and what are not.]